Page 18 of Black Ledger

This would be an interesting turn of events, because from everything I had heard, the Morozovs were some of his closest confidants—which was why I had grown wary of them.

“Yes.” Severin adjusted his cufflinks with deliberate calm, his gaze locked on me.

“You don’t trust them?”

“I don’t fully trust anyone.”

I tapped my fingernails against the armrest. “That’s sad.” I leaned in closer, my gaze dancing with his, the tension between us pulling taut like a bowstring. “What if I choose to hack into your systems and destroy you?”

His thumb brushed his lower lip as he thought. I would have given anything to be inside his head in that moment. “I am not afraid of you.”

I let out a short laugh, my knee drifting against his for a moment. “Maybe you should be,” I said in a sassy tone. I bit my bottom lip and watched his gaze drop to my mouth. “You trust a female hacker?”

“Yes,” he said coldly, his eyes narrowing and cutting into me.

I ignored his change in emotional temperature and moved us back to the heart of the conversation. “Would you like me to start looking into the money first or the surveillance? And is there anything in particular you’d like me to look for?”

“Start with the money.” He reclined into his chair with a calculated dominance. “Since we’re engaged, you have the perfect excuse to come to my compound and sneak around my offices. We can pretend to be courting⁠—”

“What, are we stuck in medieval times?”

Dark amusement ghosted across his lips. “Considering the marriage practices of the mafia? Possibly.”

I smiled back. “Touché. So when would you like me to come over and pretend I want to know you better?”

“You could also try actually to get to know me better. We’re going to get married.”

Something tightened beneath my ribs. It was another reminder of how easily he could marry another woman. Because while I had thought about him nearly every day since I was kidnapped and trafficked, he clearly had not.

But why would he?

Get rid of her.

He had sold me to be raped, branded, tortured, and murdered. Too bad the last one didn’t stick—too bad for all of them because I was vengeance, and I was coming for them all.

But I planted my feet, rolled my shoulders back, and pulled my mask on harder. Keira was fun. Flirty, witty, sexual. She would not growl or glare at Severin. She would play with him.

So play I did.

“Now, why would I want to do that? It would be so dull to know one’s husband.” I wiggled my nose and ran my fingernails suggestively along the armrest.

He coughed, slightly ruffled, his eyes tracking the tips of my fake nails. I hoped he was imagining me clawing at his back or stroking a far more sensitive part of his anatomy. “Friday would be a good day to stop by, and I’ll show you around.”

“All right, but I want a million dollars.”

He coughed again, taking me in, calculating. “Fine. I guess you’re going to be an expensive wife.”

I let out a quiet, husky laugh. “I absolutely will be.”

It would be expensive. I was going to take everything from him, just like they had taken everything from me.

Chapter Ten

Xeniya Morozova

Age 35

“Wait, what did Severin ask you to do?” Gemma Hayes, one of my closest friends, stared at me, but I barely heard her.