Vadim
"I have some news," Preston announces.
I'm stretched out on the sofa, my phone resting against the takeout containers from dinner stacked in a pile on the coffee table.
"Oh, yeah? Am I going to like it?"
His hazel eyes sparkle with a hint of something…light. "Oh, I think you will."
He hasn't looked this happy in a long time, certainly not since his dad died, so I'm all ears.
"What is it?"
"I'm coming back."
I bolt upright and grab the phone. "When?"
"Tomorrow."
"Holy shit. That's great."
"Yeah." He smiles. "Mom's going to drive me."
"Or I can organize for you to fly back? Save your mom the drive."
Cue the polite refusal in three…two…on—
"Actually, you know what? I might just take you up on that."
Whoa. Miracles do happen.
"Okay, great. I'll make the arrangements once we finish talking." I can't stop grinning. "It feels like forever since you've been here."
"It does."
His eyes fix on the center of the camera, and I can see him turning something over in his mind.
"What are you thinking?"
"That I'm going to miss this. Our nightly chats."
"Who says we have to give them up?"
He smiles. "Really?"
"Of course. We'll still have our nightly chats, plus we'll get to see each other in person."
I lick my lips, feeling cocky.
And more than slightly horny.
"And maybe I'll finally get to fulfill a fantasy or two as well," I hedge.
"Oh, yeah. Like what?"
"Like watching you bounce up and down on my dick like a good little slut, screaming my name."
His mouth falls open, but as it closes, a smile settles there, like it's not the worst idea he's ever heard.
"You know, I have been thinking…" The color blushing his cheeks gives him away before he says another word. "About us."
A happy heat warms my chest, but I play it cool even though I can tell where this is heading. "What about us?"
"Doing stuff."
"You mean, like checking out the night markets?"
He bites his lip and shakes his head, and I am sitting back, enjoying every second of his cuteness.
"No. Not like that. Like…sex."
"You don't say."
"I do." His cheeks are bright red now. "I want to feel you inside me. That curve. Fuck."
I smirk knowingly.
Yeah, it's going to drive him wild. With the months-long buildup and all this pent-up tension, the hardest part is going to be not finishing before things get properly started.
I want to savor every precious second, map out every inch of Preston's body, finally do what I've wanted to do for a long time now and claim him as mine.
But there's one thing I have to know before we take that step. I have my suspicions, but I need confirmation. And if he's not ready to tell me, then maybe it means we need to wait a while before we take the next step.
"There's something I want to ask you."
"Is it something sexy?"
"No."
His smile fades a little. "What is it?"
"It's about your three-date rule." I inject as much tenderness as I can into what I say next. "About why you have that rule in the first place."
The smile disappears entirely from his face. "Oh."
"You don't have to tell me anything, but I'd like to know because I feel it's something important that maybe I should know before we go further."
His cheeks inflate before he releases a deep breath. "You're right. It probably is something you should know."
A frown pinches my forehead. "I'm listening. Whenever you're ready, Pres."
I can see the anguish on his face as his eyes dart about, unfocused, like he's collecting his thoughts. Deeply unpleasant, painful thoughts, I'm guessing.
"I was sexually assaulted in college," he says with an edge to his voice I've never heard before. "By a guy I was seeing at the time and one of his friends."
He pauses, huffs out a breath, and the emotions, the pain, sit on his face plain as day.
"We'd been out on a few dates, and he was pressuring me into having sex.
I liked him, but I wasn't ready to take that step.
Anyway, one night after a party, we got back to his dorm room.
We were both drunk, and so was his roommate who came back with us.
They started teasing me, calling me a prude and all sorts of names.
And then somehow, I don't remember how exactly since I'd had too much to drink, it went from uncomfortable teasing and pressure to jostling to them pinning me down on the floor, tearing my clothes off, and… "
His breath catches, and for a long moment, he's unable to speak, overcome by the horrible memory.
A lone tear falls down his cheek. His watery eyes return to the center of the camera. "They took turns raping me."
By the time he finishes telling me how, after a while, he blacked out, and when he woke up, he was alone, bleeding, with semen all over his body, my hands have balled into two tight fists, and I'm wound tight as a drum.
"I am so sorry that happened to you."
He holds my stare through the screen. "Thank you."
I may not be able to do anything about what happened to him in the past, but I sure as hell can protect him and make sure Farkas, or anyone else, never hurts him ever again.
I storm down the hallway to Marek's office.
Helena takes one look at me and sighs dramatically. "Damn. He was actually in a good mood for once."
"I'm about to ruin that," I huff as I pass her desk.
"No shit," she moans. "Girl can't catch a break around here. Oh, by the way—"
I don't hang around for whatever she's got to say, flinging open the door to Marek's office to find him and Ellie talking by the window. In the second it takes Marek to notice me and react, two things jump out at me.
One, he and Ellie are standing way too close to each other, and two, Marek looks weird when his face is not in its usual perpetually pissed mode. It doesn't suit him at all.
"Oh, sorry," I say, not meaning it.
Ellie jumps into gear as Marek stands there like a deer caught in headlights. "I was just leaving."
"Nice to see you," I say as he retreats past me toward the door.
I expect a hushed, "Fuck you," or something equally cutting, but he just says my name and leaves.
Maybe he's under the weather?
I stalk over to my brother by the window. "We need to talk."
His eyes drift over to the door Ellie just closed then back to me.
Ah, there he is. Pissed-off Marek is back.
Good. This, I can deal with.
"About what?" he gruffs.
"Farkas. What else?"
"How did your latest lead pan out?"
"Like the seventy million before them," I hiss angrily. "By the time my men got there, he was gone." I stare out at the casino floor beneath us for a few beats, dread pooling in my stomach for where I'm about to go.
But I have to say it.
"As much as I don't want this to be true, I can't keep denying the facts. Every time I get information about Farkas's whereabouts, he vanishes before we get there. One time, two times, ten times, twenty times. That is not a coincidence."
Marek shakes his head, sizing me up. "I don't like where this is going."
"Neither do I. Believe me."
Our father has gone to incredible lengths to ensure our innermost sanctum is fortress-tight. In all my thirty years, no one has ever betrayed us.
Until now.
"We have a rat," I tell Marek. "Farkas has to have someone on the inside. There's no other explanation for it."
Marek strides back to his desk, and I follow close behind him.
"Do you have any evidence?" he asks, sitting down. "Because I'm going to need that. This is too big a thing to rely on hearsay or a hunch."
I slam my palms onto his desk.
"I'm working on it," I say, looking up at him.
He's looking at me, defensive.
I don't blame him. If I'm right, this will be explosive. I can't even begin to imagine our father's reaction. He prizes loyalty above all else. It's his highest form of love.
His only form, some might say.
"Well, work on it fast," he growls. "And do not breathe a word of this to anyone. If this gets back to Dad—"
"I know, I know. He'll lose his shit."
"He will, Vadim. And it will be unlike anything we've ever seen. So before you make any allegations, make sure you have the facts straight."
"I will," I tell him. "But mark my words, I'm right about this. Somebody is betraying us. And I'm not going to quit until I find out who so I can finally put a stop to Farkas."