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PROLOGUE
DEZ
Ialways watch.
I wait.
I stalk.
But I never touch. No matter how tempted I am. I can never have her.
Liliya Vovk.
A beautiful ray of sunshine on any day. I first spotted her a month ago, leaving the market with her friends, laughing as the sun shone down and the wind blew her hair around her face.
It took me an hour to find everything I could on her. Her name, her address, where she attends school.Everything.Her social media is filled with all the things she loves, and now I love them too.
All I want to do is pick her up and carry her home. Vasyl will understand. He’ll know what it’s like to want what he can’t have. He’ll support me.
Nadia will kick my ass but still try to convince the girl I’m worthy of her.
I’m not.
I never will be.
So, I remain in the shadows. Watching her. Protecting her from the disgusting men who think they have any right to look at her. They don’t. She’s mine, even if I can’t have her.
I won’t allow anyone else to, either.
ONE
DEZ
Prowling around the corner, I watch her, Liliya, my obsession, my never after. She flicks her honey-blonde hair over her shoulder as her friend speaks, an annoyed, pinched expression on her beautiful face. Liliya doesn’t like the girl. She knows the tall brunette is there only because the mother has paid her to be.
Liliya hates her life, hates those she goes to school with. Hates the rules her father has put in place for her. My sweetmalen’ka ptashka, my little bird, has had her wings clipped when all she wants to do is fly away.
I aim to help her learn to soar because nobody deserves her. Liliya is too perfect to be in this world. Inourworld. But her father is a very weak man, and just my luck, he owes Vasyl Renznikov a sum too large to pay back. And now that I’ve taken over the loans of the Odessa Organization, I get to decide his fate. I get to decide whether he defaults or offers up something much more precious than cash.
Today, I’m calling in all his loans. When he confirms he’s unable to cover the debt, I aim to take her from his grasp. Liliya is in her final year of school, readying herself to become a woman in the real world, and I’m going to be the one to offer her that world on a silver platter.
Finishing school was never in the cards for me. I dropped out long before Vasyl found me almost three years ago, living with family who abused me to the point that I can no longer trust myself to be with another.
It’s why I can’t keep her. No matter how much I want to.
If I did, she would be my precious girl. Held on a pedestal and looked upon with love and passion whenever I could. Whenever she would allow me to.
Alas, that won’t be our future.
Not mine, anyway.
One day, she’ll find a man worthy of her, and I’ll ensure he’s strong enough to be her protector. To hold her heart in his hands, but I’ll never stop being her shadow. Not for as long as there’s breath in my body.
“You know this is unhealthy, right?” Petro Renznikov’s cold voice penetrates through the frigid afternoon air as swiftly as the curved knife I carry up my sleeve.
A grunt is my only response. He knows nothing.
“You could go over there and talk to her.”
