Page 8 of Black Ledger

“I won’t be offering up anyone. Especially not your baby sister⁠—”

“She’s twenty-three, Dad. She’s not a baby.”

“That very well may be, but I am not offering up anyone. You are going to pretend to be a choice, but Severin Volkov will never choose you when Keira is on the table.”

Neeve’s attention snapped to me. “You’re putting yourself up as an option?”

Keira was the alias I’d used since moving in with the Irish as a cover while I hunted down the men on my list.

I nodded, my composure thinning at the thought.

Confusion lit Neeve’s face. “I am not sure that will work. He was betrothed to me before. How do you know he’ll choose Keira?”

“You were engaged on paper, but he broke it off for a reason.” This time, Callum spoke. “Severin never wanted to marry you.”

I sucked in a tight breath. I didn’t believe that. Once, Severin had betrayed me and chosen Neeve. He’d broken my heart, dumped me, and signed an engagement agreement with the Irish.

I still didn’t know what had made him change his mind. Why had he refused to marry Neeve?

They’d even gotten to the altar. It took three years to do so because Severin kept stalling, and then, at the altar, he left. Jilted her in her wedding dress.

It happened when I was confined in my torture chamber.

No one knew why he broke it off. He just did. Three weeks later, Neeve was kidnapped and given to the cult as well, but she was kept in a different location altogether from me.

I never met her until the day I rescued her. By that point, she’d spent nine months being raped, tortured, beaten, and scarred.

Nine months.

“How can we be so sure?” Neeve asked.

I cleared my throat. “We can’t be, but it doesn’t matter who he chooses—if it’s you or me. No one is going to marry Severin Volkov because I am going to kill him.”

I threw my knife at my next target, landing precisely where I’d aimed—Klaus Mieser’s fingers. Two came off.

They hit the ground with soft thuds—one after the other.

Klaus howled in pain, but the sound died behind his gag.

“Are you ready for this?” Cormac stepped closer and placed a comforting hand on my shoulder.

No.

My heart drummed in my ears, but I faced the man who had been like a father to me for nine years and lied. “Of course I am. I’ve trained for this day. I’m ready.”

I was not ready. There would never be enough training or time to prepare me to meet Severin Volkov again. But I needed to infiltrate the Russian mafia for the next stage of my plan to succeed.

So I would do it, and I would do it well.

“When is the meeting?” I asked, throwing yet another knife at one of my dolls.

“Friday night.” Cormac tapped his fingers against his suit jacket. “I invited them to Nemain Manor so we could host them on our terms.”

My mouth twitched. That was good. Nemain Manor was our private club in the heart of Hell’s Kitchen.

Now all I had to do was practice my British accent and my amenable little personality. Keira was bright, playful, and very British.

I was… well, I didn’t know anymore. I was a patchwork quilt made of hundreds of masks. I was the masquerade, wearing whatever face the moment required, telling whatever lie got me closer to my goals.