Chapter Nine
Dmitri Konstantinov
My wife, the little thief, sat across from me, and I took my time checking her out.
She had black hair, cut to the neck, a length that would fit in only one fist. I preferred longer hair, the kind that wrapped twice around a hand and gave you something to work with.
But hers was full enough to compensate. Her brown eyes were doing what they seemed good at: moving, observing, and filing things away.
But I could tell she was trying very hard to look as if she wasn’t afraid.
My gaze settled on the mole beneath her left eye. It was small, something most people wouldn’t think twice about.
She caught my attention when her lips parted, as if she were about to say something. She didn’t. Instead, she caught her lower lip between her teeth and held it there. I was certain she had no idea what that did to men.
“So you’re just going to stare?” she finally said. “My brother must be confused and scared. I should go.” She straightened. “I think we’ve sorted this out. Give me a month, no, two weeks, and I’ll pay back the rest of the money.”
I said nothing.
She pointed toward the door with her thumb, eyes still on me, waiting for me to agree with what I had no intention of agreeing to. When nothing came, she drew a breath.
“I’ll take that as a yes.” She stood.
“Sit down,” I said, and she dropped back into the chair.
“Sir, this is becoming awkward.” She exhaled and pressed her palms flat against her thighs. “Okay. I made a mistake, and I’m ready to take responsibility. So, what do you want?”
“I’m very sure you already know.”
“You faked a DNA test, hired a lawyer, and walked a police officer to my front door, all for a child who is not your son.” She tucked a strand of hair behind her ear.
“Fine, I’ll find you a boy you can actually adopt if that’s what this is about.
I’ll personally visit several orphanages. I have the time.”
“Are you trying to be funny?” I asked. She was, actually. I just wouldn’t tell her that.
“Then what do you want?”
I reached for the file on the desk, opened it, and pushed it across the surface toward her. “You’ll wear that at an auction tomorrow.”
Her eyes dropped to the page. The confusion moved across her face. She pulled the file closer and studied the photograph. “This is a necklace.”
“A diamond necklace centered by a polished jade stone.” I leaned back in my chair and rubbed my jawline. “Valued between seventeen and twenty million dollars.”
Her mouth opened and closed again. She looked back at the photograph, then up at me, as if to check whether the two things existed in the same reality. “Okay, wait. Million dollars?” I said nothing. “You want me to wear it? Sir, I am very confused right now.”
“Only the most trusted person wears it. Or a family member.”
“And that’s me?” She pressed a finger to her own chest. “You trust me with a million-dollar necklace?” A quick laugh escaped her, the kind that came out when something was too absurd for a normal reaction. “You’re joking.”
“And who said I trust you?” She went still. “There is a price for every action, Inna, and we are just getting started. You will wear this at the auction as my wife. Case closed.”
She sat with that for a moment. “I don’t want to be your wife.”
“Why so?” It was a genuine question. I wanted to hear this.
“It was just a lie.” She shifted in her seat. “I wouldn’t want someone like you for a husband.”
I narrowed my eyes.
“No offense, but,” she hesitated, visibly fumbling toward whatever she was building.
“I don’t like your nose. It just... sits there on your face and makes you look—” she gestured vaguely, “like that. And your eyes.” She pointed directly at them.
“I’m sure people have told you not to look at them with those eyes. ”
She paused. The embarrassment was already moving into her expression, but she had come too far to stop now.
She waved a hand across my face as if she were sketching the problem. “In short, I don’t like your face. And you’re too tall. I don’t marry tall men with strong hands and that,” her eyes dropped briefly to my chest before snapping back up. “Can you button those three buttons, please?”
What the hell was this woman?
I once sat across from Rodion’s wife and found her entertaining. But Inna was something else entirely. She insulted my face and accidentally cataloged every detail of my body in the same breath.
This was the moment I would normally smile. One of those deliberate ones that told a person exactly how much ground they had just given away. But if I did that now, she would know I had caught it, that she liked every single thing she was complaining about.
“So,” I said. “You like men like me.”
“Yes.” The word came out fast and clean before her brain caught up with her mouth. Her eyes went wide. “No. I mean…” She pressed her lips together and exhaled. “You’re ugly. There. I said it.”
“I see.”
“Yes.” She looked somewhere past my shoulder, her cheeks carrying a warmth she had no interest in explaining.
I let it sit there between us for a moment, then pulled the file back across the desk. “Now that we’ve settled that. You’ll be moving into my place.” I checked my wristwatch. “Your ring will be ready tomorrow. You’ll wear it.”
“There has to be another way.” Her voice tightened. “Because I don’t want to marry you.”
I looked at her. The stubbornness on her face was almost impressive. She probably had talked her way out of enough things to believe she could talk her way out of this. She would learn.
I stood, and she stood with me as if her body had mirrored mine without asking her first.
“Another way?” I said. “You marry me, or we’ll meet in court.”
“Sir, I’ll double the money. Triple it. Just—”
“We’re done here, Inna Grace.” I walked to the door as I pulled out my phone.
I didn’t need to say anything more. She would come to me herself. She just didn’t know it yet. I had enough ways to move a woman like Inna without touching her. She was already deeper into this than she realized.
I stepped out of the office with my phone already pressed against my ear.
Cole stopped me before I could get two steps down the corridor. He waved at me from the seat. It was a wave that belonged at a birthday party, not outside an office where I finished rearranging his sister’s life. I walked toward him anyway.
“Boss,” Akim answered.
“Send an invitation to Iker for the auction,” I said, watching Cole grin at me as if we were old friends. “Make it personal. He shouldn’t miss it.”
“On it.”
Inna stepped out and walked to where Cole and I were. She grabbed her brother by the wrist and walked off at a pace that said everything she didn’t say while inside. She held her shoulders tight, and her walk showed she had lost but wasn’t ready to admit it out loud yet.
“Also, track my wife’s phone,” I said into the phone. “She looks like she plans to run away. I will handle the casino tonight.”
“Alright,” Akim responded, and I hung up.
What I needed was Iker. He would walk into tomorrow’s auction and see Inna standing next to me, wearing a million-dollar necklace and my name on her finger.
He would approach me. Men like Iker always approached what they couldn’t explain.
I get Iker, and Zachary would be mine to destroy slowly without him knowing.
Everything was in place. One plan, one auction, and one stubborn woman who still thought she had options.