Page 24 of Exacting Vengeance

“Convince her not to go to the courthouse,” he said. “Other than that, nothing.”

“Nothing?” Mike held his arms wide. “You two have one helluva history, and you have to work with the woman.”

“We don’t have a history. Not a personal one, anyway.” All that would have gotten them both was dead.

“That’s crap.” Mike leaned forward in the chair. “Have you forgotten how that case ended?”

“Never.” He would always remember his panicked call to his boss the last night of that undercover assignment. It was a night he’d never forget and one that still tore him up inside. It was the night he’d nearly killed a man out of pure hatred. “Okay, fine. We have a history,” he admitted. “But now she has a new name and a new life.”

“Thanks to you,” Mike said, rising from the chair. “What she did took guts.”

Yeah, it did.

“Let me know what you decide. If you want her on the case, she stays. But you’ll have to keep an eye on her.” Mike headed for the door, opening it and tossing over his shoulder, “Just remember, the past always influences the present.”

That’s what he was afraid of. His past sucked. Hers was right up there, too. Together, they were one hot mess.

Through the open door, he watched Morrison stride through the maze of cubicles. He pulled out another sheet of origami paper from his desk—red, this time—intending to start another dragon. He made a mountain fold that would become the animal’s spine, but concentration refused to give him the peace it normally did.

There could never have been anything between Victoria and him. She might be single now, but his job and her now ex-husband stood between them the same today as they had a decade ago. They’d been part of two different worlds then and still were. Then again, she’d never really fit into the world in which he’d met her.

The lines between them could still never be crossed. In some ways they were wider and more rigid than ever.

Their pasts aside, with his baggage he’d never be good for anyone. That emotional brick wall in his head was higher than ever now and could never be scaled.

Unfortunately, Mike was right. Since they had to work together, he did have to do something about her.

Damned if he knew what.

Chapter Eleven

“Vika!” Yuri thrust his hips once more, coming harder than a buffalo.

The woman lying beneath him—he couldn’t remember her name and couldn’t care less what it was—clawed at his hand around her throat. Her long blond hair was wrapped tightly in his other fist. Wide, panic-stricken blue eyes stared up at him.

Frantically, she slapped at his arm until he released her. The woman’s breasts heaved as she sucked in wheezing breaths, then squirmed from beneath him and hauled ass for the bathroom.

“You’re a good fuck,” he called out, chuckling when she slammed the door. She was a good fuck, but she wasn’t Vika. No matter how many blond-haired, blue-eyed women he had sex with, it would never be the same.

Vika was his woman. How could she have abandoned him? He’d given her everything.

Yuri threw his legs over the side of the mattress and shoved a hand through his hair. Living without her was…unbearable. How could this have happened?

He punched the pillow with the back of his hand.

The shower came on in the bathroom. He had half a mind to storm in there and take that bitch from behind. Since getting out of prison, he never tired of sex. His dick twitched at the thought of slipping between those tight ass cheeks.

Uttering a growl of anticipation, he headed for the bathroom. For the third time in the last hour, Slaughter to Prevail’s Demolisher blared from his cell phone on the nightstand. Nikolai. He wouldn’t put off another round of rough, satisfying sex for anyone else on the planet.

He grabbed the phone. “Allo.”

“Yuri, where the fuck have you been?”

He chuckled. “Fucking, my friend.”

Nikolai groaned. “She is blond-haired and blue-eyed, yes?”

“What does it matter?” He lay back on the bed and tucked a pillow beneath his head. The last thing he needed was another lecture.