Page 31 of Black Ledger

“Yes.” I gritted my teeth.

Mikhail dipped his chin in acknowledgment, walked over to Kaz and Xeniya, and cut in, dancing with her instead.

I thought it would make me feel better.

It didn’t.

If anything, jealousy slithered through me, ugly and violent. Mikhail tucked a loose strand of Xeniya’s hair behind her ear and said something that made her turn the color of a rose petal. I knew my brother wasn’t flirting with her, but the gesture still made my stomach churn, and rage pulsed hot beneath my ribs. I wanted to break his fucking jaw for touching her.

I downed another whiskey in one go, and I found Kazimir’s sister, Katya, in the crowd and asked her to dance with me. And because I was a motherfucker, I fucked her in the coat closet, just to prove I could. She moaned loud enough that anyone walking nearby could have heard.

And I didn’t care. In fact, I hoped Xeniya would hear. Maybe it would make her feel even a fraction of this sickness.

I also wanted to prove a point to Kaz. Touch what’s mine, and I will ruin everything you love.

I broke Katya’s heart that night. But I didn’t care.

I probably should have.

Chapter Sixteen

Severin Volkov

Age 18

Eighteen Years

Xeniya wouldn’t tell me what had happened in the Gauntlet. But she had bruises on her neck, bruises all over her body, and a deep slash just below her throat. The Gauntlet wasn’t supposed to be deadly. It was a War Game designed to make us work better together. But I knew, in my bones, my father had sent someone to kill her.

If he killed her, I would kill him.

Age 18

I started fucking anyone who would let me, always trying to shake my obsession.

It never worked.

All I ever wanted was her, and she never even looked back at me.

Chapter Seventeen

Xeniya Morozova

Age 18

Seventeen Years

Inever turned in my homework late—I hated being a bad student, or honestly, being bad at anything—but Mom fainted again. Her cancer was back. She’d been in remission for eight years, but the other day we were baking together, and she fainted.

She might have died, too, if I hadn’t stepped in and caught her before her temple hit the corner of the counter.

It was terrifying, and not much scared me anymore. But that did. We spent three days in the hospital, and I never left her side. Which meant I had to miss school and training.

The Pakhan was not amused.

But it was for Mom.

It turned out to be breast cancer, stage three. She needed a double mastectomy this time and didn’t take it well. She’d done everything in her power not to have that surgery the first time. She didn’t want to be any less of a woman for Dad. She didn’t want her sex drive to fail and her husband to lose attraction to her.