Vadim
She sucked the enjoyment out of torturing my uncle.
I was doing this for my—our son. The correction arrived before I could stop it and sat there, uncomfortable and accurate.
The woman was fucking impossible with her demands.
Yet here I was in my own club getting drunk with my men instead of in the cage at the pit beating the shit out of some nobody, which was where I should have been and where I had more sense than to go tonight.
I watched the women dance.
The shots went down easier than they should have.
I refused to meet my brother’s eyes. I could feel them anyway.
Tau had told me about her reaction at the grave.
I lifted another shot. The burn. Glass slammed against wood.
A flash of blonde hair moved beyond the crowd.
I paused.
Not her.
No. Not a blonde. Not tonight.
Not any night. That was not what this was.
I nudged Bogdan.
“Go find me a woman for the night.”
I could feel everyone’s eyes on me. The particular quality of attention from men who know better than to say anything and are choosing carefully not to.
Bogdan moved behind me without a word.
“I’ll be waiting by the car,” I said, motioning to Tikhon.
“Not a fucking blonde,” I shouted after him.
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The woman needed no prompting. She followed me upstairs without hesitation, her laughter echoing in the stairwell—bright and entirely irritating. I hoped Iskra heard it.
The landing was quiet.
She moved toward the west wing without being told and I watched her go for a moment.
“Not there,” I shouted. “My wife sleeps in that room.”
If she wasn't awake before, she would be now.
Her hand flew to her mouth. More giggling. She walked back toward me with the unsteady certainty of a woman who had drunk enough to find everything amusing.
Radovan sat outside Iskra’s door with his arms crossed. He didn’t look up.
I hooked my arm around the woman and steered her toward my bedroom.
Bogdan followed close behind.
“Do you have a condom?” I asked him.
“I have one,” the woman said, waving her purse.
I ignored her and waited for Bogdan.
He shook his head.
“Give me two minutes,” he said, pulling his phone out and typing rapidly.
I looked at the woman. She looked back at me with an expression that suggested she had opinions about the logistics but had decided not to share them.
“Never mind,” I said, opening the door and steering her inside. “Her mouth will do.”
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When I stretched my arms out something weighed me down.
The scent hit before my eyes opened—foreign perfume, stale and sweet, entirely wrong against the sheets.
My eyes snapped open.
I almost gagged.
Ugh.
Was this what morning sickness felt like?
I shoved her off my arm and slid out of the bed. She stirred and made a sound. I ignored it and walked into the shower, turning the water on cold enough to think.
That was where the plan formulated.
Iskra had been allowed to grieve. She had been allowed her fury, her demands and her fuck your obligations delivered with that precise enunciation she used against me. I allowed her access to the graveyard.
How dare she reject me?
The fucking Pakhan of Chernograd.
My head thumped as the seething rage festered.
How dare she deny me my heir when she had healed.
Enough.
It was time to remind my so-called wife exactly how privileged her position was.
And how quickly that could change.
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Tikhon followed us down. I knew Iskra was in the kitchen before I saw it confirmed—Tau standing in the doorway was confirmation enough.
He turned at the sound of our approach.
Mariya—or Marina, I hadn’t retained which—began to grumble about being hungry. My eye twitched when her hand found my ass. I resisted the urge to remove it with more force than necessary.
Tau’s eyes moved to her briefly. Not long. The kind of assessment that takes less than a second and files everything worth filing. Then his focus came back to me—razor-sharp, unhurried, the focused attention from a man who had already decided what he thought and was simply confirming it.
He had his hair rebraided since I’d last paid attention. Shaved tight on the sides, the thick braids sitting high on top of his head like a crown. A beard coming in along his jaw, fuller than before, hiding most of the scarring.
Pimping himself up for someone, possibly.
He didn’t say anything.
He didn’t need to.
The upper lip that curled—barely, just enough to register—was the only reaction he gave.
It was the one I needed to see.
He stepped out of my path.
There she was. Sitting at the kitchen table sipping her tea like a pampered printsessa, the morning sun finding her hair and pulling the gold out of it.
She didn’t look up. Didn’t acknowledge the sound of us entering.
Just sat there in the deliberate stillness of a woman who had decided in advance how this was going to go.
I grabbed the woman’s arm and led her to the table.
“Olya,” I said, pulling a chair out. “Breakfast for me and my companion.”
Olya grunted.
The cupboards began. Doors meeting frames with more force than strictly necessary. Dishes finding countertops in a way that communicated volumes without a single coherent word. A low continuous muttering emanating from somewhere near the stove that I chose not to translate.
I wouldn’t be eating in the dining room this morning.
I reached for the tea and leaned in.
“Do you like your replacement?” I murmured.
Her head lifted.
Those cold blue eyes found mine across the table and stayed there.
“You could resort to bestiality for all I care,” she said, with a smile that didn’t reach them. “Give you the genes you deserve.”
“Better a bastard from a whore than an heir from a bitch,” I snapped back.
The woman gasped.
Iskra’s smile broadened.
She sipped her tea and scrolled on her phone.