Page 13 of Black Ledger

I would not marry a mafia princess.

But… I might as well fuck this one and pretend to get engaged to her.

Thirteen years of self-imposed punishment—of torture—was long enough.

Maybe it was time to unlock the cage. My cock certainly wanted its freedom.

But even the thought felt like a betrayal, and I didn’t know whether I would ever be able to go through with it.

Chapter Seven

Xeniya Morozova

Age 35

My skin prickled. A gaze seared into my spine. I didn’t need to turn to know who was staring at me. Severin Volkov. No matter the life, the universe, the time, his eyes always found me. And while most of my appearance had changed, the shape of my body never had. I always had an hourglass figure and far too many curves, even when I trained with the boys every single day.

It didn’t matter how much I worked out. It wouldn’t matter. My body never changed. Still soft in places that should have hardened after everything I had endured.

So like I said, nothing had changed… except everything.

Anxiety poured through my bones, licking at my insides until bile stirred in my stomach.

I pinched my eyes shut, and I tried to keep the pain from clawing its way up my throat, but I couldn’t stop it. I couldn’t unhear his words. Get rid of her.

Get rid of her.

The last words I’d ever heard him say.

I sucked my lower lip between my teeth. I had thought I was prepared for this. I was supposed to be fine. But nothing was fine.

The worst part was I’d trained for this moment. I had practiced exposure therapy—looking at their photos over and over, watching videos on repeat—so that I could walk into this room and not react. So I wouldn’t let them know how deeply they hurt me.

I was fury made manifest. I wasn’t supposed to feel anymore. Ghosts didn’t feel. But right now, I was a ball of emotions—tightly contained, awful emotions.

My fingers curled too tightly around the stem of my champagne glass. I brought it to my lips and downed it.

Three glasses in, and I still wasn’t numb. I should have chosen whiskey.

But this would do.

I tilted my head, needing to see him.

It was a mistake.

My stomach tightened, and I gulped. It all hit at once. All of the emotion and memories, eating away at me.

My lungs forgot to work.

Severin Volkov was the devil in human form, and like Lucifer, he was stunning. Light clung to his tailored suit as if it didn’t know he had fallen from the heavens.

He had no right to look better at thirty-six.

The sheer audacity.

Everything about him was sharper and deadlier. The cords in his neck, the ropes of his muscles, his heavier build. It was like he had grown into his body—like he had grown into the violence and thick muscles.

Young Severin had been all cocky smiles and arrogant words, but this version was darker, moodier, and far, far deadlier.