Page 54 of Jetmir

Anya was laughing. She was actually laughing.

It was a carefree laugh. The one that should only be for me. Yet, there she was in this fucking club in the heart of Miami, dancing with her girls and happy without me.

For the past three years, I’d stalked her from the shadows and watched her maintain a cool expression and polite smile during her photography exhibitions and charity galas. I did it for her protection and for my sanity.

Anya threw her head back and laughed again, and I cursed Lady A’s “Bartender” blasting through the speakers for stealing my wife’s sound from me. I was so tempted to pull out my gun from the waistband of my pants and shoot out the speakers.

But I didn’t.

I wanted to conceal my presence in Raphael Santos’s club as long as possible, and begrudgingly, I wanted Anya to be happy. Just not without me.

So here I was standing in the shadows of the VIP section, bourbon untouched in my hand, and watching my wife dance.

God help me, she moved like she didn’t have a care in the world.

Her platinum-blonde hair swung across bare shoulders. Her friends crowded around her in a circle, singing along and throwing their hands in the air. Anya was right in the middle of them, smiling so wide it made something vicious twist inside my chest.

I used to be the reason for it. Now, I was just another man watching from across the room.

She thought I’d given up. She was wrong.

Anya was mine and what I felt for her went beyond obsession. I would destroy every lifeform on this planet to see her smile for me again.

“And this man is about to learn just how serious I am,” I muttered under my breath as I watched her dance with the blond.

He was opposite to me in every single way, and while I’d admit he was good-looking, he was also forgettable. And then there was the fact that it was the latest member of the Triad.

He sealed his fate long before he danced with my wife.

The fucker said something to Anya and she laughed, her expression open and cheerful. She was surveying the man in front of her, and judging by her appreciative look, she didn’t mind what she saw.

He held out a hand. Anya looked at it, hesitating for a moment before she took it.

My fingers tightened around the glass, making it crack before it shattered. A thin fracture spiderwebbed through the crystal, but I barely noticed the pain.

My entire focus was on my wife dancing with the man who, before the day was over, would be meeting Jesus.

It wasn’t overly intimate, but still I watched darkly when her body brushed against his.

It made the pain in my chest so much worse.

Because he was touching her. Looking at her. Standing where I should be standing.

Song after song. Drink after drink. And every smile she gave him fed something dark inside me.

By two in the morning, I hated him, but I also knew his name, social security number, and where he lived.

By five in the morning, Anya finally took a break from him and excused herself, her bodyguards trailing behind her.

As she made her way out of the club, the daughter of Raphael Santos, Miami’s most feared mob boss, moved through the crowd with ease. People naturally gave her space, some without even realizing why. Or maybe they sensed danger lurking in the eyes of her bodyguards.

Anya wasn’t just the apple of her father’s eye, but Gabriel Santos’s too. Three years ago, an explosion changed his life. Anya blamed me, and between the white lies I’d fed her and that cursed event, it was enough to make her leave.

I tried to make amends. I tried to tell her and show her how sorry I was. None of it worked. Today, I would take a different approach. The kind that would probably set ablaze any truce that my mother had achieved.

I followed closely, making sure her bodyguards and the driver who pulled up outside the club never saw me. I was three cars back all the way to her house. I watched the gates close behind her, taking her away from me again.

But not for much longer.