4. Anastasia
I’m not taken to Alistair’s manor for the job he wants me to see. Or participate in. My nerves grow in the back of the car while Tony drives. I’ve watched several men die by Alistair’s hand or at his orchestration, but something about this is important enough for him to want me there.
We circle down into an underground garage, where the car stops and I spy another next to us. When Tony opens my door I get out and walk around our black SUV to slide into the small awaiting limo. Across from me is Alistair Lanshall; beside me is a stunning woman.
For a moment, though, it’s just me and him. I stare into his blue eyes with more hatred than I’ve ever felt before. He’s been holding Rhett hostage somewhere all this time. I think a part of me knew—a small, hopeful part that never let Rhett truly die and held onto the belief he was coming home.
I’m filled with more determination than ever to find him, and we will collapse Alistair’s empire. Together.
I keep my expression as cold and indifferent as ever as I drag my attention to his companion in the car with us.
She has long, straight jet-black hair, and her deep green eyes regard me with icy indifference. It’s like she knows every detail about me and has already made up her mind about how she feels. It’s not friendly—that much is clear.
“I’d like you to meet Kenna Radley. She’s my best spy and assassin.” Alistair introduces her.
My eyes rove over her again. I never would have guessed her line of work. She’s dressed in a small black dress with heels I would surely break my neck in. Her bust is pushed up to draw attention, and she wears an array of purple jewels and diamonds around her neck, as well as in her earrings and bracelets. Her makeup is impeccable, with winged eyeliner that gives her piecing irises a feline, seductive edge, and that’s where her power lies—in a look that could make a man beg at her feet and not know what for. Everything about her screams wealth, but also authority.
“Where are we going?” I ask.
“You two are going on a job for me,” Alistair says, crossing his ankle over his knee and reaching for a short glass of whiskey. This car is fancier than some bars I’ve been in.
“I might be underdressed,” I say, admittedly intimidated by Kenna now I know what she’s capable of. Her beauty is merely a mask.
“Yes, you are,” Alistair says in such a way that I know he planned for this. “Before you go, I wanted to tell you myself what will happen.”
“We’re not here?”
“No. The club I need you to get inside is ... off-limits to me.”
“I didn’t think such a place existed.”
He gives a boastful smile. “Few do. However, the owner of this establishment is veryparticular about who he lets in. His name is Silas Balenheizer, the son of a very powerful cartel leader in Miami. Word is he’s thinking of moving to the D.C area, which is already overcrowded.”
I don’t give away any hint of recognition at the name, but my heart speeds up and my hands go clammy at the mention. Matthew Forbes was Damien Balenheizer’s true son, and I’m overcome with nausea that another son of his who grew up by his side could be far fucking worse.
“Does Jacob know he’s in the city?” I ask, trying to remain neutral in my interest.
“I can’t be certain, but this is why we have to move in tonight and gain his interest first before Forthson gets the same idea.”
“What makes you confident he’ll yield leadership to you?”
“I’d like to propose it to him as more of a ... partnership of sorts. If he joins with me, it’ll give him a false sense of authority, while I have the respect and loyalty here that he does not.”
“And if he chooses Jacob?”
“He won’t,” he says, far too lax in his confidence. My skin prickles in anticipation. “I’m confident Damien will be interested in an alliance between his eldest son and the First Daughter of the United States.”
I straighten in my seat and ice douses me.
He can’t mean . . .
He wouldn’t . . .
“You promised I wouldn’t be sold for my body.” My composure is crumbling. My hand reaches for the door, but the lock clicks down as I do and ice spears my gut. “Let me out.” Images of Matthew slam into me. I think I’m going to be sick. I can’t face another son of Damien.
“Let me explain, Anastasia.”
“It seems pretty fucking clear what you want,” I hiss. “And I’m not yours.”
“I thought you understood what you signed up for when I came for you. This doesn’t have to be a resistance.”
“You’re not giving me a choice.”
“Your choice is this: you go into that club tonight and begin to charm Silas. You won’t win him over in a day—it will take weeks, perhaps months—but eventually, he’ll fall for you. In truth, your happiness does mean something to me, and I hope you might fall for him too. After you’re married, Damien will become my ally. It’s the most amicable way.”
Married.
My throat tightens as though he’s wrapped his hand around it.
“You want to sell me.”
“Only if you choose to see it that way.”
He’s a sick, twisted bastard. I’m not surprised, but at the same time, I could never have seen this coming. Did he know about Silas’s possible move here all those months ago? And I was right there, desperate and vulnerable enough, na?ve enough, to take his hand and think I was the only one with a hidden motive.
It takes everything in me to keep my composure. “What if he doesn’t fall for me?” I ask bitterly.
“I don’t operate by what-ifs. You get the job done, or I’ll find another use for you that won’t be so kind.”
My teeth grind.
He says, bored now, “Off you go. Kenna will see to it you’re appropriately dressed for his venue.”
Our doors are opened then, and I linger one last look of simmering hatred on Alistair Lanshall.
I follow Kenna, flanked by two security. We slip into an elevator, and she towers over me in those heels while I wear flat boots. We don’t speak, and I find her silence tense, as if she could snap at me at any moment.
We get to a penthouse hotel room. A bit much to spend on a changing room.
“I don’t know why Alistair thinks someone who barely speaks can pull this off,” Kenna says. Her voice is silky and seductive. I don’t think I’ve ever admired another woman for her voice before. Kenna plants her hand on my shoulder, forcing me to sit in front of a vanity.
I scowl through the reflection. “You haven’t spoken either,” I counter.
“We are not even close to the same. My job requires silence, stillness. Yours, as the president’s daughter, and what you naively signed up for with Alistair, requires the opposite. I don’t know why he’s allowed you to waste all your time fighting when that will never be your role.”
“You’ve been watching me?” I blanch at the thought. For how long? Best spy indeed, as I don’t recall seeing even a glimpse of her at Alistair’s manor.
Kenna doesn’t answer. She folds her arms as two women approach me. One fusses over what to do with my hair; another lays out a box of makeup products. I internally groan as I sit there like a doll for them to dress.
When my hair is freshly curled, my lips a bright red, and my eyes more seductive than I’ve ever seen them, I sigh and stand, led over to the outfit on the bed.
“I’m not wearing that,” I say immediately.
The short slip dress is a deep silk red with a waterfall neckline.
“It matches your hair. What’s wrong with it?” Kenna says, irritated.
I can’t wear color. The thought makes me sick.
“Don’t you have a black dress?” I ask.
“No. Now hurry up—the car is here.”
Unless they forcibly dress me, I won’t put it on. I may know Rhett’s alive, but until we’re together and out of this nightmare, I can’t pretend like I’m fine.
Kenna’s look slices me with ire, but she sighs and reaches for the zip of her dress. My mouth opens to protest, but she’s already shimmying out of it.
“We’re about the same size,” she says, holding it out to me.
In her lacy black underwear, I can’t help but appreciate her physique. She’s beautiful in every imperfection she wears. I notice various lighter scores of raised skin all over her and wonder what each scar is from.
“Thanks,” I mutter.
I’m surprised by her offer, but I assume it’s not through kindness or consideration of my feelings that she’s offering me her dress, but rather that her impatience with me is running dangerously thin.
Kenna takes off her purple jewelry too. While the red dress looks stunning on her, she definitely knows purple and black suit her best.
“Men fuck with their eyes the instant they land on you. Men like Silas are possessive and will decide if you’re worth the pursuit in seconds. The red dress would have been a natural magnet on you. I hope you’ve been working on your seduction as much as your lame left hook.”
I barely get the final piece of diamond jewelry on before she’s marching from the room, and I scramble to follow.
“My left hook isn’t lame,” I say, jogging after her, but the ridiculous heels I’m wearing make it more of a hobble.
“Your round kick is often humorous to watch too,” she adds.
My mouth parts at her jesting, and I realize she must have been watching me many times, maybe every time, to have such opinions on my fighting.
“Why hasn’t he asked you to train me? All I’ve been tried against are men.”
“Because you’d never face someone like me, nor need the kind of skill I have, in the real world. He doesn’t want you for an assassin. He merely indulges your fire to let you release all that rage, and so you won’t be defenseless if you come under attack. You don’t need the finesse and precision knowledge.”
She presses the garage button in the elevator, and I’m starting to be awed by her. Though she still scares the shit out of me.
“I want to learn,” I argue.
She slips her green eyes to me, and I wonder if she’s recalculating the opinions she’s only gathered about me from afar. I don’t think she finds anything admirable in me though.
“You may think you’re part of this underworld, that you know what goes on, but you’ve only caught a glimpse. Protect your innocence, Anastasia. It’s not always ignorance. It’s peace you can’t ever get back if you allow every part of it to be taken.”
I don’t expect her words. They feel like a warning. Wisdom about something she’s already lost. Perhaps she wishes there had been someone to help her.I don’t push for details about her life—we’re barely more than strangers, and I’m quite sure she hates me.
“Just Ana,” I say.
It’s a small token of amity. Even if her vine has thorns, it may be the only thing I can grapple for the composure to face Silas.