Page 35 of Maddening Fixation

I was already dead.

The realization hadn’t broken me. It had set me free.

Dead men no longer owed loyalty to anyone.

Keegan and Bodgan followed a step behind me while the rest of my men remained outside, securing the perimeter and awaiting my command.

So far, no one had noticed our arrival.

Despite standing only a short distance away, I remained nothing more than a shadow beyond the glow of the dining room.

My gaze swept over the long table without lingering on a single Flynn.

Not my father. Not my grandfather. Not the uncles who had beaten me bloody.

None of them mattered.

There was only one face I searched for.

Yarina.

I found her almost immediately.

The breath caught painfully in my lungs.

Ten long years.

Yet she looked almost exactly as I remembered.

Time had only refined what had already been breathtaking.

Her dark hair fell elegantly over one shoulder in soft waves.

The warm glow of the chandeliers kissed the smooth curve of her cheek.

Her striking Russian features remained as sharp as ever, carrying that quiet strength that had first captivated me all those years ago.

Those deep, expressive eyes...

The same eyes that had looked at a frightened boy and somehow found something worth loving.

Then my eyes found Sergei.

My brother.

He was seated beside Yarina.

Far too close.

Their shoulders were only inches apart, close enough that they nearly touched.

The sight sent something dark twisting inside my chest.

A cold, possessive fury I hadn’t felt in ten years.

He had no right.

No right to sit beside her. No right to speak to her.