Page 16 of Beguiled

Maybe that’s what my charming assistant was referring to. Correction, financial analyst.

Resisting her was becoming more difficult every day.

When the door was thrown open, instead of reaching for my weapon, which was safely tucked away in a desk drawer, I embraced the annoyance. There were two people who burst into my office without notice.

One was currently in Rome meeting with what I called the disciples of the Cosa Nostra while framing the trip as a family vacation.

And the other was a pain in my ass.

The door was slammed behind him, his footsteps heavy.

Dimitri Chertov was enough like our Pakhan and my brother Kazimir to remain irritating while his methods of business were cringeworthy. There was such a thing as going with the flow, but my cousin embodied the concept of winging it. He called it an artful way of doing business.

I called it lazy and reckless.

Therein lay the crux of our relationship. We bickered when not embroiled by a cause.

He handled the hospitality operations while I juggled the more mundane aspect of working with the Irish on the oil and gas company we’d purchased together. A forced alliance that had been highly profitable but a pain in my ass.

“To what do I owe this pleasure?” I swiveled my chair, gauging his mood with one glance at his face. He was furious, close to foaming at the mouth. “And don’t you ever knock?”

“We have business to discuss. And don’t you ever answer your damn phone?” In his hand was a file folder.

“Not when I’m busy.”

He thumped down in the chair opposite me, the same seat Saige had used. The act itself was nothing special but for some reason, his interference in her ghosted space pissed me off.

“With your charming assistant?” Dimitri tossed out. Leave it to him to figure out she was the single woman in a building full of them who’d caught my eye. Not a soul had seen me at Christmas and I’d been careful not to mention a word about that night.

I’d give him some credit. He never missed anything, an attribute that had often come in handy.

“My financial advisor, who has a clear understanding of how we could position ourselves strategically.” I swiveled all the way around. The sooner he shared whatever was troubling him, the sooner he’d leave so I could get to work.

“Make certain and check her credentials going all the way back to when she was born.”

My jaw tightened just from his casual recommendation. He was less than a year younger than Kazimir, which was one reason they’d been so close growing up as children. They were much more like brothers. Even their likes and dislikes were remarkably similar.

I didn’t have that level of closeness as I’d grown up in a house with my mother, a woman shunned by my biological father after discovery of a son through infidelity. Somewhere through the years he’d lamented his decision, longing for his entire family to be together.

As fate would have it, he’d then married my mother. Perhaps it was true that most women couldn’t stand being alone. And that for every powerful male leader, there was a woman standing behind them both encouraging and directing.

In my life, I was the master of ceremonies.

Maybe that’s why I’d determined long before accepting a new last name that I’d shape my world and my successes alone.

Their marriage had put a rift in my relationship with my mother. Even today after her becoming a widow. However, I was thankful my biological dad had provided for her in the event of his death, including allowing her to remain in the house Kazimir had grown up in.

Alongside his brother. Correction. My brother as well.

“What do you need, Dimitri?”

“There might be a sighting.”

“Of?”

He cocked his head and I knew exactly who he was talking about.

Mikhail.