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You have got to be fucking with me.
For a second, my lungs tightened. “What are you doing here?”
The man simply blinked at me, plainly unimpressed.
Roam sat at one end of the sofa, dressed pristinely in a black casual suit and Italian leather boots, while Anika sat on the opposite end, wringing her fingers subtly. It was clear she was uncomfortable. And Roam was watching her in a way I did not like.
Without taking his eyes off my sister, he answered coolly, “Now, that’s not a very polite way to greet a colleague.”
Oh, please.
Roam was not a colleague. He was a plague. Pestilence in human form.
Regretfully, he was my cash cow. The answer to my problems. But he was crossing a line. “What are you doing here, Roam?”
And like a fucking martyr, he said, “I wanted to meet the family I was putting myself in peril to assist.”
Putting himself in peril?
This bitch.
Like I hadn’t almost taken a bullet to the chest the night before for a reckless teenager who was hellbent on getting himself killed and taking me with him.
My jaw clenched. “If you wanted to talk to me, all you had to do was call.”
“But I didn’t.” He looked at me then, his eyes dark and cold and inhuman. “Did I?”
Fucking hell. I had a growing feeling that I made a huge mistake by involving myself with this man.
My suspicions were confirmed when he stood and strode over to the mantel, picking up my mother’s well-loved knickknacks, looking them over while saying, “It hasn’t escaped me that this short-term arrangement of ours has been devised to benefit yourself mainly, and I seek to change the terms to make this business endeavor of ours a little more evenly sided.”
No. That wasn’t the deal. No, no, no.
My insides tightened with irritation.
Sasha warned me. He fucking warned me. But did my desperate ass listen?
No.
I knew this was too good to be true. I already made a shit-ton of money from this psycho. I needed this. And depending on what the amendment to the arrangement was, I was most likely going to have to accept. I was so close to making enough to save the house. I didn’t have a lot of time left.
If he wanted my goddamn soul, he could have it.
The motherfucker had cornered me. And like the idiot I was, I allowed it.
Careful not to display my angst, my eyes landed on my mother as she shook her head in warning, and I asked, “What are you after?”
Roam snuffled out a laugh, turned to face me, and said, “Something that will cost you more than just money.”
The way he said it made the hairs on the back of my neck stand. Yeah. The Disciples were not people you fucked with, and I was about to learn the hard way.
Whatever I thought he might say, I was not expecting him to utter a void, emotionless, “I want her,” and when he lifted his hand, pointing to Anika, my anger imploded.
Taking a solid step forward, I snarled, “The fuck you say?”
He was kidding. He had to be. There was no way in hell.
My sister’s head snapped toward me, and the fear in her eyes had my fists clenching.
Roam did not waver. In fact, he smiled slow and sly, and repeated himself, “I want her.”
Goddamn. I was shaking with pent-up rage. I struggled to keep my tone even. “You can’t have her.”
When my mother began to speak in rapid-fire Russian, my father attempted to calm her, and Roam looked at them with a hollowness that was chilling. His demeanor did not match his words as he spoke directly to my mom, revealing he understood a bit of Russian. “No, I won’t hurt her. In fact, while she’s with me, you can guarantee that nobody would have a chance to get close enough to touch her.”
My father’s jaw tightened. “You can have anything else. Anything.”
My father… begging. The thought sickened me.
Jesus. How low we’d fallen.
A slow smile spread Roam’s lips, but predictably, it didn’t reach his eyes. “I don’t want anything else.”
He was enjoying this.
My mother peered at me with wide eyes, beseeching quietly, “Viktor. No.”
It was okay.
I wouldn’t give in. This was my sister. I wasn’t about to feed her to the sharks. Especially not one who looked as hungry as Roam did.
My pride was set aside, and it felt wrong to be in a position that felt so unnatural, but for the first time in my life, I pleaded, “Anything else, Roam. Anything. You want me to do a couple of jobs without payment? You want a marker? Done. You need drugs? I got a guy. Want fast women? I know a few. I can meet you halfway,” I told him, knowing I was giving him the upper hand, “but you can’t have her.”
