ring finger. She’s not wearing a ring, but as I draw closer, a moth to the flame, I see the indentation where one usually sits.
Oh, fucking no. She’s fucking mine. Mine to hate. Mine to love. Mine to either reap unholy vengeance on, or ply with endless love.
The fucker with his arm around her pinches her waist harder. He’s smiling, but she winces. It’s brief, a flash, nothing more before she resumes with the queenly smiling for her adoring fans. I saw it, though.
He whispers in her ear, and her smile fades like a flower wilting away. Then, the bastard digs his fingers in harder, pressing into the flesh of her flat stomach.
I want to break every bone in his body.
I will break every bone in his body. I make a promise to myself there and then—he won’t get away with this.
He’s abusing her. I know. I recognize the signs. I’ve been where she is, only for me it was my father and the older men who hung around his house taking drugs and playing cards.
Damen’s a hacker, right? I’m going to get him to investigate every facet of Dasha’s life and find out who this absolute bastard is she’s married to.
She smiles and nods at someone, and then, slowly as if she knows, her gaze lifts beyond the few people immediately crowding her.
The moment our gazes collide, I feel a jolt like nothing I’ve experienced before. It’s better than any drug. Better than any sex I’ve ever had. It’s a pure, intense high.
Dasha’s eyes widen, her lips part, and she pales. She pales so much, I think she might faint.
We stare at one another, and someone is talking to her, but she doesn’t answer.
Her husband notices, frowning down at her, and he follows her gaze right to me.
Yeah that’s right. Look upon the face of the man who’s going to make you suffer, fucker.
I smile, a grim smile of warning, and I don’t know if it’s aimed at him or her.
Then I turn on my heel and push my way through the people and out to Konstantin and the crew by the bar.
Chapter Fifteen
Konstantin
We spend a few more days in Paris, and Damen and I spend time fine tuning some of the options we have if things deteriorate further with the Armenians. It’s also something of a welcome respite for us all from the war waiting for us. None of us admit it, but that’s how it feels.
I realize I should take Cassie out and show her the sights, and I do, some. But mostly? Mostly, we have sex. I fuck her and fuck her and fuck her. Desperately trying to get her out of my system.
It doesn’t work. She’s more addictive than heroin, and twice as adrenalin-provoking as cocaine. She’s tastier than the finest champagne, and headier than the opium I tried in Afghanistan.
My name is Konstantin, and I’m an addict.
How do I free myself of this crazed desire? How do I find the man I was before a dirty-blonde barista with green eyes and freckles fucked my life up? Do I even want to find him? I’ve always been confident. Never been one to question my decisions, but now? My head catalogues all the ways it could go wrong.
Every night I go to bed needing her. Every morning I awake itching to take her again.
I watch her, greedy to learn all about the way she moves and talks. I catalogue her expressions, a naturist who only studies one species: Cassie.
On our fourth morning, I get a call.
I’m sitting in the orangery, watching Cassie sip at her iced tea—the straw where my cock wants to be between those blow-job lips—when my phone buzzes in my pocket.
I’m reading the Financial Times, and I don’t answer it at first, but it persists, so I take it out. I don’t recognize the number.
“Da?”
“Konstantin?” The Yorkshire accent lets me know straightaway who it is.
Reece is sitting opposite me, and I click my fingers at him, getting his attention.
“Marcus, how nice to hear from you again,” I say.
Reece’s brows raise, and he leans in.
“I’ve got to be quick. I’ve convinced Aram of my burning hatred for you and Andrius, since Andrius shot me and all.”
I smile at that. Andrius did shoot him, Marcus told him to. Man’s got balls; I have to give him that much.
“Go on.”
“You need to let me hack you. The way Tigran and Popov did, but this time, you’ll have to give me an in. What Reece did is