I wanted her. I almost stalked over there and took her, too. If not for my need to use her to help this family sort shit out, I'd have found a way to have her. It took everything I had to keep my expression calm and give her the clothing. But fuck if I didn't spend every second of that time imagining what it would feel like to be buried inside her.
God, I'm a weak man.
I pace for a few minutes trying to work off the anxious energy, then I settle into the chair outside her door and lean back and close my eyes. My blood is still running hot, my cock half-hard, and I take a deep breath and force myself to think aboutsomething other than the woman on the other side of that locked door.
I have to think of her as a tool to be used and put away when I'm done using her. I can't afford to think of her as anything else, no matter how good she looks in nothing but a towel. But fuck if I don't want to find out what sounds she makes when a man puts his hands on her. I just know if I'm going to get her to cooperate and convince her to play the part of Ana Veche and fuck with Yaros, I have to play my cards right.
I can't go around half-cocked letting my hormones make decisions for me.
I pull out my phone and open the browser, scrolling through the search results I saved earlier. I've been digging and doing my homework on her using the ID she had in her purse. Vivika Rozhkova is a twenty-six-year-old freelance translator specializing in rare and ancient languages. She runs her own little firm and she's done work for diplomats and dignitaries. And the more I read about her, the more impressed I become.
The woman has translated ancient texts for museums across Europe and worked with archaeological teams on documents so old and fragile that most translators wouldn't touch them. She's dealt with high-class politicians translating sensitive communications that required security clearances most people never even know exist. And her client list reads like a who's who of politics, people with money and power and connections that stretch across continents.
I scroll through her professional profile, noting the languages she speaks—Russian, English, French, German, Latin, Ancient Greek, and a handful of others. She's brilliant, a real shark in the world of linguistics. She's the sort of person who gets soughtout for her talent and intercourses with important people. It means she knows how to handle herself in high-pressure circumstances.
And it means she's smart enough to learn what she needs to learn from me, sophisticated enough to move in high-class circles without giving herself away, and beautiful enough to make men believe whatever she wants them to believe. She's perfect for this. More perfect than I realized when I first spotted her on that street corner.
I keep scrolling, sifting through photographs. In every one, she's dressed simply, conservatively, but whether she's wearing a simple pantsuit or a form-fitting gown, she's tantalizing. She doesn't seem to realize how striking she is, or maybe she doesn't care, and it's a wonder no one has ever noticed how closely she resembles Ana Veche.
Their bone structure is identical, coloring close enough that a good stylist could bridge the gap. Put her in Ana's clothes, teach her Ana's mannerisms, and she could fool anyone who hasn't spent years at the Donna's side.
When my phone rings showing Dimitri's number on a banner across the top of the phone, I swipe to answer.
"What is it?"
"We've got a problem." My uncle’s voice is tense and he sounds frustrated. "Veche movements near Belarus. They're positioning men along the border routes."
"What kind of movements?"
"They're trying to cut off our weapons shipments along their route. If they block those routes, we lose access to half our supply chain."
I close my eyes and pinch the bridge of my nose, feeling a headache building behind my eyes. The Veches have been a thorn in our side for years, but this is an escalation. Yaros is flexing what little muscle he has left, trying to prove he can still play with the big boys even without his sister to back him up. And coming on the heels of the meeting we had this morning only makes it a slap in the face. He's backing up his refusal to yield by moving in on what little we had left there.
"How long before they're in position?"
"Days, maybe a week at most." Dimitri pauses. "Yuri needs to know about this."
"I'll tell him."
"What are we gonna do?"
I just need a little more time to get Vivika prepared to start enacting our plan. But that won't happen if Yaros escalates to the point of war before I get the chance to train her.
"We're gonna push back," I say. "Hard. The Veches wanna play games? We'll give them a game they can't win."
"How?"
"I'll explain when I see you. Right now, I need you to keep monitoring those movements. Let me know if anything changes."
"Will do," he says and he hangs up.
The line goes dead, and I sit there staring at the phone in my hand. Yaros is making his move, trying to consolidate power and prove to Kolar and the rest of the Balkan syndicate that he's still a force to be reckoned with even without Ana. He's desperate, and desperate men do stupid things.
But so do men with nothing left to lose.
I rise and head toward Yuri's office to see if he's returned from whatever errand Inessa gave him. Dimitri's news changes things. We have to get Vivika ready sooner, push her harder, make her into a convincing Ana Veche before Yaros has a chance to solidify his position. If we wait too long, it'll give him time to cut off our supply routes and strengthen his alliances, and we'll lose our window.
Vivika is our only leverage in this situation. He owns the rights to those passages because of his sister. Ana may well have worked out a deal with us to take a cut of our profits in exchange for access to the routes, but Yaros is a stubborn fool. He thinks he can smother our trade and in doing so cut us off and suffocate the entire organization, and he's wrong.
