Page 64 of Black Ledger

“I’m so sorry about him. He’s—” Crazy? Unhinged? Protective? Ugh, I didn’t know how to finish the sentence.

Blood poured from Spencer’s very broken nose.

Fuck. I shook my head and tried to find something to stanch the wound.

After trying to take care of Spencer and apologizing profusely, I played by Severin’s rules and walked out of the pub exactly at the ten-minute mark. But if he thought I was going to talk to him, he had another thing coming, because I absolutely was not going to say a single fucking word.

No, I was going to ignore him, walk right past him, and refuse to acknowledge his existence.

Because fuck him.

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Xeniya Morozova

Age 35

Present

Isat on a therapist’s couch in front of Dr. Emma Hayes, my psychologist and the identical twin sister of Gemma. Telling all my deepest, darkest secrets to a woman who looked like a clone of the doctor who helped the Lethean Order—whether it was forced or not—was uncomfortable. But then, any other therapist would have turned me over to the authorities by now. After all, if I ever told one I planned on murdering hundreds of men and that I indeed had an actionable plan and an actionable target, I would have been arrested by now.

Dr. Hayes’s sessions were off the books. Did she still have a legal and ethical responsibility to turn me in? Yes. But since I had saved her life, her sister’s life, and her daughter’s, we let all of that slide.

“So what brings you in after so long away?” Emma asked.

I fought the urge to roll my eyes. It had only been two months. She made it seem like I hadn’t come in for years. I pinched my lips together and stared at her.

Telling her that her twin forced me to come in today probably wasn’t the best choice. While I was very open to and thankful for therapy, I still hated it. It was still like pulling teeth.

My gaze drifted around the small room. The couch I was sitting on was soft blue, and so was the chair directly across from it where Emma sat. The walls were off-white, and abstract paintings of the ocean hung on them. It was simple and stereotypically therapeutic. Unoffensive and clean.

After what was probably seven minutes of silence, Emma finally asked, “How are your dolls doing?”

“Fine.” I crossed my arms over my chest.

She nodded slowly—you know, the way therapists do. “How many do you currently have?”

“Six.”

“Did you want to discuss them?”

“Not particularly.”

Emma nodded again and let the silence sit between us. She was very comfortable with silence. She wanted me to fill it, but I was feeling like a bratty teenager today. I didn’t want to be here. Her sister had forced me. So I didn’t want to fill the space or tell her anything.

But silence was also horrifically painful. “I cut off Aleksandr’s dick and sent it to Severin.”

Emma stifled a laugh and waited for me to say more.

“I wish I could have been there when he opened it, but he did it in a room where I don’t have cameras, which is frustrating because I placed the box in direct view of my cameras.”

I went on to tell Emma random facts about my dolls to fill the time. And when we only had two minutes left, I got up and said, “Well, great. That looks like all our time.”

Emma smiled and studied me. “Yes, it is. See you next week, same time?”

Oh, God, no. “Yes.” I smiled through my teeth.

“Great.”