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We study the images of our woman, each one taken without her knowledge or consent. Without ours.
Hooked to my arm at the mayor’s party. A security camera still of me pinning her to the wall and ravaging her mouth. Valentina standing in the entryway of the orphanage with Mikhail. Celia’s house, this one taken through the dining room window.
My hand wrapped around Valentina’s throat.
Fury pulses through me, and I have to take a deep breath to hold it in.
“That motherfucker,” Mikhail hisses, not caring to hold anything back. “I’m going to peel his fucking fingernails off.”
Ezra grunts, but I recognize the dark shadows in his eyes. He’s been planning a thousand different ways to murder the mudak already. The photos only add fuel to the fire.
“Why haven’t we found him?” I drum my fingertips across the top of my desk. “Ezra, you always catch people. Tell me what’s happening.”
Ezra grinds his teeth together. “They will not speak. I only take little piece of tongue, tiny strips of flesh.” He exhales harshly. “Then I take bone. They laugh in my face, if they do not piss themselves first.”
“So, we’ve learned nothing?” Mikhail’s nostrils flare. “What the hell?” He runs a hand through his hair and starts pacing the room. “I lost those properties, Andrei. All six of them. They fell like fucking dominos, and all our legal team could say was sorry. I know we didn’t make a mistake when we redrafted those contracts and deeds three years ago. They were airtight.”
“Someone changed them,” I muse, rubbing a kink in my neck. I slept fitfully as I imagined Valentina being ripped from my arms, but thankfully, she slept like a rock and didn’t stir even once.
Seeing her in my bed helped calm my nerves in between bouts of nightmares.
This shit ignites every single one again.
“You know I vet my team, Andrei.”
“I know. We do thorough checks on everyone.” I sigh. An outsider wouldn’t be able to turn our ranks against us.
But a Baranova matron could.
“We need to keep an eye on the guards.” Ezra presses his thumbs to the back of his eyelids.
I’ve no doubt the man slept like shit. He should at least get a decent night’s sleep before the wedding. I’d hate for my best man to look like a hot fucking mess while Valentina and I say our vows.
I draw an unsteady breath as anxiety rattles in my chest. It’s not often that it rears its ugly head, but today, it does.
“Where is Valentina?” Ezra asks, pinning me under his heavy stare.
“In my bedroom.” My lips curve up in a small smile. Thinking of Valentina lounging on my bed helps ease my high blood pressure.
“Are you sure?”
I reach inside my desk drawer and pull out a CCTV remote, clicking on the monitor. The TV screen overhead lights up and shows every hallway and room in the house.
Valentina is right where I left her, toying with the shower stream before stepping into its heat.
I long to be there with her, enclosed in a curtain of steam, letting the scalding water pour over the knots in my back. Maybe she’d run her dexterous little hands over my muscles and knead out some of the kinks. Maybe she’d get down on her knees and pull the tension from my body, one glorious suck at a time.
Ezra’s expression softens as he watches Valentina scrub her hair. They shared a shower together, and ever since, he’s been more apt to relax. I’ve no doubt it’s a fond memory for him.
Mikhail stops pacing to stare at the screen.
All three of us watch our queen scrub herself clean. Part of me hates that she’s scrubbing the sex off her skin, but I can sex her right back up the minute I return to her.
We all could.
The echo of an idea forms in the back of my mind. Through the fog of anxiety and lust, I draw it forward, pinning it into place as I think through the ramifications.
Bringing Valentina into the fold was only part one of our plan. Part two involves convincing the Bratva that she’s here willingly, and what better way than to show her off in public? The mayor’s party was one thing, but that catered toward the elite.
