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“Tonight. Why?” Her eyebrows furrow. “Does this have to do with Elanee? And are you going to explain to me why the fuck you’re bleeding?”
My driver pulls out onto the street already en route to my private practitioner, who usually patches me up if I have unfortunate run-ins such as these.
I breathe out shakily, feeling lightheaded, most likely from the blood loss. Again, I savor its punishment. “I don’t know how…but she’s involved with my father.”
Layla turns a noticeable shade paler. “The Bratva?”
I nod and wince as I shift awkwardly, relishing the shooting pain erupting from my shoulder. “She’s being watched by him. I don’t know how they got caught up, but it’s most likely due to retaliation toward me. I promise Layla, I’ll get her out of this mess.”
“What? Why the fuck didn’t you take her tonight? We have to go back!”
My gaze pins her into place. “Listen to me very carefully. You are not to approach her under any circumstance. If you do, a hit will be made on you and your parents as well. Possibly other people you love as well.”
Her expression twists into an anguished rage. Seeing her like this… because of me, I now notice an entirely different, uncomfortable pain. One in my chest. I’d hurt them both, unsuspecting, even when I’d always made sure to keep so many at a distance.
Silence fills the car. I’d been so stupid to think he wouldn’t weave himself into my life somehow. I haven’t laid eyes on him in twenty-five years, since that faithful day he turned my mother and I into outcasts. We flew back to New York and never returned. I don’t even have any memories of him since then. The one thing I do know is I’ve loathed him all of these years.
And this… capturing Elanee. I wince as pain shoots up my arm from my hands fisting.
I’ll kill him for it.
“So, what are we going to do?” Layla asks way too calmly, her resolve reminding me far too much of Elanee’s.
“There is no we.”
She scoffs. “There’s always been we. And like fuck I’m not freeing my sister from a psycho.”
Agony shoots through my jaw as I grind my teeth. Elanee would hate her sister being involved. But out of the two, Layla had always been the fighter. Not a killer, but she wasn’t a pushover either. But even this was in over her head.
And much like her sister, Layla was not someone to be told what to do. If I don’t include her in this, she’ll most likely do something reckless and get herself killed in the process.
Fuck.
“Let me think on it some. I’ll start moving around some pieces,” I say. Because although I’d been underhanding my father’s business and phantom movements throughout the city even though he still lived in Russia, he’d never taken something so personally from me.
I’d buried my feelings for Elanee five years ago when she earnestly and openly despised my existence. But despite that, I still wouldn’t let him have her.
The fact is, no one can know about the situation either.
The image and memory of Elanee’s pleading expression from tonight and the branded amethyst bracelet come to mind.
I’ll destroy him in every way.
The self-proclaimed ‘Lion’ was soon to meet his demise.
8
ELANEE
One month later…
Mirabella Latine has been describing her ideal partner so rapidly I couldn’t keep up with the many notes and celebrity references—a woman in her late thirties who has had two divorces. The same day that her divorce was finalized, she’d wound up at my office two weeks ago, exactly where we’re sitting today. And by definition was a complete pain in my ass.
Despite her flamboyant attitude, I was dutifully trying to find her an appropriate match and, privately, judging some of her unrealistic expectations. But she’s amongst many of my clients who expect the same, and the truth is, I do enjoy my job. It’s intriguing exploring the wealthy’s motives and their definition of love. And often, what most of them desire is a marriage into a name that is more renowned than their own.
A portion of that clientele also involved fathers trying to curate appropriate matchmaking for their daughters. One that they approve of first before any sort of meeting ever transpired.
Mirabella, however, despite how fickle was after the notion of love. But I had the suspicion that she fell in love as quickly as she did out of it. And she was willing to pay for it.
