Page 11 of Black Ledger

Eventually, I called it off.

Because there was never anyone I wanted to marry besides Xeniya, and I promised myself I never would.

Which was why tonight felt so fucking awful. Because while I had every intention of calling off my next engagement too, it was still part of the deal I planned to negotiate with the Irish.

I would marry one of their princesses. In return, they would offer me stability, protection, and intel.

I just needed to prolong the engagement long enough to secure my foothold in the Russian mafia. Then I would convince whichever poor girl they’d choose for me to call it off.

I could get inventive if I needed to.

Perhaps I’d push another man into her path. Maybe she’d get pregnant by him. It didn’t matter how I got her to call it off. I just would.

I would never marry, and I never intended to have heirs. Mikhail could do that for both of us. Unlike my father, I would allow illegitimate children to become heirs. After all, I was already raising Mikhail’s daughter almost entirely on my own. My father refused to do it, and Mikhail was always overseas running our business in Russia.

Mikhail, unfortunately, was not very paternal and had no interest in taking Aurora with him. So, alas, I was her guardian.

She was not here tonight, of course. But most of the Russian mafia’s brigadiers were along with the Irish mob’s underbosses.

And, of course, my ex-fiancée, who might end the night as my current fiancée.

I had no interest in her. Redheads weren’t really my thing—or at least that’s what I thought until my eyes landed on her.

The redheaded goddess in the blush dress.

She was a whisper of a long-lost memory, like my brain had locked onto something long before I ever would.

I noticed the shape of her body first. Her waist dipped sharply inward before flaring out to her hips, the pale pink fabric molding to every curve. My gaze traced the slope of her ribs to the swell of her ass, then down the sweep of her thighs to her long, toned legs. She was carved to perfection.

Every inch of her reminded me of my Oduvanchik…

Of her.

If I closed my eyes, I could almost feel her legs locked around my waist, my hands gripping her hips as I drove into her, murmuring filth into her ear while she gasped my name. I could hear Xeniya’s low, seductive voice again—the soft catch of her breath when I bit her earlobe, the way she pressed her lips together to muffle her cries as I fucked her senseless.

My Xeniya.

I grew hard just thinking about it.

But when my gaze lifted to the elegant line of this woman’s neck and the tumble of cinnamon curls brushing her shoulders, I knew she wasn’t mine.

She never would be.

Xeniya was dead.

I had watched her die. Over and over again. Rewinding the footage and torturing myself. Again and again.

One moment, she was alive and smiling—radiant, beautiful—and the next, she was nothing.

Gone in an instant.

Gone in a mist of red.

Red like this woman’s hair.

I took a long sip of whiskey, letting the burn smother whatever had lodged inside me. And yes, I probably should have drunk vodka like a good Russian, but there was nothing good about me.

“Who is that?” I asked Maks, my head guard.