Chapter 33
Izzy
“You want to kill him at a charity gala?”
Sergei’s voice cuts through the war room—his office, but that’s what it’s become over the past two days. Maps, surveillance photos, Wesley’s intel reports spread across every surface like we’re planning a military operation.
Which, I suppose, we are.
“I want to end him where he feels safest.” I tap the blueprint of The Plaza’s ballroom and point to the Lighthouse Foundation gala marked in red on the calendar. “Surrounded by his peers. His protectors. All those society vultures who’ve been covering for him for years.”
“That’s not killing him. That’s spectacle.
” He’s leaning against the desk; his arms crossed over his chest in that way that makes his shoulders look obscene.
Black t-shirt stretched tight, tattoos visible on his forearms, silver threading through his dark hair catching the lamplight. “Spectacle gets you arrested.”
“Only if they can prove it was murder.” I move closer, invading his space because I can’t help myself lately. Because the heat between us is a living thing that demands proximity. “What if it looks like an accident? Or self-defense? Or—”
“Or we’re overthinking this.” His hand finds my hip, pulling me between his legs.
The casual possessiveness makes my stomach flip.
“Wesley can just send everything to Detective Fraser. Audio recordings. Financial records. Your mother’s confession.
Matthew’s finished. We don’t need to get our hands dirty. ”
“Yes, we do.” I press my palms against his chest, feeling his heartbeat thunder beneath the thin fabric. “Cops mean trials. Appeals. Years of legal games while Matthew sits in minimum security, playing tennis. I want him to know it was me. I want him to see my face when his world burns.”
Sergei’s grey eyes darken, pupils blown wide with something that might be concern or desire or both. “You sound exactly like me ten years ago. Before I tried to go straight.”
“Maybe I learned from the best.”
“I taught you to protect yourself. Not to hunt.” His hands slide up my back, tracing my spine through my silk blouse. “There’s a difference, kotyonok.”
“Is there?” I tilt my head, studying the sharp line of his jaw, the scar bisecting his left eyebrow. “You protected your daughter by eliminating threats. I’m doing the same thing. Matthew killed my father. He’ll keep trying to kill me until one of us is dead. I’m just choosing which one.”
He’s quiet for a long moment, his hands still mapping my body like he’s memorizing every curve. Then his mouth curves into something too dark to be called a smile.
“You really have become dangerous.”
“Good.” I lean closer, lips hovering near his. “Match me or get out of my way.”
The challenge hangs between us. It’s electric and undeniable. Then he’s kissing me—hard, claiming, the kind of kiss that tastes like violence and promises. I melt into him because resisting Sergei is like resisting gravity. Impossible and pointless.
“The gala’s in five days,” he says when we pull back. “That’s not enough time to plan something that won’t get you killed or arrested.”
“Then we have five days to work fast.” I step back, needing distance before I drag him to the floor and forget about murder entirely. “Wesley’s already on it. Security layouts, guest lists, Matthew’s schedule. He’ll have blind spots we can exploit.”
“Blind spots.” Sergei straightens, running a hand through his hair in frustration. “You’re talking about assassination at a charity event with five hundred witnesses.”
“I’m talking about justice.” I move back to the desk, studying the blueprints. “Matthew’s going to be there. Cal Reznick, too, probably. They know we have the evidence. They’ll be desperate, making mistakes. We use that.”
“Desperate men are the most dangerous kind.”
“Then it’s lucky I married the most dangerous man in New York.” I glance at him over my shoulder, catching the heat that flashes across his face. “You’ve done this before. Eliminated targets in public settings. Made it look natural.”
“That was different.”
“How?”
“I wasn’t in love with my employer.”
The room goes silent. I turn slowly, searching his face for the joke, the deflection, anything except the truth burning in his storm-cloud eyes.
He didn’t mean it like that. He meant caring. Attachment. Not—
“Sergei—”
“Forget I said that.” He’s already moving toward the door, putting distance between us. “We need to focus. If we’re really doing this—if you’re set on confronting Matthew at the gala—then we need a better plan than ‘show up and improvise.’”
He’s running. From the admission, from whatever’s building between us that we’re both too scared to name. I should let him. Should focus on the mission, on ending Matthew before he ends me.
But I can’t.
“Hey.” I catch his wrist, pulling him back. His pulse hammers beneath my fingers. “Don’t do that. Don’t say something real and then hide from it.”
“It wasn’t—”
“Yes, it was.” I step closer, close enough to feel the heat radiating off his body. “And for the record? I’m terrified, too. Of this. Of what it means. Of how much I need you when I swore I’d never need anyone.”
His hand comes up, cupping my jaw with devastating gentleness. “This wasn’t the deal. The marriage. It was supposed to be business.”
“When did it stop being business for you?”
“The night you helped me hide a body without flinching.” His thumb traces my lower lip. “Or maybe before that. When you proposed this insane arrangement and I said yes, even though every instinct screamed that it was a trap.”
“Some trap.” My hands slide up his chest, feeling the hammer of his heart. “You got a wife who shoots back and a daughter who has two parents who’d burn the world down for her.”
“And you got a killer who can’t promise you safety. Can’t promise you normal. Can’t promise anything, except violence and danger and—”
I kiss him. Cut off the self-loathing with my mouth, pouring every complicated feeling I can’t name into the press of lips and tongue. He responds immediately, his hands sliding into my hair, tilting my head back to deepen the kiss.
This isn’t gentle. Isn’t soft. It’s need and fear and the acknowledgment that we’ve crossed a line we can’t uncross.
When we break apart, his forehead rests against mine.
“We should talk about this,” he murmurs. “About what we are. What this means.”
“After.” I pull back enough to meet his eyes. “After Matthew’s handled. After the gala. After we’re safe and Mila’s safe and I can think past surviving to the next day.”
“After,” he agrees, though something flickers in his expression. Disappointment, maybe. Or understanding that some conversations are too heavy for right now.
The office door bursts open. Mila appears, puzzle piece in hand, triumph written across her small face. “I found the corner! The one that’s been missing for three days!”
The moment shatters. Sergei steps back, composure sliding into place like armor. “That’s great, ptichka. Show me.”
She bounds over, chattering about the puzzle’s difficulty, oblivious to the tension crackling between her father and me. I watch them together—his hand gentle on her dark hair, his smile soft in a way that’s only for her—and something in my chest cracks.
This is what I’m fighting for. Not just revenge. Not just the inheritance. This.
This family that shouldn’t work but does. This life built on fake marriage and real bullets. This dangerous, complicated, perfect thing that started as survival and became something I can’t name yet.
My phone buzzes. Wesley.
Got the security footage you requested. Matthew visited three different weapons dealers this week. He’s planning something.
I show Sergei the text. His jaw tightens.
“He might not be waiting for the gala,” he says quietly, steering Mila back toward the door. “Go finish your puzzle, sweetheart. I need to talk to Izzy.”
She leaves, the piece clutched like treasure. The second the door closes, Sergei’s on his phone, dialing Andrei.
“I need eyes on Matthew Ashford. Twenty-four-seven. If he moves, I want to know before he takes a breath.” Pause. “Because he just bought enough firepower to start a war, and my wife’s the target.”
My wife. The words shouldn’t send heat spiraling through me, but they do.
He hangs up, grey eyes finding mine. “We’re moving up the timeline. Can’t wait for the gala, if he’s planning to hit us first.”
“What are you thinking?”
“I’m thinking we stop playing defense.” He moves to the desk, pulling up a different map—Matthew’s brownstone on the Upper East Side. “We go to him. Tonight. End this before he gets the chance to make his move.”
“That’s—” I search for words. “That’s actually insane. Break into his house? Kill him on his own turf?”
“You wanted him to know it was you. Wanted to see his face when his world ended.” Sergei’s smile is cold. Lethal. “What’s more personal than showing up in his home?”
My pulse kicks up, adrenaline already flooding my system. “Wesley would have to disable the security. We’d need a way in that doesn’t trigger alarms—”
“Already thinking three steps ahead. That’s my girl.”
The praise makes me warm, a dangerous combination when we’re planning murder.
“Andrei can position men around the perimeter,” I continue, mind racing. “Make sure no one interrupts. We go in quietly, handle Matthew, make it look like—what? Suicide? Home invasion?”
“Suicide.” Sergei pulls up crime scene photos on his laptop—old Bratva hits staged to look self-inflicted. “Gun in his hand, note confessing to Richard’s murder. Guilt finally caught up with him.”
“That’s—” I stare at the photos, at the clinical efficiency of death. “No… That’s too perfect. Too poetic, even. I want it public. His reputation is everything to him, and I want him to face public humiliation.”
“As you wish.” He closes the laptop. “But we need leverage. Something to make sure he doesn’t fight back. Something he values more than his own life.”
“He doesn’t value anything, except power.”
“Everyone values something.” Sergei’s eyes meet mine. “We just have to find his pressure point.”
My phone buzzes again. Another text from Wesley: Found something. Matthew’s been wiring money to an offshore account. Not his usual ones. This one’s newer. Personal.
I show Sergei. “Hidden assets? Emergency fund?”
“Or blackmail.” He’s already texting Wesley back, demanding account details. “If Matthew’s paying someone to stay quiet, that’s leverage we can use.”
“And if it’s not blackmail? If it’s just money he’s hiding from the investigation?”
“Then we take it anyway.” His smile is sharp. Predatory. “Hit him in the wallet before we hit him with a bullet. Make him feel the loss before he dies.”
The ruthlessness should disturb me. Should make me question what we’ve become, this partnership built on violence and revenge.
But all I feel is satisfaction that someone finally sees Matthew for what he is. And has the teeth to do something about it.
“At the gala, then.” I move closer, hands finding his chest again because I can’t seem to stop touching him lately. “We end Matthew Ashford.”
“At the gala.” His hands slide to my waist, pulling me flush against him. “But first, you eat. You rest. You prepare mentally for what comes next. Because once we do this, kotyonok, there’s no going back.”
“I crossed that line the day I proposed to you.”
“No.” His forehead drops to mine. “You crossed it the day you pulled the trigger to protect Mila. The day you became exactly what they tried to destroy. Dangerous. Powerful. Mine.”
“Yours,” I echo. Testing the word. Owning it. “And you’re mine.”
“We’ll kill him together. Equal partners.” He kisses me—soft this time, tender, a promise wrapped in violence. “The Wolf and his queen.”
“I prefer ‘The Wolf and the woman who shoots back.’“
His laugh rumbles through both of us. “Even better.”
We spend the next three hours planning for the gala. Everything falls into place with terrifying efficiency.
When we finish for the day, I move into his space, hands sliding up his chest. “Promise me something.”
“Anything.”
“That if this goes wrong—if Matthew gets the drop on us, on me—you save yourself. You get out. You protect Mila.” My voice cracks. “She needs you more than I do.”
“Wrong.” His hands frame my face, forcing me to meet his eyes. “She needs both of us. And I’m not losing either of you. Not tonight, not ever. We’ll get through this together. And we’ll come out on the other side together. That’s the deal.”
“That wasn’t the original deal.”
“The original deal died the moment this stopped being fake.” He kisses me hard, claiming, a promise and a threat. “Now it’s real. You’re real. We’re real. And real means I’d burn the world down before I let him touch you.”
The words settle between us. They feel like truth. Like something worth surviving for.