Page 10 of Black Ledger

The memory hit like a freight train, and my composure buckled.

“I hear you’re a fighter,” he said, “That you can take down a three-hundred-pound man.”

Considering I was currently manacled by my neck to the ceiling, with my arms shackled behind my back and bolted into the concrete floor, I wasn’t much of a threat.

Add that to the fact that there hadn’t been a moment in here when I wasn’t slightly drugged. I couldn’t take on anyone. Even now, I could barely hold myself upright. The chains were doing most of the work to hold me up.

I wasn’t sure whether he expected an answer, so I kept my mouth shut.

He gripped my jaw and forced his thumbs into my mouth. Prying it open. “You are going to suck my cock like a good little whore, and you won’t bite down or use teeth.”

I still said nothing. I only stared up at him—my ex-boyfriend’s father.

“If you do, I will kill her.” One of his guards turned a laptop toward me. My sister sat in her room, crying and shaking uncontrollably. “Harm anyone here and she dies.”

I inhaled sharply, tears burning in my eyes. I knew it wasn’t an empty threat.

“Do you understand?”

“Yes.” The word came out muffled around his thumbs.

“Good little whore.” He removed his hands from my face and unbuttoned his belt. “Now, I am going to fuck your face, and you will swallow every last drop of my cum just like you used to do for my son.” He slapped me. “Open your mouth.”

I did as I was told.

The memory faded, and I stared at my sister, suppressing every trace of emotion and recognition. I wasn’t Xeniya Morozova. I was Keira Callahan: advisor to the Irish mafia don and brilliant hacker. I hadn’t endured years of torture to keep my sister safe.

No. I was just a brilliant hacker.

Maybe if I said it enough, I would start to believe it.

I swallowed and forced a smile. “Terribly sorry.”

“Oh, it’s okay,” Veronika said, cocking her head to the side, her eyebrows drawing together. “Do I know you?”

Fuck. I looked nothing like I once had. There was no way Veronika could know. Not this early.

“Doubtful.” I forced a brightness into my voice. “I haven’t been in the States very long. I’m only visiting my cousins before returning to London.”

“Oh,” she hummed. “You just seem familiar, that’s all.”

“You know, I get that a lot.”

Veronika dipped her chin, and I took the silence as permission to excuse myself and find alcohol.

I was on my third glass of champagne when I felt his eyes latch onto me.

It didn’t matter which life, planet, universe, or multiverse I existed in, I would always know when Severin Volkov was staring at me.

Chapter Six

Severin Volkov

Age 36

The party had been utterly boring, and I’d done everything in my power to avoid my ex-fiancée, Neeve Callahan.

When I was twenty-three, my father negotiated a deal with Cormac Callahan for me to marry his eldest daughter, who was seventeen at the time. Suffice it to say, I had no interest. But I agreed. I broke up with my girlfriend—love of my life, Xeniya Morozova. I did it to keep her safe. At the time, I didn’t know it wouldn’t matter. She died three days later, and I never got the chance to take it back while she was still alive.