12. Raphael #2
“Mr. Antonov.” The detective approached me, a woman in her fifties with sharp eyes and the kind of skepticism that came from decades of dealing with people who thought money placed them above the law. “I’m Detective Marsh. I understand your wife owns this hotel?”
“She does.” The word still sat strange in my mouth. Wife. Wrong and right at the same time. A label that didn’t capture what we were. Enemies forced into alliance. Strangers sharing a bed. Two people circling each other like wolves unsure whether to fight or mate.
“And your reason for being here?”
“I was informed of the situation and came to assess security.”
Detective Marsh made a note, her pen moving in quick, economical strokes. “Your security team was on site before we arrived. They’ve been thorough.”
The way she said it made clear she didn’t appreciate Petrov’s men securing the scene before her officers could contaminate it with their standard procedures. I didn’t apologize.
“We’ll need to speak with everyone who had access to this area,” she continued. “Your security team included. And I’ll need to interview your wife.”
“Of course. Petrov will coordinate with your officers. My wife will make herself available at her convenience, not yours.”
Her eyes narrowed, but she didn’t argue. She had dealt with men like me before. Knew when a battle wasn’t worth fighting.
I left her to her work and found Viktor waiting in the hallway, his expression unreadable.
“The Diamantis clan,” I said quietly. “They’ve been probing hotel security for weeks. Ever since the wedding announcement. Have Dmitri pull everything we have on their movements.”
Viktor nodded slowly. “You think this is vampire business?”
“Someone killed a woman in my wife’s hotel.
Someone who had inside access.” I thought of the Pakhan’s scrutiny, his eyes on every move I made since the punishment.
Long enough for one of the Bratva’s rivals to plant someone inside?
“If anyone is making a move on what’s mine, I want to know about it. ”
“I’ll have Dmitri start pulling intel.”
A door opened at the end of the hallway. Lena.
She walked toward the commotion. Spine straight.
Her hair was pulled back in a knot so tight it must have hurt, and she had buttoned her blazer all the way up as if the extra layer could shield her from what was coming.
A staff member stopped her halfway down the hall, tears streaming, and Lena took the woman’s hands in hers.
Spoke quietly. Nodded. Let herself be hugged before gently stepping back and continuing toward the crime scene tape.
Our eyes met across the distance.
My wolf went still. Every thought in my head quieted, every instinct narrowing to the singular awareness of her.
The harsh overhead lights caught the gold in her hair.
The rigid set of her spine spoke of control held by force of will.
And underneath the professional mask, I could see the cracks.
The tightness around her eyes. The way her fingers curled at her sides.
I could see the purple shadows under her eyes, the evidence that she had slept as little as I had.
I could see the way her lips parted slightly, the quick rise of her chest as her breathing quickened.
I could smell her even from here, that sweet scent overlaid with the sharp edge of stress and a thread of the same confusion I had seen in her eyes when she had left my bedroom.
She didn’t know what we were anymore. Neither did I.
She looked away first.
I watched her approach Detective Marsh, watched her shake the woman’s hand and start answering questions.
Her voice carried across the hallway, steady and professional, betraying none of the woman who had ridden me into oblivion twelve hours ago while using my body to burn away her fear.
This was the legacy keeper. The woman who had inherited an empire and refused to let it crumble.
My chest ached with pride. And underneath that, a fierce, possessive certainty that this woman was worth everything I had done and would do.
Michael appeared at her side, one hand settling on her shoulder. She didn’t flinch. Didn’t pull away the way she had when I had tried to touch her face last night. She leaned into it, just slightly, accepting the comfort he offered.
My wolf coiled tighter.
I forced the reaction down, but the bitter taste of it lingered. She would take comfort from him. From a human who meant nothing, who had no claim on her, who didn’t lie awake at night tracking her footsteps through the house. But not from me. Never from me.
The rational part of my brain reminded me that Michael was useful. Competent. That she needed someone watching her back when I couldn’t be there. The wolf didn’t care about rational. The wolf only knew that another male was touching what was ours, and she was letting him.
I turned away from the scene and found work to do.
The investigation continued through the morning and into the afternoon.
I commandeered a private office near the hotel’s administrative wing.
Viktor and Dmitri would coordinate our parallel investigation while the police did their work.
The room was small, windowless, meant for storage rather than strategy.
But it had a door that locked and walls thick enough to muffle conversation. That was all I needed.
Dmitri had arrived within the hour, barely contained violence simmering beneath his skin as he absorbed the situation.
He had stood in the doorway for a long moment, nostrils flaring, reading the scents that still clung to me from the crime scene.
His eyes had flashed amber before he had forced them back to human brown.
“Let me hunt,” he had snarled. “I’ll find whoever did this. I’ll tear them apart.”
“Not yet.” I had placed a hand on his shoulder, feeling the tension coiled in his muscles.
His wolf practically vibrated with the need to act, to chase, to rend and tear.
I understood the impulse. My own wolf strained against my control with every breath.
“We don’t know what we’re dealing with. Stand down until we have a target. ”
“Someone killed a woman in our territory.” Dmitri’s voice dropped to something close to a growl. “In the Vor’s mate’s hotel. That’s an attack on the pack.”
He wasn’t wrong. In wolf terms, Lena was mine, and everything she owned fell under my protection.
The pack’s territory extended wherever its alpha claimed dominion.
Wherever I claimed dominion. An attack on her hotel was an attack on me, on us.
The pack would see it that way. The Pakhan would see it that way.
And the Pakhan was already watching. Already measuring whether I had become weak.
“Which is exactly why we need to be certain before we act,” I said. “One wrong move, one innocent target, and the Pakhan will have the proof he needs that I’ve lost control. Find me a target, Dmitri. A real one. Then you can hunt.”
He had obeyed, but barely. That was Dmitri.
Young, fierce, loyal to a fault. A weapon to be wielded carefully, aimed only when I was certain of the direction.
Point him at the wrong target and the collateral damage would be catastrophic.
Point him at the right one and nothing in this world could stop him.
Reports flowed in through the afternoon. I sat with Viktor reviewing the security logs, cross-referencing access records with staff schedules, looking for the pattern that would reveal our killer.
No forced entry. The security cameras in that corridor had been malfunctioning for three days. Stephanie had told a coworker she was meeting someone after her shift ended, but hadn’t said who.
“The cameras,” Viktor said quietly. “Someone disabled them. Someone who knew exactly which ones to target.”
I nodded. Not a random failure. Deliberate sabotage. Whoever had done this had planned it, had prepared the ground days in advance.
All of it pointed to someone inside. Someone who knew the hotel’s blind spots.
Viktor’s intel confirmed what I had suspected. The Diamantis vampires had been watching the hotel for weeks. One of their men had been spotted near the loading dock last month. Another had applied for a housekeeping job just before the wedding.
“They’re probing,” Viktor said. “Looking for weaknesses.”
“Then they found one.” I thought of Stephanie’s body, the personal nature of the kill. “Someone they turned. Someone already on the inside.”
It made sense. The vampires had been circling since I had claimed Lena, looking for leverage. If they’d gotten to a staff member, convinced them to work as an asset, the hotel sabotage could all be their doing. Everything from the dead dog, to the heating failure, to the blood in the fountain.
Stephanie might have discovered their plant. Threatened to expose them. And been silenced for it.
“I want everyone on this,” I said. “Every piece of intel we can gather. If they’re responsible, we’ll find the connection.”
Viktor nodded, but his expression made me pause. A tightness around his eyes that I had learned to recognize over fifteen years of working together. “What?”
“The Pakhan called this morning. Before the murder.”
My teeth clenched. “What did he want?”
“To remind you that attachments make wolves vulnerable.” Viktor’s voice was carefully neutral, the way it always was when he delivered news he knew I wouldn’t want to hear. “And that his patience is not infinite.”
The Pakhan’s ultimatum had been clear. Kill Lena or marry her. Prove the marriage makes you stronger, not weaker. Prove she won’t compromise your usefulness to the pack. I had bought time with a wedding ring and a contract, but the reprieve wouldn’t last forever.
A murder in her hotel didn’t exactly support my case.