Chapter 9
Chapter Nine
Xeniya Morozova
“Wait, Keira, can I speak with you alone for a moment?”
I froze in my tracks, one hand holding the door open as live music filtered into the private room.
“Do you think that is the most appropriate request?” Cormac asked, stopping before he left.
Severin smirked and ran a finger along the rim of his glass. He still leaned against the fireplace like a preening peacock. “I do believe Keira is in her thirties and not at all a virgin.”
I let out a huff but waved Cormac off. “It’s fine. It might do the Russian boy some good to learn how feisty and terrifying an Irish redhead can be.”
“Boy?” Severin’s voice held more amusement than offense.
Cormac sighed. “If you’re sure.”
“I am.”
Neeve shot me a concerned look and squeezed my shoulder on the way out. Callum just grunted and shook his head, and the Russians didn’t care what their Pakhan had in store for me.
“If you think choosing me as your bride gives you permission to touch me, you’re going to be severely disappointed.” I crossed my arms and stood in the doorway, holding the door open with my shoulder as the last stragglers left.
Severin chuckled. “I didn’t ask you to stay behind so I could grope you.” An eyebrow lifted in amusement. “ Although, if you do want me to seduce you, by all means... I will.”
Fury spiked in my blood. That easily? That quickly? I shouldn’t be surprised. He was a manwhore before we ever fucked, and he had already replaced me so easily. So effortlessly brokered another marriage alliance.
If I thought the reason Severin hadn’t married after all these years was because he somehow still had feelings for me, I was mistaken. He probably spent the last thirteen years sowing his wild oats, and fucking any woman who would let him before a mafia marriage shackled him.
Lucky for me, that would never happen.
I was going to brutally murder this man before he had the chance to marry anyone.
Especially not me. At least not as Keira.
“I asked you to stay because I hear you’re the best hacker in the Irish mafia.” He took a step forward and set his whiskey on the coffee table. “I would like to use your skill set.”
My pulse ticked in my neck, and I eyed him with suspicion. “If you want to use my skills, you’ll have to pay me, and I am not cheap.”
“I wouldn’t expect you to be,” he said, taking another three steps toward me. “Please, close the door so I can tell you my proposition in private. This discussion is for our ears only.”
“Oh?” Now, that had me intrigued.
I stepped into the room and let the door click shut behind me.
“There are snakes and rats in the Russian mafia—people hiding secrets, moving money, and burying it—and I want you to find them.”
“You want me to be your rat catcher?”
“Yes.”
I hummed. Interested. Far, far too interested.
His attention sharpened like a blade. “I want you to hack into our systems and find everything.”
Ice slid down my spine, vertebrae by vertebrae. I did not trust Severin, and this request felt too good to be true. “That is a lot of trust to place in me.”
The corner of his mouth lifted, but he didn’t respond.
I walked farther into the room and sat on the couch near him. I didn’t think it was a good idea to have this conversation on my feet. My limbs already felt like jelly around him, and the last thing I wanted was for him to notice me sway or tremble—or worse, my condition. I needed to ground myself.
He followed suit, sitting in the chair beside the couch, and taking his whiskey with him.
I slowly crossed one of my legs over the other and leaned toward him. “You’re asking me to do this because you don’t trust your men.”
He tilted his head slightly.
“Even the Morozovs?” I asked. “Or perhaps, especially the Morozovs?”
This would be an interesting turn of events, because from everything I had heard, the Morozovs were some of his closest confidants—which was why I had grown wary of them.
“Yes.” Severin adjusted his cufflinks with deliberate calm, his gaze locked on me.
“You don’t trust them?”
“I don’t fully trust anyone.”
I tapped my fingernails against the armrest. “That’s sad.” I leaned in closer, my gaze dancing with his, the tension between us pulling taut like a bowstring. “What if I choose to hack into your systems and destroy you?”
His thumb brushed his lower lip as he thought. I would have given anything to be inside his head in that moment. “I am not afraid of you.”
I let out a short laugh, my knee drifting against his for a moment. “Maybe you should be,” I said in a sassy tone. I bit my bottom lip and watched his gaze drop to my mouth. “You trust a female hacker?”
“Yes,” he said coldly, his eyes narrowing and cutting into me.
I ignored his change in emotional temperature and moved us back to the heart of the conversation. “Would you like me to start looking into the money first or the surveillance? And is there anything in particular you’d like me to look for?”
“Start with the money.” He reclined into his chair with a calculated dominance. “Since we’re engaged, you have the perfect excuse to come to my compound and sneak around my offices. We can pretend to be courting—”
“What, are we stuck in medieval times?”
Dark amusement ghosted across his lips. “Considering the marriage practices of the mafia? Possibly.”
I smiled back. “Touché. So when would you like me to come over and pretend I want to know you better?”
“You could also try actually to get to know me better. We’re going to get married.”
Something tightened beneath my ribs. It was another reminder of how easily he could marry another woman. Because while I had thought about him nearly every day since I was kidnapped and trafficked, he clearly had not.
But why would he?
Get rid of her.
He had sold me to be raped, branded, tortured, and murdered. Too bad the last one didn’t stick—too bad for all of them because I was vengeance, and I was coming for them all.
But I planted my feet, rolled my shoulders back, and pulled my mask on harder. Keira was fun. Flirty, witty, sexual. She would not growl or glare at Severin. She would play with him.
So play I did.
“Now, why would I want to do that? It would be so dull to know one’s husband.” I wiggled my nose and ran my fingernails suggestively along the armrest.
He coughed, slightly ruffled, his eyes tracking the tips of my fake nails. I hoped he was imagining me clawing at his back or stroking a far more sensitive part of his anatomy. “Friday would be a good day to stop by, and I’ll show you around.”
“All right, but I want a million dollars.”
He coughed again, taking me in, calculating. “Fine. I guess you’re going to be an expensive wife.”
I let out a quiet, husky laugh. “I absolutely will be.”
It would be expensive. I was going to take everything from him, just like they had taken everything from me.