And I dream of gray eyes instead of blue ones.
Of a man who sees me, really sees me, in a way I’m not sure Alexei ever did.
And when I wake up in the morning, the guilt is worse because somewhere in the night, a truth settled into my bones that I can’t ignore anymore.
I’m falling for Dimitri Volkov.
And nothing about that is right.
16
DIMITRI
I’m avoiding her.
It’s pathetic. Goddammit, Iknowit’s pathetic, but three days after that conversation in the library, I’m avoiding Vera like my life depends on it.
Maybe it does.
Because things are getting too fucking complicated in ways that have nothing to do with bombs or bullets and everything to do with the way she looks at me. The way I look at her. The way being near her makes me want things I have no right to want.
So I’ve thrown myself into the investigation with an obsession that borders on madness.
I spend eighteen, sometimes twenty hours a day in my office, surrounded by files and photographs and timelines and nothing fucking adds up. Crime scene photos from Alexei’s death. Surveillance footage from the peace meeting bombing. Forensic reports from the car bomb. Personnel files on every single person who had access to our schedules.
I’m looking for patterns. Inconsistencies.Anythingthat will tell me who’s trying to kill us.
But every time I find a thread, it unravels in my hands.
The forensics from Alexei’s scene still don’t match. Powder burns suggest shots fired from farther away than the coroner’s report indicates, but when I call the coroner to ask about the discrepancy, he insists his report is accurate. Three of my most trusted men identified the body.Iidentified the body. The DNA analysis confirmed it was Alexei.
So why does something still feelwrong?
The peace meeting attack. Someone knew exactly where everyone would be positioned. But tracking down who had access to that information leads me in circles. There’s just too many people, which means too many possible leaks.
The car bomb—same story. Sophisticated device, perfect placement, exact knowledge of our route and timing. But the components are so common they could have come from anywhere. The detonation method is so standard it tells menothingabout who built it.
Someone is very good at covering their tracks. And that someone is smart and careful with resources and inside information.
Someone I probably trust. Orusedto trust.
I growl at the thought of being betrayed. When I find that person (because Iwillfind them), they’re going to wish they were never born.
Instead, I pour another cup of coffee (my eighth today, or maybe my tenth, I’ve lost count) and pull up the personnel files again. Seventeen people had access to both the meeting location andour route the day of the bombing. Seventeen people I have to consider as potential traitors.
The names blur together. They’re men I’ve known for years, who have proven their loyalty a dozen times over. They’ve bled for this family and lost friends and brothers in service to the Volkovs.
One of them sold us out.
Or maybe it’s not one of my people. Maybe my uncle was right and it’s an Ashford. Maybe this whole peace treaty was a setup from the beginning, a way to get close enough to destroy us from the inside.
But that doesn’t explain why they’d target Vera. Why bomb a car she was in? Why risk killing Vincent Ashford’s oldest daughter?
Unless it’s what Konstantin said and the Ashfords determined she was acceptable collateral damage to them. Maybe Marcus has decided that eliminating me is worth the sacrifice of his niece.
But could Vincent Ashford be so cruel and callous to order the execution of his eldest daughter?
The thought makes violence surge through me.No onetouches her.No one. I don’t care what side of this war they’re on.
