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Then I hold her as she cries, my own despair growing as I realize that something’s going to have to change.

I can’t let her go, but I can’t keep her either.

What makes my dilemma worse is that since the accident, something’s changed between us. I feel it, and it crushes my nobler impulses whenever they arise. What I’ve always wanted—for Sara to share my feelings—seems to finally be within my reach. The way she clings to me, the way she looks at me these days—it all adds fuel to my compulsive need to keep her near, to hold her tight and never set her free.

I want to keep her in a gilded cage forever, so I can make sure she’s always safe.

I want to protect her from everything, including my own twisted needs.

“The doctors said that it’s okay, you know,” she murmurs that night, reaching under the blanket to wrap her slender hand around my aching cock. “Let me—”

“No.” Grimacing in agony, I carefully guide her hand away, even though every cell in my body weeps at the loss of her willing touch. “Not tonight, ptichka. You’re not well yet.”

The doctors might’ve cleared some low-impact sexual activities, but I know myself, and the intensity of my lust for Sara terrifies me. My need for her is too violent, too uncontrolled. I can’t risk touching her until she’s fully healed, so I force myself to wait until she’s better.

Until I can get past my excruciating indecision and figure out what to do.

By the end of the second week, Sara’s stitches come out, and the doctors tell us point blank that there’s zero reason for us to remain at the clinic. One even dares to point out that in a regular hospital, Sara would have been discharged after the first night. I don’t give a fuck about their opinions, of course, but Sara’s is a different matter.

She’s sick of staying at the clinic and ready to go anywhere, even back to our home in Japan.

“Please, Peter, it’s enough. I’m perfectly fine,” she insists, and I finally give in, telling Anton to prepare the plane for tomorrow morning.

“About fucking time,” he mutters darkly. “We were sure you decided to retire and take up residency at this place.”

I fight the urge to snarl at him, because he’s absolutely right. Ever since Sara’s accident, I’ve put everything on hold, ignoring the job offers that have been pouring in. Our fame in the underworld is spreading, and we should capitalize on it.

A few more jobs like the one in Turkey, and my teammates and I will actually be able to retire.

We’ll have enough to evade authorities for life.

It’s late that evening when I get up to check my email. As usual, my inbox is flooded with messages from clients both current and prospective. Some of the offers coming in are laughable—five hundred thousand dollars to eliminate a local mobster, a million euros to rid someone of a wealthy uncle—but many are worth considering.

I’m almost done reading through the messages when a new email comes in. I open it—and stare in shock at the amount offered.

One hundred million euros.

Four times more than our most lucrative payout to date.

It’s from Danilo Novak, the Serbian arms dealer who’s making inroads into Kent and Esguerra’s business. And if the amount wasn’t enough to intrigue me, the name of the target definitely does.

Novak wants me to eliminate Julian Esguerra, my former employer—the man who vowed to kill me for saving his life while endangering his wife.

Stunned, I go through the email again, my mind racing with the implications. Reading between the lines, Novak seems to have some assets in play that would reduce the difficulty of the hit from impossible to impossibly dangerous. Regardless, if we took this job, Esguerra would be our most challenging target yet.

It’s also the only job we’d need to be set financially for life.

As I sit there, staring at my laptop screen, another idea comes to me—one just as dangerous, and infinitely more tempting.

If I handle things just right, this job could indeed be the answer to everything.

I could keep Sara… and give her the life she wants.

The End

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