Page 12 of Black Ledger

But it wasn’t Maks who answered.

“That is Keira Callahan,” Dimitri Morozov said. “Cormac’s niece. She’s from London, and has a British accent, not an Irish one, and she’s the best hacker in the Irish mafia.”

Beautiful and smart. A hacker like Xeniya always wanted to be. Apparently, I had a type.

“I am sure it was absolutely necessary to note that she has a British accent,” Maks said, laughing.

“I’m thorough.”

Maks shook his head. “We know.”

Their banter faded into background noise as my attention fixed on the redhead again. She was on her third glass of champagne, drinking it like water.

Her skin was porcelain, nearly the same shade as the dress. She was pale. Too pale.

So far, I’d only seen the edge of her profile and the faint curve of her mouth. Her back had been toward me, but I already knew her face would match the rest of her. Stunning.

I inhaled when she finally turned.

For one reckless second, I hoped.

But I knew it wouldn’t be her.

Xeniya had golden-white skin with a slight olive undertone. She tanned the moment sunlight touched her. She got her coloring from her mother, an Italian mafia princess. But this woman was so pale she could have been a corpse.

As she faced me, the honey brown of her eyes caught mine—and lingered far too long. She studied me like a mortician, taking in my broad shoulders, corded muscle, and severe expression. Her gaze cut into me like a scalpel. Precise and quick. And she liked what she saw.

Her lips tilted with amusement before her eyes drifted away.

Her eyes were so vivid and unique that I could even make out the warm color beneath her square-framed glasses.

Freckles dusted her cheeks and her nose, framing her sharp, soprano-like cheekbones. Even the tilt of her mouth tugged at something familiar in me. But she wasn’t Xeniya. Strikingly similar but utterly different.

And just as tempting.

That was a problem.

I hadn’t fucked another person since my Oduvanchik. I had never intended to. But as I watched Keira Callahan lower her glass and glance back at me beneath thick lashes, I understood one thing with absolute clarity:

The woman was dangerous.

And she might become my newest obsession.

“You know,” Dimitri said, drawing my attention back to him, “she’d be a good option for marriage. Your father wanted you to marry an Irish mafia princess. She is Irish and a mafia princess.”

The glare I cut him could have drawn blood. I hated when anyone brought up what my father wanted.

“I am sure my father would be delighted to know that I am finally planning to take an Irish wife.”

“Are you?” Dimitri asked, lifting an eyebrow. “Interesting.”

I ignored the last comment and the amusement beneath it. “It’s the best way to broker an alliance, isn’t it?”

I wasn’t actually going to marry anyone—least of all an Irish girl—simply because my father wanted it. But no one needed to know that. I would burn this city and every enemy I had to the ground before I appeased my father.

If he wanted to use me as a political bargaining tool, I would make sure, even kidnapped, even dead, he never succeeded.

He would never get his way.