Page 72 of Black Ledger

It was all a clusterfuck.

But keep your enemies closer, right?

If the Morozovs were the ones betraying me, I would smoke them out, and I would end them, but for now, I needed them. So I called all three of them in, and within fifteen minutes, Nika, Ilya, and Dimitri were in the spy den. They had temporarily moved into one of the houses on the property, despite having a massive estate of their own ten minutes away.

I spread out the pictures and taunting notes so that we could all see them. At first, I thought the pile was only evidence of my father’s stalker and kidnapper taunting him, but after further inspection, we’d realized it was a pile of threats to at least fifteen men, all of whom had mysteriously disappeared.

Some of the messages were cryptic, and some were straight-up blunt. But all of them were horrifying, and all of them accompanied a severed body part… or at least most of them did. The messages said things like:

Now open your mouth.

Good, little whore.

Run for me, Kitten.

I am coming for you… But when, Aleksandr?

Tick, tock, tick tock, every third Thursday on the clock.

Roses are red, violets are blue, how long do you think it will take me to kill you?

Did you scream his name when you fucked him, little whore?

Open those legs for me, Oleg.

When do you think they will let you die?

Fuck me like you mean it, Aleksandr.

How does it feel now, princess?

Ten days? Do you think you can escape me, Pavel?

Spank me harder.

I know what you did.

Do you like pain, Kitten?

You have one month to live, Oleg.

You can’t hide the truth from me.

Ride me like you mean it.

“What the fuck is all of this?” Ilya said, his face blanching. He didn’t mean the gifts and the messages. He meant what they said.

“Most of them are sexual in nature.” Nika’s eyes were wide, and she played with her bottom lip in thought. “Do you think they raped her, the ghost? Is that the motive?”

“I would have thought the same thing, except I have received three similar messages, and I haven’t even touched someone since—” I did not need to say her name for us all to know who I meant.

“Then why those specific messages?” Nika asked.

I shook my head. “Most are sexual in nature, but not all. Perhaps she is hunting down their secrets and taunting them with them—showing them that she can get to them.”

“That they can’t hide from her,” Dimitri added. “She will find them and kill them.”

“So what we can confirm without a doubt is that the ghost is hunting more than just me and my father,” I said, taking a sip of whiskey. “And her pattern is to taunt before she strikes.”