Page 29 of Depraved

But it’s not a natural sleep. I drugged her.

Everything is spinning out of control.

My enemies have come for her.

Ghost will help. I’ve never needed a friend more than I do now.

I shift Karolina so she’s cradled against my chest, propping my back against the headboard. When she’s carefully nestled in my arms, I pull up the duvet to cover her nakedness and reach for my phone.

Ghost answers almost immediately, his face filling my screen.

His ice blue eyes immediately focus on Karolina.

“Why are you calling me when she’s there?” he asks in an undertone. “I know you won’t want me to meet her.”

“She won’t wake up,” I assure him, my cheeks heating with a hint of shame. “She’ll sleep for a few hours, at least.”

His brows lift to his buzzed blond hairline. “Did you drug her? What the fuck, Ragnar?”

My jaw tightens. I don’t like the judgment in his sharp tone.

“I didn’t have a choice.”

“Sure. You tell yourself that.” He shakes his head. “What’s going on?”

“Someone else found her. I need to know who it was.”

My voice darkens on the last. Whoever scared her is going to scream before I finally allow him to die.

“Where am I looking?” He’s serious now. His eyes focus on something out of frame, and I hear his fingers clattering over his keyboard. “I’ve been monitoring the CCTV feed around her building, and nothing has seemed out of the ordinary there.”

“She said she was at Brownie Bakehouse when the man approached her. He knew about Brandon.”

“Oh, fuck,” he says softly. “She knows who you are now?”

“No. She still thinks the gunshot killed me. Whoever threatened her told her that he found her through Brandon. She thinks it’s about revenge for what she did to me.”

Ghost scrubs a hand over his stubbled jaw. “You should come clean. This is too fucked up. Do you really think you can keep lying to her forever?”

“I can’t tell her the truth. She can’t know what I am.”

He sighs. “If it’s meant to be, she’ll accept you. The two of you were in love back then, right? She might be relieved you’re alive.”

I jerk my head to the side, refusing to engage in that foolish hope.

“The man who found her knew her real name, Karolina Taylor,” I say instead of replying directly. “He knew I’m Brandon. Someone from the old days must’ve given him that information.”

Ghost nods his agreement. “It wasn’t exactly a secret. The Bratva boss knew exactly who you were when he recruited you from the ring.”

I grimace. The boss, Dimitri Sokolov, saw my cold, murderous capabilities in the ring, and I was all too eager to accept his money in exchange for my brutal skillset.

“But how did they find Karolina?” I ask. “She wasn’t in my life back then.”

Ghost looks at me like I’m an idiot. “You have her name tattooed on your chest, and her face is clearly visible on your arms. You think no one noticed that during your fights? Anyone could’ve found her if they wanted to look hard enough.”

“But why now?”

“You tried to get out of the game. Maybe your enemies think you’ve gone soft. They wouldn’t dare to cross you before, but now they know you still want her in your life. They know exactly where to strike to hurt you the worst.”