Prologue
Saylor Tate
Las Vegas, Nevada
Four days before wedding date
My mind was a jumble of lists, tasks, and that nagging feeling I’d had for months that this all was a mistake. And I told police later that was the reason I didn’t see it coming.
Trent had been acting weird for months. Mom wouldn’t listen. She continued to chalk his behavior up to guys and weddings. She kept telling me that Trent was the smart decision. Trent was vice president of investments at a huge banking institution—the same one my stepdad worked at—older, stable, smart, and of course handsome. I was lucky to be with him. Not a single word or question about our love for one another. Mom prioritized stability over everything. Which, granted, made sense, given my dad’s death when I was two left her completely unmoored. But still, why didn’t my feelings factor into any of this?
Because I was having serious doubts.
So in addition to my nagging fear this all was a mistake, I was thinking about the cake delivery, who was going to pick up Aunt Stacey at the airport tomorrow, the huge shopping list forthe groom’s dinner—because despite the name, it’d all fallen on my shoulders—and making sure my hairstylist had the correct address for the venue, and a million other things.
I just wanted to collapse into a heap and cry.
“Saylor Tate?” An accented male voice asked from behind me as I unlocked my car in my apartment building’s garage.
“Yes?” I turned to him with a smile.
When—BAM!
Out of nowhere, the side of my face exploded in pain.
I bent over, clutching my cheek in my hands, as tears blurred my vision.
“You tell your fiancé, Trent Hale, that we’re serious.” His thick, accented words puffed so close to my face I could smell the nicotine on his breath. “He doesn’t want me showing up at his wedding Saturday with extra guests. Screwing over the Aslanov Bratva is a serious fucking mistake. One his loved ones will pay in blood and pain.”
His hand threaded through my hair and yanked until I fell to my knees.
A pained whimper left me, and then everything froze as I felt something large, cold, and metallic press into my uninjured cheek.
“It’d be a tragedy if we had to paint your parking spot with your blood. Maybe we can work out something in trade, instead. What do you think,Kotyonok? Want to be my little plaything?”
My breathing sounded more like wheezing as I stared into a pockmarked face with a huge scar splitting his right eyebrow and ending in the corner of his mouth. And it was somehow scarier as he grinned at me with his yellowed, crooked teeth.
Nothing about that smile was nice.
“What was that?” he yelled.
I flinched and my whole body trembled as I stared into his dark, pitiless eyes.
“I can’t hear you,Kotyonok!”
“I-I-I, I’ll tell him,” I whispered through a pained whimper when he tugged on my hair.
He grunted. “See that you do. Otherwise, you’ll be seeing me again—a whole lot more of me.”
After one more vicious tug of my hair, he walked away.
I crumpled to the ground.
As his car pulled away, I covered my face with shaking hands and cried.
Chapter 1
Saylor
