The couch dips a little beneath me. I blink hard. His face is starting to blur at the edges, like a dream you only half-remember.
“I shouldn’t be here,” I murmur, eyes sliding closed. “But I really, really didn’t want to be alone.”
The last thing I see before everything goes black is his silhouette in the doorway.
Unmoving. Silent. Watching me like a puzzle he doesn’t know what to do with.
And then—
Darkness.
2
Anton
The karaoke machine finally goes silent.
I’ve been standing in the doorway long enough to watch this drunk woman scream-sing and confess too much. Now she’s passed out on the couch.
I lock the door behind me. Deadbolt. Chain. Always. Doesn’t matter where I am—Moscow, Prague, L.A., or this overpriced apartment in Vegas that smells like wet pavement and bad choices.
The place is too warm now. The air thick with wine, perfume, and something sweet underneath it all. The smell of a woman. Not one I invited.
She’s spread out on the couch like a fucking offering.
She’s not supposed to be here. I know that much. The tenant—Jasper Saint James—is halfway around the world, balls-deep in a Milanese turtleneck named Stefano. He leased this apartment out short-term. Discreetly. Through a contact who owes favors. To me.
I always know everything about where I’m staying—exits, neighbors, blind spots, who has keys.
And yet here she is.
Drunk. Barely dressed. Dead asleep.
I’m in Vegas tracking Viktor Kozlov, a mid-level accountant who thought skimming two million from the Bratva’s casino operations would go unnoticed. ThePakhanwants him breathing long enough to tell us where the money went, then breathing no longer. Simple work. Clean work.
This woman is neither simple nor clean.
She’s still sprawled across the couch, one leg kicked over a pillow. Just an oversized hoodie hiked up high on her hips and a pair of white panties hugging her ass—trimmed in neon pink, riding high enough that I see the curve of her lower cheeks peeking out. Her thighs are thick, full, the kind of legs that squeeze, not pose. The kind of legs a man grips when he’s trying not to lose it.
My cock twitches once.
She’s exactly the kind of woman I’d fuck. Curvy. Soft. Built to be bent over a couch and ruined until she forgets anyone who ever touched her before me. That hoodie’s thin, cheap, probably slept in, stretched across her chest like it’s one tug from tearing. No bra. Her nipples are hard, dark outlines pressing through the worn cotton like they’re begging for attention. Her thighs are full. Her belly isn’t flat. She’s real. Solid. A body made to be handled. Taken. Not teased.
I should drag her out. Right now. Deal with the mess.
But instead, I look.
Longer than I should.
Then I pull out my phone. Snap a photo. Just one. Face clear. Body visible. A habit. In case someone ever asks who she was. In case she’s not some drunk idiot, but bait. If she was sent, I want proof before her story changes. And they always change.
I move closer now, slowly, crouching just enough to see her face better.
But she’s not a trap. I’d bet my knife on it.
Chestnut hair, loose and tangled. A small nose. Rounded cheeks. Mouth soft and pouty even in sleep. There’s a green face mask cracked and peeling off her skin, making her look like some kind of drunk swamp creature.
Her lips move slightly. She mumbles something unintelligible, and the hoodie shifts higher, giving me a better view of those white panties stretched across her hip.
