Page 80 of Black Ledger

My white hair fell down my shoulders and over my back like clouds. My eyes were still brown, covered in contacts, so I quickly scooped them out and placed them into their case. I couldn’t have them on for what I was about to do.

I steadied myself and stared at my so-very-changed reflection.

White hair, grayish blue-purple eyes, and murder etched into my expression.

They had taken everything from me. My innocence, my body, my mind, my life. And now I would take everything from them.

My fingers started to tingle, and this time I let them change. I became the ghost. The vigilante hunting the evil men of the world… and some women.

I strolled out of the bathroom, to the side of the ballroom, and toward the ornate wall. I took out my lipstick and wrote a twenty-word message.

I stepped back from it and flashed a wicked smile.

It was perfection.

Then I turned on my heel and sauntered back to the bathroom like a feline, without a care in the world.

No one saw me, but why would they? People can’t see spirits unless spirits want to be seen.

I secured my wig back to my head and plopped my brown contacts back in. My fake freckles had disappeared, so I quickly reapplied them with my freckle makeup pen. Then I swung open the bathroom door and walked out to screams.

The Russians had found my message.

Dark secrets don’t stay hidden for long. I am coming for you, Severin. I am coming for all of you.

Chapter Thirty-Two

Severin Volkov

Age 36

Dark secrets don’t stay hidden for long. I am coming for you, Severin. I am coming for all of you.

I stared at the message. Screams echoed throughout the room, but fury crawled over my skin like a thousand fire ants. The ghost had the audacity to strike so publicly, making me look weak just as I inherited this empire.

If I weren’t already determined to hunt down the ghost and kill her violently, now there would be no mercy.

“Well, what skeletons do you have in your closet, Mr. Volkov?” Keira asked, slipping beside me with an amused twinkle in her eye. Far too flirtatious for what the moment called for. She also completely ignored the fear emanating from all the Bratva members around her.

“Sorry, don’t mind her.” Neeve shook her head. “She is far too fascinated by drama and dangerous things.” She murmured the second half under her breath, but I was close enough to hear every single word.

“Not drama. Mystery.” She smiled, stepping up to the message. She smelled it before reaching out to touch⁠—

“No, don’t. That’s evidence.” Ilya cut her off, and her hand paused inches from the substance.

“And will you be calling the police?” she asked, raising a well-manicured red eyebrow in my direction. I didn’t have to answer. She simply laughed and turned back to the words. “Thought so.”

Keira dipped her finger in the paint. She examined it and smelled it again before she turned back to us with her lips quirked up in a smirk. “Just as I thought. Have you pissed off any women recently? Besides me…” The last part came so low I almost missed it.

“What?” My brow creased.

“It’s lipstick.” Keira leaned closer to the writing, inspecting it. “I’d feel lucky, though, if I were you. I was stuck in traffic the other day, and I saw a vandalized car. Apparently the owner’s ex-girlfriend had written all over it with Sharpie.” Keira stepped back, her red locks bouncing with her movement. “She wrote that he had cheated on her with her sister… Have you done that? She wrote it on the car in huge letters. God, I wish I’d gotten a picture of it.”

I let out a low chuckle. Keira was amusing. Brightness wrapped with a hint of darkness. I found it fascinating. Well, I found everything about the woman fascinating, and so did my dick, which really needed to settle because I could not be getting hard moments after being threatened. Especially not tonight.

I’d promised myself I wouldn’t care about my engagement party or the woman I was supposed to marry. I might want to fuck her, but she would never be the woman I wanted to marry.

“Perhaps we should check the cameras,” she said, facing me.