Toxic Attraction

Prologue

Valerie

"Please."

My father's voice cracks on that single word, and I freeze in the doorway with my suitcase still in hand.

What I see next makes my insides turn, and bile threatens to rise from my throat.

He's on his knees in our living room, and that's wrong—my father doesn't kneel for anyone. No matter who you are, not even Mom when she caught him cheating.

But he's kneeling now.

The man standing over him is dressed in a suit that likely costs more than a quarter of our house's value, perfectly tailored with no wrinkles. His hair is styled in a casually expensive way that screams wealth, and when he tilts his head slightly to look at me, his eyes are the color of dirty ice.

Empty. Completely empty, it irks me.

"Please, Patrick, I can explain—" My father's hands are clasped together like he's praying, and there's something in his voice I've never heard before. Fear. Raw terror.

What's happening?

My feet still can’t move as I take in my environment.

My mother sits frozen on the couch, her face pale and devoid of color. Ethan sits beside her, seventeen and desperately trying not to cry, but his entire body trembles with fear. His hand grips hers tightly, knuckles turning white.

"Explain what, Viktor?" The man sounds almost bored. "That you fed me false intelligence about Lev Volkov's supply routes? That your incompetence cost me six men and two million in product?"

The words don't make sense. Lev Volkov. Intelligence. Product.

What is Dad involved in?

"Patrick, I didn't know it was wrong, I swear—" My father's voice breaks. "The information came from a reliable source, I thought—"

"You thought." The man, Patrick’s hand moves inside his jacket, and suddenly there's a gun. Black metal, casual in his grip like it belongs there. "You've been feeding me intelligence for three years, Viktor. Three. And tonight, you nearly got me killed."

Three years.

Three years?

My father scrambles backward, hands up, and the sound that comes out of him is barely human. "No—no, please, I have a family, I can fix this—"

"You can't."

The gunshot is so loud it doesn't sound real. Like something broke in the air itself, splitting the world in half, before and after.

My father's head snaps back in a spray of red, and then he's falling, crumpling, and there's so much blood, too much, spreading across the carpet in a pool that grows too fast, and I can't—

No.

No. No no no no no!

"DAD!" The scream tears out of my throat before I can stop it, and I'm moving, dropping my suitcase, lunging forward, but hands grab me from behind—when did anyone get behind me?—and I'm yanked backward so hard my feet leave the ground.

"Let go! Let GO!" I'm thrashing, kicking, trying to break free, but whoever's holding me is too strong, and my father's on the floor with half his head gone and Mom's making this sound, this horrible broken wheezing sound, and Ethan's screaming now too—

"DAD! DADDY, GET UP!"

But he's not getting up.

He's never getting up.

There's blood everywhere. On the wall behind him in a pattern that looks like someone threw paint. On the carpet, spreading in a dark pool. On his shirt, his face, pooling under his head.

That's his brain. Oh God, that's pieces of his brain on the wall.

My stomach heaves, and I gag, bile burning the back of my throat. The hands holding me don't let go.

My father… My father is dead.

"Valerie Novak." Patrick's voice cuts through the screaming, calm and precise as a scalpel. "Twenty-two. Just graduated from Columbia with a degree in English Literature. Came home to rest before job hunting."

How does he know my name?

"Bring her here."

"No—NO!" I twist violently, trying to wrench free, but the men dragging me forward might as well be made of stone. My feet skid through something wet and warm, and I look down, and it's blood, it's my father's blood on the floor, and I'm stepping in it—

I vomit. Right there, still being dragged forward. It comes up in a violent heave that empties my stomach across the carpet, mixing with the blood, and I'm sobbing now, can't stop, can't breathe—

"Kneel."

"Fuck you," I choke out through tears and bile.

Patrick doesn't even blink. He nods at one of his men, and suddenly there's a gun pressed against Ethan's temple, and my baby brother goes completely still, his eyes so wide I can see white all around them.

"Kneel," Patrick repeats, "or I put a bullet in his brain too, and you can watch him die the same way."

I drop.

My knees hit the carpet and the impact sends a jolt through me, and the wetness underneath soaks through my jeans immediately, hot and thick and wrong. The smell hits me then, really hits me, copper and something sweet-rotten underneath, and I gag again but there's nothing left to come up.

I'm kneeling in my father's blood.

The thought repeats in my head like a broken record. I'm kneeling in my father's blood I'm kneeling in my father's blood I'm—

My hands are shaking so hard I can barely keep myself upright. When I look down, there's blood on my palms, slick and warm between my fingers, and I can't tell if it's from the carpet or from wiping my mouth and oh God oh God oh God—

Patrick crouches in front of me, and now we're eye level. He sinks his right thumb into the carpet and lets the blood drench it.

This psychopath is literally staining his hands with his victim’s blood.

He smells like expensive cologne, something clean and woody that doesn't belong in this room with my father's corpse and my vomit and the metallic reek of blood.

"Your father was my informant," he says, conversational. Like we're discussing the weather, not the body three feet away. "For three years, he fed me information about Lev Volkov's organization. Tonight, he failed me. Do you understand what that means?"

I can't speak. Can't think past the roaring in my ears, the way my whole body is shaking, the warmth of my father's blood seeping through my clothes.

"It means I need a replacement." His hand reaches out, and I flinch, but he's too fast. His thumb drags across my cheekbone, and when he pulls it back, it's red. Dripping. He shows it to me like it's a gift. "Congratulations, Valerie. You just got hired."

"No." The word comes out as a sob. "No, I can't—I don't know anything about—"

"You'll learn." He wipes his thumb on a white handkerchief from his pocket, slow and deliberate, and the red smears across the white fabric.

"You have three months to infiltrate Lev Volkov's household, gather intelligence on his operations, and report back to me.

At the end of three months, you give me everything I need to kill him. "

“I’m not brave enough for this, I'm not—I don't— I can’t…"

"You will." He nods toward my mother and Ethan.

Mom's rocking back and forth now, arms wrapped around herself, that awful wheeze still coming from her throat.

Ethan's crying silently, tears streaming down his face.

"Or I kill your mother first. Slowly. Then your brother.

I'll start with his fingers—one per day.

Then his toes. Then other parts. And I'll make you watch every second before I kill you too. "

The casual way he says it makes it real. Not a threat. A promise.

"There's a staffing agency called Elite Domestics.

Marina Petrov runs it, and she has just informed me Volkov has sent in a request." He stands, adjusting his cuffs with precise movements.

"Your application will be processed tomorrow.

Background check will come back clean. You'll be placed in Volkov's household within the week. "

"I don't know how to—" My voice breaks completely. "I don't know how to spy."

"Then learn quickly." One of his men tosses something that lands in the blood beside my knee. A flip phone, now smeared red. "Memorize the number. Answer when I call. Report everything you learn."

The bastard obviously came prepared to kill my father and have me replace him.

He turns to leave, then pauses. Looks back over his shoulder.

"If you run, I start with your brother's fingers. If you tell anyone, I start with your mother's teeth. If you warn Volkov?" That empty smile returns. "I'll make it last weeks."

And then he's gone. Just like that. The door closes behind him and his men with barely a sound, and we're alone with the body.

With Dad.

With what's left of Dad.

Mom slides off the couch onto her hands and knees, crawling through the blood to reach him. She pulls his head into her lap—what's left of it—and rocks back and forth, keening. That's the only word for it. Keening. A sound I didn't know humans could make.

Ethan's still on the couch, staring at his shaking hands.

And I'm kneeling in my father's blood with a stranger's phone clutched in my red fingers, and I can't stop shaking, can't stop the sobs tearing out of my chest, can't stop seeing the way his head snapped back, the spray of red, the sound—

Oh God, the sound.

The phone in my pocket—my real phone—buzzes.

I pull it out with trembling, blood-slick hands. The screen is smeared red, but I can still read the message.

TASH: home yet??? we still on for drinks tomorrow?

Tash.

My best friend. The only person who might understand what just happened here.

After all, her father is Dmitri Markov, and everyone in our community knows what that means, even if Tash never talks about it.

She grew up in this world—the same world my father was apparently part of, the same world that just killed him.

I dial her number. It takes three tries because my hands won't stop shaking.

She answers on the second ring. "Val! I was starting to think—"

"A man called Patrick just shot my father in the head." The words come out flat and dead. "In our living room. He says I have to replace Dad as an informant inside Lev Volkov's organization, or he'll torture my mom and Ethan to death."

Silence.

Not shocked silence. Calculating silence.

“A man called Patrick? Patrick O'Rourke?”

“I don’t know, Tash. I don’t know anyone. I don’t even know what is going on.” I’m shaking now, my legs, my hands, my whole body shaking uncontrollably.

I hear a rumble on the other end of the phone. “What does he look like? Give me anything.” Tash's voice has changed completely. It's the first time I’m hearing her sound like that; it’s almost like she has stopped being my chaotic best friend and has become something else.

“He’s a few feet taller than me. Dark blond hair with… I don’t know, it could be a tattoo or a scar. It’s across his mouth. An ugly scar.” I try to recall the ugly man without throwing up again.

"That’s definitely Patrick O'Rourke. How long ago?"

"Ten minutes. Maybe fifteen. The cops aren't here yet, I need to—"

"Listen to me carefully." She's using that calm, deadly tone that makes my spine straighten despite everything. "When the cops get there, you tell them it was a robbery. Your dad fought back. Nothing else. Do you understand?"

"Tash—"

"Nothing else, Val. No names. Patrick won't touch you tonight—he needs you functional. Where's the body?"

"Living room. There's so much blood, I'm—" My voice cracks. "I'm kneeling in it, Tash, I can't—"

"Breathe. In through your nose, out through your mouth. Do it now."

I try. The air shudders in and out of my lungs.

"Good. Keep breathing. Get Ethan to call 911. Tell them what I said—robbery, your dad fought back. I'm coming to you."

"He wants me to spy on Lev Volkov." I'm crying again, can't stop. "I don't know how to do that, I don't—"

"You're a strong woman, Val. You are stubborn enough to be my friend when others dared not even look my way." Something fierce enters her voice. "That means you're stronger than you know. Patrick made a mistake underestimating you. We'll figure this out together."

"What if I can't—"

"You will. Because the alternative is watching your brother die, and you won't let that happen." She pauses. "I'm ten minutes away. Hold on, Val. Just hold on."

She hangs up.

I sit there in my father's blood, phone pressed to my chest, and try to remember how to breathe.

Through the roaring in my ears, I hear Ethan move. Hear him call 911, his voice high and breaking as he tells them there's been a shooting, please come, please hurry.

Mom's still rocking Dad's body, still making that awful sound.

And I can't stop staring at the wall, at the pattern of blood and brain matter, at what used to be my father.

Three months.

Three months to become someone I'm not. To infiltrate a potentially dangerous man’s home and gather intelligence that will get him killed. Three months before Patrick murders everyone I love.

The burner phone buzzes in my hand.

I don't want to look at it, but I do.

Don't disappoint me, Valerie. You have so much to lose. Tomorrow, you will be given everything you need to successfully get into the Volkov Estate.

I close my eyes and press my bloody hands against my face, and let myself break apart.

Because in three months, when Patrick uses whatever I give him to murder Lev Volkov, my father's blood won't be the only blood on my hands.

And I don't know how I'm supposed to live with that.

But I don't have a choice.

Patrick O'Rourke owns me now.