Chapter 25
Vadim
Satisfied with showing my hand to Iskra, I whistled all the way back to my room—feeling more settled than I had in days. This was a man’s world. My world. And she had just learned her place in it.
My nights at the pit would be paused until my heir was secured in her belly. No point breaking my hands when I needed them functional.
I kicked the door shut just as my phone rang.
“Tau. What’s on your mind?” I said, knowing exactly what he was calling about.
“Respectfully, Mr Dragunov.” His voice was measured, unhurried, the particular calm of a man who was never actually calm.“I have one function. Babysitting isn’t anywhere close to it.”
“Konstantin said you might have an issue with the assignment,” I said, shrugging out of my jacket.
Tau was the one third-party hire I trusted without reservation. Originally from Botswana, operated across four continents, answered to no hierarchy and no flag. We called him Tau—Lion—though he had other names in other cities. The slight scarring along his jaw was the only visible evidence of a history he never discussed and didn’t need to.
“What exactly did he say?” Tau demanded.
Their rivalry was petty and I wasn't above using it.
“That you wouldn’t have the patience for it,” I said, casually dismantling what remained of my brother’s relationship with the most dangerous man either of us had ever hired.
Silence.
“Remind Konstantin of Belarus. I was there to clean up what he left behind.” A beat.“The boy. You want him dead?”
“He’s an asset for the moment. Keep him alive and I’ll update you if the situation changes,” I said, and hung up.
Ruslan Kozlov had his uses for now.
Radovan confirmed that she was close to him. Cared about him.
I flung my phone on the bed.
Her weakness.
??????
Spartak stepped aside as I approached her bedroom door.
She hadn’t come down for dinner. That wasn’t surprising—she had been avoiding me since the club and tonight’s appointment hadn’t changed her appetite for my company.
I opened the door.
She was sitting on the bed, back against the headboard, a tablet in her hand. She set it on the nightstand when she heard me.
An iPad. Another purchase on my card.
I glanced at it.
I’d get my money’s worth from her tonight.
“Remove your clothes and spread your legs,” I said, moving toward her.
She didn’t look up. She pushed the covers down her thighs, pulled her T-shirt over her head, and shimmied her underwear off with the efficient compliance of someone who had made a decision about how this was going to go tonight.
No attitude. No sullenness.
