AllFreeNovel
Share Us
My brother Hector strode into the room. He was still in fatigues, so he must have just come from a job. Unlike me, Hector was an upstanding citizen, with his own security firm. Judging by his scowl, he was a bit grumpy, which was nothing new.
He also didn’t do small talk. “You bought Zoe a pony.”
A smile lit up my face when I thought of my niece. “I heard she liked them.”
Hector groaned. “No, she likes My Little Pony.”
I frowned, feigning ignorance. “There’s a difference?”
Damon grinned and earned a withering glare from my brother.
Hector walked over to the couch in front of my desk and sat down heavily. “What kind of seven-year-old has a pony?”
“It’s for her upcoming birthday.” The little girl was the sweetest thing alive. Whenever I visited them, her tiny handgrabbed mine and took me on a tour of her latest toys. I loved to spoil her. In a way, she felt like my own.
The dark and angry well inside me, where my demon lurked, stirred again. I could have had a Zoe of my own, if fate hadn’t intervened.
Hector shook his head. “I told Mary it was no use talking to you. Now we have a kid who wants to play with a real-life pony and doesn’t understand why she can’t just go hug him all the time. Worse, I have to build a place for the beast.”
I shrugged. All I heard was that my niece loved her present; mission accomplished.
Damon cleared his throat. “Does this mean I should cancel the giraffe?”
Hector gave him the finger, but didn’t leave, so I knew he wasn’t finished.
“The pony isn’t the real reason you’re here, is it?”
He raked a hand through his hair and seemed to be at a loss for words. “I heard about Katya losing the baby.”
Needles spiked into my brain. I’d never show it to my woman, but it gutted me that we’d lost our child. It was strange how a thing you didn’t allow yourself to dream about suddenly became a desire when it was cruelly snatched away from you. It hadn’t been the right time perhaps, but I knew now that I wanted a kid.
“If you ever wanna talk about it, I’m here.”
“You know me, I’m not much of a talker. I’m a doer.”
His eyes narrowed. “I heard what Svetlana did. I also saw her car pull in right behind me. She has no idea what awaits her, does she?”
I clasped my hands behind my head. “And people say you are all brawn and no brain.”
He hissed something in Spanish and jumped up. “At least wait until I’ve fucking left.”
The ex-marine had a soft spot for women and children. Though Svetlana wasn’t really a woman—she was more of a snake.
He opened the door and turned around. “I’m sending you the bill for the damn pony barn I have to build.”
I’d pay for an entire zoo if it made Zoe happy, but decided to keep that for myself.
Soon after he left, Damon’s phone rang.
“Svetlana’s coming up,” he said.
I downed the rest of my drink. She thought I didn’t know what she had done, that Katya hadn’t told me. To her, that would be the only logical conclusion as to why she was still alive. The vicious viper truly believed that she’d gotten away with Katya’s punishment. Or else she would have taken the first jet to Mars, because there was nowhere on this earth she would be able to hide after what she’d done.
Svetlana strode in, bringing with her a cloud of expensive perfume. As always, she was impeccably dressed in a sleek, tight dress that hugged her figure. A Russian beauty that no artist could capture as a painting or a sculpture.
“Kristoff,” she purred, as she sat in the chair across from me, her hands leisurely placed over the arm rests. Like a queen in the presence of her subject, because that was what I was to her, like every other mortal. We were nothing more than pawns in this power play she had constructed. How had I not noticed this before? I’d thought I knew her, just as I knew all my allies and enemies.
“Svetlana. You look as ravishing as always.”
