Chapter 40
forty
Serena clings to me like a second skin as we step off the elevator and head to my office.
Her big brown eyes stare up at me, and she flutters her eyelashes flirtatiously, thinking it might endear me to her.
The only thing it makes me want to do is rip the fake eyelashes off and shove her out the nearest windows.
Unfortunately, that would be a PR nightmare.
“You owe me that information, Serena,” I remind her coldly, peeling her off my arm. “I did exactly as you asked, and I compensated your father to keep him from arranging any future marriage deals.”
Serena sneers as I lead her into my office. I go straight for the top-shelf whiskey and fill one of the crystal glasses from the bar with as much of the amber liquid as it can handle.
“You honestly think that is going to stop my father from going behind your back and trying to do it again?” She runs a hand through her lengthy black hair and sighs, leaning her frame against the side of my desk.
“We both know that he will burn through that cash by the end of the year, and I will be back where I started.”
“That is not my problem.” And it isn’t. I’d been generous with the money I gave her father.
He is a leading power player in corporate politics and has been trying to sell Serena to the highest bidder, who happens to be Augustu La Rosa.
She’s been begging Leon for help, but he refused, directing her my way instead.
He knows I need something from her father, and she is the only one who will be able to get it.
My mother’s gravesite back in Russia.
Edrik Mickelson was a low-level thug for Kirill before he came to the states.
I remember his face and the times he used to pay Kirill to fuck my mother and make her scream.
It is a running tally I keep in my head of how I am going to make him pay.
It is why I went with Serena to the gala and made him an offer he couldn’t refuse.
Serena had the time while I was away to collect the information I need, and now she is trying to bleed me for more.
It isn’t going to happen.
She is a means to an end, and if she proves to be difficult, I will make her life a living hell.
Or Ava will.
“It is if you want the information on where your mother is buried,” she threatens me.
I growl.
“Do not make idle threats, Serena,” I warn her, my lips curling into a snarl, teeth bared. “I am not a man you want to cross.”
Serena laughs, oblivious to the hole she is digging for herself twice over.
“You think I don’t know that?” She tilts her head slightly and bats her eyes at me.
It is something that would have been cute on Ava, but on her, it is just desperate.
“I have something you want, and there is only one way you’re going to get it. ”
“And how is that?”
Serena grins up at me like the cat that ate the canary. “You and I are going to get married.”
The laugh that rumbles out of me pisses her off. Her dark eyes look at me askance. She does not like being mocked.
“I am serious, Matthias,” she hisses. “We get married, or I don’t give you the information you’re looking for, and I tell my father who you are.”
I shrug a shoulder. Killing Edrik is at the top of my list of things to do anyway, so if she tells him, it will not be such a loss. Kirill is dead, so Edrik finding out my identity is not of any consequence anymore.
“Go ahead.” My gaze meets hers calmly. “Then I kill him and you. Win-win.”
Her face pales for a moment, eyes wide as the cogs in her mind turn, wondering if my threat is real.
“You—you wouldn’t,” she sputters. “You don’t kill women.”
“Eh.” I tip my hand back and forth slightly. “There are exceptions to every rule.”
The ding of the elevator catches my attention, and I bite back a broad smile. I wondered how long it would take my wife to find her way up here. She has been on the ops floor for the last half an hour, and she was bound to see me getting off the elevator with Serena and come find us, claws bared.
She doesn’t disappoint.
“Matthias.” Serena captures my attention again.
She leans back against the desk, her legs splayed open slightly, giving me a glimpse between her thighs that I have no interest in seeing.
One hand rests on the sturdy oak of my desk while the other lightly trails down the middle of her chest. Not even Valerie’s girls are this desperate looking.
“I’m sure I could make it worth your while. ”
“Not interested,” I deadpan, scrunching my nose, and waving her off.
“If you would just…” Serena is suddenly cut off by the sound of the door opening.
“Well,” Ava’s sweet voice is music to my ears. “This is a surprise.”
Now it is time to play.