: Chapter 3

She’s catching on. But not fast enough. She’s not scared enough.

Not yet.

Good girl.

Right where she belongs. In my sights. Under my control.

I look forward to when she is, but for now, I’m enjoying keeping her off-balance.

It’s been twenty-three days.

Twenty-three days since I left Moscow and came to Dublin. Seven days left before Rafail will hold a meeting with the other men invited to form the coalition.

If the alliance is officially formed as planned, Anissa’s shit out of luck. If the Irish agree to the terms, she might become a bargaining chip or be eliminated to tie up loose ends. They might not need her anymore.

I don’t just want to take her. I have to beat them to it before someone else decides her fate.

I’ve been watching her. She’s made it laughably easy.

McCarthy’s son called her to do a job by the wharf, and I knew she suspected I was there. I saw her fear when she stared at the misplaced towel. The way she looked at the toothpaste with curiosity. How she sat up in bed and stared at her playlist.

I heard her pathetic little threat. Cute.

I don’t need to barge in and force her hand. A little psychological manipulation will go a long, long way.

I know her weaknesses. I know what she likes. I know she values autonomy and a challenge, and she’s skilled as fuck with forgery and speaks several languages fluently.

She thrives on pizza and diet soda like a fucking teenager. I know she gets herself off to filthy, kinky porn.

I know she betrayed my family.

Anissa’s father arranged for her marriage to Rafail. She jilted him at the altar on their wedding day. And now she’s in league with the Irish.

This isn’t just about revenge but loyalty, proof of my devotion to my family. This is personal.

Her betrayal stained my family’s honor, and I’ll make an example of her.

I stare at the footage I have of her on my phone. It was almost a stroke of luck that I found her. I’d been looking with no luck since she escaped. The Irish covered her tracks well, and I had no reason to suspect them. But she grew too complacent with her Irish protectors. Little does she know her time with them has come to an end.

Anissa dresses in wigs, changes the color of her eyes with contacts, and tries to cover up the little birthmark above her lip—her one identifying mark.

I was the one who put her portfolio together for Rafail when they were engaged. I was the one who handed it to my brother Gleb, who handled the rest, but I saw every detail of who she was before she went incognito.

And I was the one who wouldn’t let her betrayal lie. Not after what my brother did. Not after what I owe to the Kopolovs.

So one night, as I was poring over video footage involving the Irish, I saw the curvy figure of a woman who looked a bit familiar. I zoomed in and didn’t recognize her, but when she turned her head, moonlight glinted on her lip. And I knew exactly who she was.

I pull my knit cap down over my brows and walk with my head lowered, going up to the apartment I’m in directly next to hers. It was easy to… persuade the people who lived there that they needed to leave… fast. It was child’s play, switching out the glass behind her wall mirror and making it a two-way. Thirty minutes later, I had what I needed. I get a bird’s-eye view.

I’ve left her alone for a few days on purpose. I want her to question herself, to wonder if she imagined it all. I don’t need to force the issue. Not yet. Watching her unravel? That’s foreplay.

I lie back on my bed, staring at her as she moves about her apartment wearing nothing but a pair of tight panties and a tank. Christ, she’s fucking hot, all curves and dimples.

I stroke my cock through my jeans, imagining those lips wrapped around me, her thighs shaking as I take my time marking every fucking inch of her. I’ll make her beg—not just for mercy—for me. Her belly swollen with my child flashes through my mind, and I fuck my fist harder, needing it—needing to know no other man will ever touch her again, because she’s already carrying my blood.

I spent weeks here in Dublin before our big meeting, blending into the background, leaning into my natural skills to study my prey. I move through the city’s streets without attracting attention. It’s easy in a place like this, teeming with people and businesses, tourists and families. Head down. Don’t make small talk. I order groceries and avoid the shops, and I don’t cause a disturbance anywhere I go. I’m a model citizen. If anyone ever suspected who I really am, my elderly landlord would say with such confidence, “But he was such a decent bloke.”

It’s ridiculously easy to pretend to be normal and sane.

She walks through her apartment, blissfully unaware she’s being watched—straightens a throw pillow, wipes down a counter. I lose sight of her for a minute when she heads to the kitchen, but she comes back later with a pint of chocolate ice cream, sits on the sofa, and picks up her phone, mindlessly scooping large bites of ice cream. When a drop falls on her lip, her tongue quickly laps it up.

Fuck. I’m hard as fuck watching her.

I unzip my pants and stroke my dick, mesmerized as she flicks through her phone until she settles on something, leans back, and watches. It’s hard to see her from this angle.

I lift the scarf I stole from her, along with the blonde wig, a bar of soap, and one of her tops. I inhale her fragrance—light and almost spicy, with a citrus edge. I’ve seen her turning her apartment upside down, looking for them, but after a few days of rest, she’s given up.

If she had any idea how close I am to her while she’s right here, under my nose, walking free under the protection of the Irish…

She’s grown complacent with them. Why?

Maybe she thinks the Irish are just regular clients like anyone else. Maybe she doesn’t know what they’re fully capable of.

That’s what gnaws at me. She’s too at ease, moving through their world like she belongs. But there’s something else—something that twists in my gut.

None of them touch her. Ever. And they’re like us—marrying age and in need of wives. Keenan McCarthy’s carried on the family tradition of arranged marriages.

I’ve watched her interact with them. The men defer to her. They speak to her, joke with her, but they don’t get too close. Not like they would with a woman they claim as their own. Not like they would if she belonged to one of them.

Good. Killing one of them would fuck that alliance to hell.

She shifts on the couch, stretching out, then curling her bare legs beneath her. Then, out of nowhere, I see it—something I wasn’t expecting.

She laughs. Not a forced laugh or the clipped kind you give when you’re keeping up appearances. No. A real one. Her head tilts back, her lips part, and the sound is soft. Unguarded. Real. I can’t remember the last time I heard someone laugh with such abandon, with such wonder and unreserved humor.

Does she laugh like that with the Irish? Jealousy claws at me and my chest tightens. For weeks, I’ve observed her—careful, calculating, always watching her back. But right now, she looks… free.

It quickly evaporates, but a strange part of me wants to hold onto it, gather it in my hands, and tuck it safely into a jar where I could store it out of reach. But just as soon as it comes, it’s gone.

She shakes her head, still grinning at whatever amused her on her phone before she does something that fucking destroys me.

Reaching for a fluffy, blush-colored blanket folded at the foot of the couch, she shakes it open and pulls it over herself. I watch as she nuzzles it like she’s seeking comfort. Like she’s safe.

She rocks herself, and her eyes close shut. I wonder if she’s playing music when I see her swaying slightly. She isn’t on guard but… vulnerable.

For a split second, a voice in the back of my mind whispers—what if she isn’t what they say? What if she isn’t our enemy? What if⁠—

No. I crush the thought as quickly as it comes. The evidence is right in front of my face. She’s a liar. And now she’s mine.

My cock throbs, and my jaw clenches. Safe is a fucking illusion.

She doesn’t get to feel safe. Not when she fucked over my family and would do it again.

Not when she belongs to me.

I tighten my grip around my cock, dragging my fist slow and deliberate, my breath coming harder. I imagine her beneath me, frantic, her breathing desperate as she begs for me. My free hand fists the end of the scarf, pressing it to my face to inhale her scent like an addict. It’s soft between my fingers, softer than I expected. I imagine it still holds her warmth, and I bury my face in it, fisting it tighter. I jerk my cock, groaning against the fabric like a fucking animal.

She should be mine. She should be curled up in my bed, under my sheets… under me. Not playing house with the goddamn fucking Irish.

I watch as she stretches again, takes another bite, and settles under the blanket. She shifts beneath it, burrowing deeper, and I shift, too, my grip tightening. She licks the last of the ice cream off her spoon, and my fist strokes harder. She licks, and I stroke.

Lick.

Stroke.

Lick.

Stroke.

It’s obscene the way we move together, and she has no idea I’m even here. She sighs and bites her lip.

If she knew what she was doing to me, would she slow her tongue? Or would she lick faster, tease me?

I come so damn hard, biting her scarf between my teeth like it’s a fucking bit. I imagine marking her.

She has no fucking idea who I am.

But she will.

She will.

Her guard is slipping.

It’s time.

She’s mine.