Chapter 19
Chapter Nineteen
Xeniya Morozova
Itapped my pencil on my desk in my Abnormal Psychology class.
I had my laptop with me, but I preferred to write notes by hand.
It helped me process and memorize the material.
Abnormal Psych was not part of my major, but I had to take fifty non-cybersecurity credits, and I thought it would be useful to study the human brain.
My study mate, Chadwick Holloway, the governor of Georgia’s son, sat by my side, and, of course, he went by Chad.
As the stereotype suggested, Chad was conventionally attractive and confident to the point of arrogance.
He was also far too touchy for his own good, but I was trying to be a normal girl, so I didn’t say anything.
Old Xeniya would have punched him… But I was learning civilians didn’t punch people for the slightest infraction.
Plus, it felt good to be the center of a “normal” guy’s attention. I didn’t have to worry that he might threaten me with a knife or a gun if I pissed him off, which had happened on far too many occasions as a member of the mafia.
No. Chad was normal—so tediously, boringly normal.
So I flirted back, because what harm could come of it?
Rachelle, my sorority sister, sat on my other side. She leaned in and said, “Do you think all serial killers have antisocial personality disorder?”
I shot her a glance out of the corner of my eye, trying not to let the professor notice us talking.
I knew many, many killers who didn’t have a personality disorder.
It was just part of their job. And I had killed multiple times, and I didn’t think I had antisocial personality disorder.
But I couldn’t say any of that, so I settled on, “Probably not all of them.”
The next thirty minutes of class passed with very few interruptions, and when the professor dismissed us, I gathered my notebooks and backpack.
I swung my bag over my shoulder and turned to say goodbye to Chad.
I had to rush to my next class all the way across campus.
Well, technically, it was my lab, which lasted four hours and ended at 9 p.m.
I preferred late classes because I liked to stay up late. I rarely went to bed before 3 a.m., and now that I was in college and could make my own schedule, and I made sure none of my classes were before 11 a.m.
“Oh, your necklace,” Chad said, leaning in and fixing the chain, which had gotten stuck under the strap of my bag. As he did, he stepped in close to me, his fingers intentionally grazing first the column of my neck and then the upper curve of my breast.
I stilled beneath his touch. Was I supposed to feel something? Because he was basically caressing me, and I felt nothing.
The hair on the nape of my neck stood up, and for some reason, it felt like someone was staring at me.
I glanced around, but found nothing. It was just my hyperactive imagination.
I swallowed, forced a tight smile, and turned back to Chad. “Thank you.” It came out breathless and far raspier than I intended. It sounded sexual. The absolute opposite of what I meant. “I have my lab.” I looked over my shoulder as if my lab were standing right behind me.
Chad’s fingers were still hovering over my chest. “See you tomorrow at study group.”
“Yes, tomorrow.” The muscles in my shoulders were stone-tight, and I rolled them to release the tension. The movement caused my breasts to bounce. His eyes locked onto them like a predator honing in on its prey. “Anyway, I have to go, or I’m going to be late.”
“Of course,” he said, running two fingers along a strand of my hair. Right. He was still touching me.
“Well, then, bye.” And I ran out of there as fast as I could.
Rachelle bounced on the balls of her feet, running after me, and hit me in the shoulder. “Oh, he is so into you.”
I know. I sucked in a slow breath. It should have felt good, but it just didn’t. I’d only found two guys attractive in my life, and unfortunately for me, they were both in the Bratva and worse… they were brothers.
Brothers.
Oh, God, I was going to hell.
The only person besides Severin who ever tempted me was his half-brother, Mikhail. I still thought about the night he had danced with me when I was sixteen. He was twenty-two at the time, and it was highly inappropriate to have a crush, but there was something about him.
And I couldn’t deny that I felt something.
But perhaps it was because they looked so much alike, except for the hair. Mikhail had the Volkov blond hair, while Severin’s hair was dark brown with beautiful honey undertones. Everything else about their looks was nearly identical.
Their personalities, though, were vastly different. Severin was wild, chaotic, and unhinged, while Mikhail was far more serious. He acted as if he carried the weight of the world on his shoulders.
“You’re not excited about it?” Rachelle asked. “He’s one of the hottest and richest guys at UChicago.”
I forced a happy mask onto my face. “Of course, I’m excited. It’s Chad Holloway; any girl would feel lucky if he was interested in her.”
Rachelle’s eyebrows crinkled together. “It doesn’t seem like you’re all that happy about it.”
I bit my lip. “It’s complicated. There’s—” I looked out at the trees that stretched across the quad. It was winter quarter, and the campus was covered in a light dusting of snow. “I’m just not good at dating.”
“I am pretty sure that boy doesn’t want to date you. He wants to fuck you.”
I nodded. “I know. I’m not good at that, either.” I threw a hand up in surrender. “I’m just stiff.”
“You know fucking would help with that.”
I swallowed hard. “I know.” But I wasn’t good with touch, emotions, or normal human things, and besides, I didn’t want anyone who wasn’t Severin Volkov to touch me… not really. Not even Mikhail.
Chad would never satisfy what I needed. And honestly, I didn’t fucking know what I wanted or needed.
I was very distracted in class.
And four hours later, when I had to walk home alone, I was still distracted.
Ivy climbed the limestone walls as I made my way through campus at twilight. The icy wind nipped at my nape, and gargoyles stared down at me. Judging.
I glared back up at them, cursing them in the cold winter night. They fucking knew what they wanted. But it probably wasn’t to fuck Chad Holloway, either.
Yet the gargoyles still glared at me.
I never felt unsafe walking alone through campus. After all, I could take down a grown man with my bare hands. I’d trained my whole life to do exactly that.
But tonight felt different.
Goosebumps rose on my skin, and all the shadows on campus danced—swirling as if a greater darkness existed in their depths.
At that moment, I knew someone was watching me and stalking me.
Silently.
I felt it down to my marrow.
What I couldn’t decide was whether the person was dangerous. He didn’t feel dangerous, and this person was certainly a he.
I continued as if I had no worries, carrying my textbooks and swishing my ponytail like a girl with no cares in the world.
If he was going to attack me, I wanted to catch him off guard. I wanted to look like prey, lure him in, and then strike, my venom slow and deadly.
So I pretended to be a soft, gentle girl instead of a wolf in sheep’s clothing. And I wasn’t just a wolf. I was an alpha. I was the queen, and this stalker would soon figure that out.
We walked for fifteen minutes until I got sick of it, and then I dipped into a dark alley between buildings.
I silently begged my attacker to come closer.
I whistled and stopped, looking up at the silver moon and the clouds edging around it, as if I were edging this man.
Tempting him.
Inviting him to strike.
And when he did, I was ready. I dropped my books, slid my knife from my thigh holster, rounded on my attacker, surprising him and forcing him against the alley wall, my knife to his throat.
He let out a low chuckle and pounced, spinning me around until my back hit the limestone with a thud and the air left me in a rush.
He’d used my momentum and weight to pin me to the wall instead. But my knife never left his throat.
I glanced up at my stalker, my control slipping for a second. Shock punched me in the gut, stirring up emotions I hadn’t even realized I had.
Dark, molten-blue eyes glowered down at me. Angry? His fingers curled into the flesh at my shoulders.
Severin Volkov.
My monster in the form of a charming boy.
“So you do have a weapon.” His words were anger personified.
“Of course I do. I always have a weapon.”
His fingers dug harder into my shoulders, and if it were possible, his eyes darkened further.
“What are you doing here?” I whispered.
Confusion coiled around my lungs like a snake. Severin was both the one person I never wanted to see again and the one I wanted to see every fucking day of my life. Two years without him had made me hollow, but the distance was necessary.
I was a Morozov. He was a Volkov. One day, Severin would lead the mafia, and I would be one of the knights on his chessboard. I would help run the Bratva’s intelligence networks. Together, we were dangerous, and his father knew it, too.
The Volkovs might lead publicly, but the Morozovs held the secrets that could bring anyone within the Bratva to their knees, including Aleksandr. A war between our families would burn the Russian mafia to the ground.
But a union between Severin and me would make him too powerful.
Powerful enough to overthrow his father.
Which was precisely why Aleksandr wanted me gone. He started by carving Severin’s name into my stomach and warning me to stay away from him. But the Gauntlet offered him the best solution. If I died during the War Games, it could be written off as an unfortunate accident.
But I was like a cockroach, too resilient to kill. Although eventually, Aleksandr would succeed.
Which was why I left New York.
But I didn’t leave only for my safety. I left because I couldn’t be around Severin anymore. Not when he was fucking every girl in sight. Not when he had awakened a hunger inside me that might never be tamed.
It wasn’t that I wanted him; I didn’t. But I wanted someone to make me feel the way I did when I watched him with my teacher.
I replayed that image over and over in my head.
I had phantom sensations of him sliding his thumb into my mouth.
And I wanted to feel it again, but no other boy had made me feel like that.
That day plagued me.
But eight hundred miles was enough to tamp down whatever hunger he had ignited, shove it deep down, and never, ever feel it again—except when another boy touched me. Then I felt it. Over and over again.
“Why are you here?” I bit down on the inside of my cheeks.
“Why are you walking alone through campus in the dark, defenseless?” His voice was liquid flame. Hot and unquenchable.
My brow furrowed. “I am not defenseless.” I motioned to my knife, still kissing the skin at his neck. “And I am a trained killer.”
“Yet you are pinned to the wall.”
“Well, yes…” I pulled the words out slowly with my tongue. “Most people aren’t you. Most people couldn’t pin me to the wall.”
Besides, I was pretty sure I was letting him do that.
“You?” He raised a brow, waiting for me to fill in what you meant.
“You know…” I swallowed, not wanting to say it. But he wasn’t letting up. “Built like a Greek god with far too many muscles to be reasonable. Someone who has trained his whole life to kill people with his hands… you.”
The corner of his mouth lifted with amusement, but his body remained rigid, pinning me against the stone.
“Why are you here, Sevka?”
“I go to school here.”
“No, you don’t.”
“Oh, I don’t?” His lips pressed together, barely containing an amused smile.
“Does your father know that?”
“Of course my father knows. He sent me to do business with the Bratva in Chicago.”
Well, fuck. That meant he was going to be around for a while.
Damn it. I had finally built a life, friends, and a place away from the mafia where I could just be me. But God loved to laugh at the plans we made for ourselves.
“You don’t have to look so disappointed about it.”
I gulped. “I am not.”
He shook his head and stepped back, releasing me from the wall. “Tell that to your resting murder face, Xeniya.”