Page 72

I breathe through my rage, keeping my expression blank. Ekaterina Ivanova has never believed in second chances. In her world, disloyalty is a death sentence.
I am not as merciful as my mother likes to think. Lila will suffer for what she did, but not in the way my mother envisions.
I won’t kill her.
I will own her.
When I finally have her back in my grasp, she will pay for every sleepless night, every second of agony she’s put me through.
The old woman forgets that humiliation isn’t what fuels me.
It’s possession.
Lila isn’t something I can lose.
She’s something that belongs to me.
And yet, months have passed, and she’s still beyond my reach.
That fact burns in my gut like acid, a slow, torturous rage that refuses to subside. I have men scouring the country, tracing every possible lead…
“You’re too soft, Mikhail.” My mother turns, her ice-blue eyes pinning me with disappointment. “You let that little American girl humiliate you, and now you do nothing.”
I swirl the whiskey in my glass, watching the amber liquid catch the firelight. I don’t respond. There’s nothing to say.
She steps closer, her heels clicking against the polished floors, her presence suffocating. “Do you have any idea what people are saying?” she continues, voice laced with disdain. “That the mighty Mikhail Ivanov was played by a girl. That your wife—the woman meant to solidify your position—ran and you have yet to make an example of her.”
My jaw clenches.
I know what they’re saying. I’ve heard the whispers, seen the amused glances in the eyes of men who wouldn’t dare speak their thoughts aloud.
They think I’ve been defanged.
That I’ve let Lila Evans make a fool of me.
My mother steps even closer, resting a delicate hand on the back of my chair. “You’ve searched long enough,” she murmurs. “You won’t find her like this. And if you refuse to take action, then I will.”
I set my glass down, slow and controlled. “Meaning?”
Her lips curl into a thin, cruel smile. “She has a mother, doesn’t she?”
A cold, sharp silence stretches between us.
I already know where this is going.
“She’s the only loose thread,” my mother continues smoothly. “If Lila is still alive, that woman knows where she is. She’s her mother—a woman like her will always find a way to keep in touch. Even in hiding.”
I exhale slowly, my fingers pressing into the armrest of my chair. “You think I don’t already know that?”
“Then why haven’t you used it?” she snaps, her patience wearing thin. “Drag the woman in. Hurt her. Dangle her life in front of her daughter, and watch how quickly Lila crawls out of whatever hole she’s buried herself in.”
I tilt my head, studying her.
Ekaterina Ivanova is not a woman who bluffs.
She doesn’t speak in hypotheticals. If I don’t handle this, she will.
And my mother does not believe in mercy.