เข้าสู่ระบบHow are things going there?"Nikolai's voice came through the second he picked up, sharp with concern despite the late hour."I'll explain everything," Sergei said. "But first, I need to talk to Katya. Is she there with you?"There was a brief pause, the sound of the phone changing hands, and then Katya's voice replaced Nikolai's."Sergei?"He didn't answer right away. He stood there in the quiet of the study, phone pressed to his ear, trying to find the words for something he'd never had to say out loud before. The silence stretched long enough that Katya seemed to understand exactly what it meant before he'd said a single word."You did it, didn't you?""I'm so sorry." The apology came out rough, "I had to do it, Katya. I had to kill him."She went quiet on the other end, and he could picture her standing somewhere in that house. He could only imagine what was going through her mind at that point. It wasn't that Katya loved Viktor. She'd told him herself, more than once, that whate
SERGEI"What the fuck has been going on?" Renee snapped as soon as I stepped out of the building.She had her arms wrapped tightly around her sister, fury and exhaustion warring across her face in equal measure. "Why didn't you come for us sooner? Do you have any idea what we…""It's all very complicated right now." I said though the both of them alive hit me harder than I wanted to admit. "For now, I need you to trust me and get in the car. My men will take you both to the house.""Drop us off?" Her eyebrows shot up. "What do you mean by drop off? I am not going anywhere without you.""I need to speak to Viktor. Privately.""Speak to him?" Her voice rose. "I deserve to be right there for that conversation, Sergei. Especially after everything that motherfucker has put me and my sister through. I mean, look at her.""Don't be stubborn about this." I kept my tone firm. "The only reason you're standing here at all is because of your sister, and she is right beside you, safe. I fulfilled
SERGEI"Boss."Yana's voice pulled me out of the screen I'd been staring at without actually reading for the better part of an hour. I looked up to find her standing in the doorway, phone in hand. She had an urgent expression on her face."The girls tracker just came back online."I was on my feet before she'd even finished the sentence. “Really?” I asked, "How is that possible?""I don't know for certain," she said, already moving to the console, pulling up the map on the main screen. "But the only explanation that makes sense is that they've moved outside the range of whatever jammer Viktor was using. Wherever they were before, they're not there anymore."I stared at the small blinking dot that had reappeared on the screen, my pulse picking up."So, they're on the move," I said."Looks that way."For one wild, reckless second, I let myself wonder if she'd managed to get free somehow, if this was Renee making a run for it on her own. I killed that thought almost immediately. The chan
RENEETwo days.That was how long we had been locked away in this room together,together. Emma curled against my side most of the time, both of us surviving on trays of food that came and went without a single word from whoever brought them. Two days of silence from Viktor, and two days of absolutely nothing from Sergei.I kept waiting. Every creak of the floor outside the door, every distant sound in the hallway, my heart would leap with the thought that this was it, that this was the moment his men finally burst through and pulled us both out of here. It never happened.He had a tracker in me. Three of them, if you counted the ones meant to be found. He knew exactly where I was, and yet there was nothing. No rescue.With every hour that passed, several thoughts ran through my head.Had I made a mistake? Had I handed my life, and Emma's, over to a man just as dangerous as the one holding us here, only for him to decide we weren't worth the risk after all?I hadn't told Emma any of it
SERGEI"Thank you all for coming on such short notice."I stood at the head of the long table, twelve of the most powerful family heads in the country seated around it, all of them watching me expectantly.I cleared my throat and began."Viktor Orlov broke the terms of the treaty this very council brokered. In front of every one of us. He was explicitly forbidden from making any move against Lily, Katya, or Nikolai." I let my gaze sweep across the table, making sure every man there understood the weight of what I was about to say next. "He also attacked me personally, in Dubai, at a restaurant, in broad daylight. And since then, he has continued making moves specifically engineered to disturb the peace this council worked so hard to establish.""That's preposterous," one of the older men said, shaking his head. "Viktor has behaved himself for years now.""I'm not remotely surprised he's doing this again." My voice hardened. "We should have punished him properly the first time around.
Renee had been standing at the door for what felt like an eternity.The building she had been directed to was tucked into a narrow street on the edge of the city. Viktor was smart. He had picked a location where it would be easy to see if she was being watched by anyone and she knew that he was somewhere right now watching her.She could feel it.Minutes passed. Then more minutes. Her hands had started to shake, and she shoved them into her jacket pockets to keep them still, her mind spiraling toward the worst possible conclusion.He wasn't coming. This whole thing had been a trap from the beginning, some cruel game designed to string her along right up until the moment he decided she was no longer useful.Just as the thought fully settled into her chest, a van rolled up beside her, tires crunching against the gravel.The side door slid open before she'd fully processed what was happening, and two men stepped out, gripping her by the arms and pulling her inside before she could so muc
KATYAOnly my boyfriend of five years would think the best place to celebrate our anniversary is in a club surrounded by naked women.“What do you think? Don’t you like it?” He asked me, grinning from ear to ear.Like it? I fumed.I was holding the thong Daniel had gotten me for our anniversary gif
NIKOLAII walked into my father’s study where his council were waiting.“Nikolai” One of them clasped me on the back.“I did not think you would arrive so soon and with the girl.” My father’s second in command nodded at me.“It was not hard to find her” I said.No way was I going to tell them to th
KATYAWe landed in Russia three hours later.I stared out the window at the gray skies and endless stretch of snow-covered ground while panic clawed its way through my chest again.This could not be real.People did not just get kidnapped and flown across the world because their estranged father ap
KATYACold fear crashed into me so fast as my eyes locked on the gun pointed directly at my face.“What are you talking about?”“When were you going to tell me that you are Viktor Orlov’s daughter?” he asked quietly.I blinked at him.Viktor Orlov…My father.My eyes widened in confusion.“How do yo







