Feral King (Silver Fox Daddies #1)

Chapter 1

LYRA

Every woman in this city knows the rule: don't catch a Volkov's attention.

So of course, tonight, I dressed to be seen.

I glance down at my ring finger, now bare. The engagement ring that used to sit there bought me three months' rent at a pawn shop this morning.

Best deal I ever made.

The pawnbroker asked if I was sure. Twice. Like he'd seen a hundred women march in with a ring and march back the next morning, crying, asking for it back.

Not this woman.

Keep the receipt, buddy.

I didn't know it yet, but tonight was going to cost me more than the ring.

I step out of the elevator and into the grand foyer of The Meridian. Crystal chandeliers scatter light across marble floors as a string quartet plays Debussy in the east corner. Waitstaff dressed all in black zip here and there like silent shadows.

Money. Everywhere.

Seven years ago I got off a bus from New Orleans with two suitcases and a scholarship letter, and rooms like this made my palms sweat. They still do. I've just gotten better at hiding it.

My dress is emerald silk, cut on the bias for a woman with actual hips and zero interest in apologizing for them. The neckline doesn't apologize for a damn thing either. It cost more than my monthly rent, which, given recent events, is really saying something.

My feet already hurt. Worth it bitch.

Alexander spent two years trying to teach me to hate this body. Diets he'd suggest over dinner. Mirrors he'd stand me in front of. It took him two years to build that cage.

It took me three weeks to burn it down.

Heads turn as I enter.

Let them.

I paid enough for this dress that staring should honestly be included.

And I need tonight to go well, because the email from Julian Volkov, the mysterious CEO back after three years of silence, said I'd be paid for my time. Dad's insurance premiums are due in nine days. His heart surgery is coming, and my parents' retirement fund wouldn't cover the anesthesia.

My parents spent their lives taking care of me. It's my turn. That's just how love works where I come from.

I try not to notice the stares. But I can feel the ripple, the pause in conversation.

"That's Lyra Thibodeaux, right?"

"I thought she quit."

I straighten my shoulders. Let them talk. Once your breakup makes the society pages, embarrassment loses its grip on you. It's almost freeing.

Almost.

I lift my chin and walk in like I own the place.

In a way, that's true. Every decision that made this place what it is tonight carries my fingerprints. The florals. The seating chart. The AV setup, even the redesigned Volkov Foundation crest.

I earned this job under my mother's maiden name, aced three interviews as plain Lyra Broussard so nobody could say I was hired as the boss's fiancée. It's the one thing Alexander could never take from me.

This evening belongs to me.

That's when I feel it. Somewhere in this glittering room, someone is watching me. Not the way the gossips are watching. Something steadier. Heavier.

I scan the crowd and find nothing. Flattering or creepy. In my experience it's usually both.

"Lyra?"

I turn to see Margaret Chen from the Children's Harbor Alliance coming toward me with a champagne flute and an expression that's equal parts delighted and confused.

"God, it's really you? We all heard you left the company."

"I did." I keep my tone even, like my presence here is no big deal. Even though it most definitely is. "But this event is still my baby. The CEO invited me personally."

"Thank God. Your replacement has been an absolute disaster. Sophia sat a vegan ambassador in front of a lamb shank at the keynote table."

"That sounds about right." Sophia Harrington. My college roommate. The girl who held my hair back freshman year, now dating my ex-fiancé. Has been since college, apparently. I found out three weeks ago, along with the rest of Manhattan.

Margaret's eyes widen, just slightly, like she hadn't expected me to say it out loud.

"Well, we're glad you're back," Margaret says, squeezing my arm. "Truly."

"How's the Harbor doing? Did the Delgado siblings get placed together?"

Margaret blinks, caught off guard, her mouth parting a beat before she recovers. Her face softens. "You remember their names."

Of course I remember their names. That's the whole point of the chandeliers and the seating charts: what the checks written in this room do after the lights go dark. Three kids who lost everything get to stay in the same house.

The weight of that stare finds me again, right between my shoulder blades. I resist the urge to turn around and lose the thread of what Margaret's saying.

When she excuses herself to greet a donor, I drift toward a centerpiece that's tilted off-axis. Old habits. I'm reaching for it when the feeling of being watched sharpens into certainty.

I turn.

Oh.

Oh no.

Across the ballroom, past the champagne tower and the knot of investors near the bar, a man stands with the prowess of someone who doesn't need to move an inch to command a room.

Tall. Broad. The kind of dangerous that makes smart women do very stupid things, and I say that as a smart woman currently considering several.

His silver hair is cut close at the temples, his beard trimmed with precision. He's wearing a dark navy suit, his crisp white shirt opened one button beyond what's considered proper.

One button. That's all it is. I don't know why one button is doing this to me.

And he isn't glancing at me the way the rest of the room has been. He's watching me the way you watch something you've already decided about. I'd bet the dress he's been doing it since I stepped off that elevator.

So I don't look away. I hold his stare across the whole glittering ballroom and lift my glass half an inch.

If he wanted a woman who flinches, he's been watching the wrong one.

As he moves through the crowd toward me, my skin breaks out in goosebumps. Without breaking his stride, he takes two champagne flutes from the tray of a passing waiter.

The waiter goes still. Doesn't look up.

The crowd parts for him. Not politely. Carefully. Two security guards near the terrace doors straighten their spines as he passes, and neither of them will look directly at him.

At that moment, I realize who he is.

Julian Volkov.

He's been away for three years, during which time Alexander barely mentioned him. He became more like a legend than a real person. The Volkov family Bigfoot, if Bigfoot wore Italian tailoring.

But he's not a legend. He's here, and he's moving right toward me.

And I have about four seconds to remember how to be a person.

"You must be Lyra Thibodeaux." His voice is low and unhurried, carrying a faint Russian accent softened by decades of living in America.

I feel that voice somewhere behind my sternum, which is new information about myself I didn't ask for.

He offers me a glass. "I've been looking forward to meeting you. "

"And you must be Julian Volkov." I take the champagne, knowing two drinks back to back could be a very bad idea. I take a sip anyway. Risk management has never been my strong suit; ask my former fiancé. "You're taller than your brother."

Taller than your brother. That's what I lead with. Fantastic work, Lyra.

His eyes flash with amusement. They're gray. Not a poetic gray. Just gray, and completely locked on me, and somehow that's worse.

"We are different in several respects."

"So far I'm counting height and punctuality," I add. "You're only three years late to your own company."

Something dangerously close to a smile tugs at his mouth. I want to see the whole thing. That's a problem. "You have to be bold in my line of work. It's a useful skill, especially when speaking to women."

"Then let me save you some boldness. You've been staring at me since the elevator." I sip my champagne. "Most men at least pretend to look at the ice sculpture."

"I don't pretend," he says. "And the ice sculpture isn't the most interesting thing in the room."

I feel my cheeks flush.

I'm standing in front of a man who's not just the CEO of Volkov Industries, but also the pakhan of the Volkov Bratva, if the rumors are true.

They say the company is a cover for a Russian criminal syndicate that exists in shadows.

Alexander had always been coy about the subject, and I was always too scared to press.

"Your gala is impressive," he says. "The foundation hasn't seen this level of attendance in years."

"It's your gala, technically. It's got your name on it."

“The work is yours." He holds my gaze. He doesn't blink enough. It bothers me. Just not in the way it's supposed to.

I notice the tattoos sneaking out beneath his cuff. Dark ink, deliberate patterns. Bratva markings, if I had to guess.

"I read your proposal for the children's literacy initiative," he says. "The one Alexander shelved."

My spine straightens before I can stop it.

That proposal took me four months. Reading programs in six foster group homes, books that kids actually get to keep, tutors paid a real wage. There's a boy named Marcus at the one in Queens who read his first full chapter book at eleven and looked at me like he'd stolen fire.

"He said it wasn't cost-effective."

"Alexander wouldn't know cost-effective if it paid his bar tab," Julian says, his gaze never wavering. "I'd like to revisit it. With you."

And that's the moment he gets dangerous. Not the tattoos, not the security guards who won't meet his eyes. This. A man who read my shelved proposal and leads with it.

"Mr. Volkov..."

"Julian,” he insists.

"Julian, I don't work for the company anymore."

"I'm aware of that," he says and takes a sip of champagne. "That's a problem I intend to fix."

"I'm not looking to be fixed. Or hired out of pity."

"Pity." He says the word like it's a mildly interesting insect. "I don't feel pity, Lyra. I read your event files. All of them. Four years of flawless execution under a name you borrowed so no one could accuse you of being handed anything." He pauses. "Broussard. Your mother's, yes?"