Chapter 3

The sharp smell of booze and smoke hit me.

I stood at the door. I couldn't believe my eyes.

Cigarette butts and burn marks littered my handmade Italian Fendi rug. It cost hundreds of thousands. It looked like a zombie frat party.

Dark champagne stains ruined my expensive Minotti leather couch. Traces of white powder were everywhere.

Champagne bottles tipped over on the coffee table. Straws for snorting coke lay beside them.

This was my home. My only safe haven.

I stood there, digging my nails into my palms.

Music blared in the living room. Strange men and women sprawled all over my couches.

One woman lay on the silk rug my father gave me. Her shoes were tossed aside.

Crystal sat right in the middle of the couch. She wore a designer silk robe I had never worn.

I knew the price tag. Twelve thousand dollars. It was a custom piece for Fashion Week next month.

She crossed her legs and leaned back lazily. Her friends kissed her ass.

"Crystal, you are so lucky," a girl with purple hair raised her glass, full of envy. "You'll be the lady of the Volkov family soon. A future mob boss's wife!"

"Yeah," a guy agreed. "Marco is the heir. You're set for life!"

Crystal ate it up. She flipped her hair, looking smug. "Of course. When we get married, you'll all be VIP guests."

I stood at the door, shaking. I pushed the words through my teeth. "This is my home. Get the hell out."

The noise died instantly.

Every eye turned to the door.

Crystal's face darkened. She looked like a cat whose tail got stepped on.

She stood up from the couch. She wore my limited-edition heels—yes, those were mine too. She stomped toward me viciously.

She raised her hand high. She tried to slap my face.

"Smack!"

The slap echoed in the quiet room.

But I wasn't the one who got hit. It was Crystal.

I slapped her back, hard. She fell onto the booze-soaked rug.

"Don't touch me with your cheap-perfume hands," I stared down at her shocked face. "You don't have the right."

"You hit me?!" Crystal screamed. She held her red, swollen cheek and pointed at me. "You stalker! I've hated you from the start! You stalk my boyfriend every day, and now you break into our house?!"

Our house?

I stared at her in disbelief. "What did you say?"

"Stop playing dumb!" Crystal scrambled up from the floor. She backed up to her friends, her voice full of disgust. "Look at her. This is the bitch who bums rides from my boyfriend every day. She mooches off him. Now she wants to crash our house and throw herself at him! She's just a broke relative. She needs to look in the mirror!"

Her friends laughed loud. They looked at me with dirty, mocking eyes.

"Throwing herself at him. No shame."

"Bitches like this just want to climb the ladder. Desperate and broke."

The sheer stupidity almost made me laugh. "You're saying... I'm throwing myself at him?"

"What else?" Crystal gritted her teeth, looking smug. "Marco told me everything. You're just a broke relative living on family charity. You bum rides every day and try to seduce him! Look at yourself. You think you can steal my man?"

My temples throbbed.

"After I humiliated you with that lipstick message, Marco stopped bringing you along. Are you blind?" Crystal tilted her chin up. She kept bragging. "I wanted to teach you a lesson. Tell you to back off! You hit me today. Wait till Marco gets back. You're dead!"

I stared at her. Something snapped in my brain.

So that was it. All of Marco's late arrivals this past month. All his stupid excuses.

He was dropping Crystal off wherever she wanted before picking me up.

I was the boss. But in his mouth, I was just a sad, broke relative living on family handouts.

Meanwhile, he used my car, my house, and my name to play the "heir" for this woman. A title he never had.

I clenched my fists. My heart went totally cold.

A blood debt? Loyalty?

I put up with this sick joke for a whole month just for a dead man's sake.

He played me for a fool. Now, he would learn why my last name is Volkov.