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He doesn’t answer right away. Just walks a slow, circling path around the room.

“You… you were plotting this.Youwere the one who fucked with my accounts.Youwere the one who fucked with my flight when I tried to leave?—”

“For a clever lass, it sometimes takes you a minute, doesn’t it?” He smiles faintly. “Youwerelosing it, and that sick boyfriend of yours was having his fun, eh? I just nudged things along.”

I want to throw something. My chair, my laptop. But I don’t. Just on the other side of the door, I have a goddamn cavalcade ready to come in, but who knows how many others he’s planted? I could take his phone…

“You were working with his parents,” I say, my voice flat. “All this time.”

I try to keep calm, my palms planted on my desk. I don’t know where this is going, but I know one thing for sure—I’ll need to record what he says if we’re to keep peace with the Irish. I click a mouse on my computer and begin recording.

“Don’t move,” he snaps in a low whisper.

Cillian’s eyes flicker, a glint of crazy behind the charm. “He and I had an understanding. You weren’tmeantto go off-leash like this. You weren’t supposed tobelongto him,” he murmurs. “You were meant for something bigger.” He steps closer. “Forme.”

Rage rises in my chest. I glare at him. “And yet you never made a move. You kept your distance, didn’t you? None of you cared two shits about me.”

“That’s where you’re wrong, lass,” he says, low and quiet. “It’s complicated with us.”

He laughs softly, but there’s a sick sort of tone to it. “I watched you. You think I didn’t want to come for you? But in my world, women are owned. I wanted you to think I didn’t want you and knew if I made my move too soon, you wouldn’t havefeltit. I knew if you felt you didn’t have a place with us, you’d appreciate it when you did.”

What kind of fucked-up narcissistic bullshit isthat? He’s batshit crazy.

“Matvei was a tool. A weapon.” His eyes narrow dangerously. “But he doesn’t own you. You know how the Kopolovs work. Has he married you, lass? Even fucking proposed?” He shakes his head. “No. You’re his kept woman.” He leans in. “Disposable. His little ghost, who can vanish into vapor.”

Oh god. He’s sliced me open and rubbed salt in the wound.

“So this is what you’re going to do,” he says, leaning in, the bright red button right under his finger. “Unless you want me to pressdetonate.”

* * *

Chapter31

MATVEI

I nursemy drink just in time for a pause in my conversation with Rafail. There are voices in the room where Anissa’s supposed to be—low, muffled. And then…

Silence.

The kind that crawls up your spine and makes youlisten.

At first, I figure she’s doing what she always does—taking voice notes, maybe making a call. She’s obsessive like that. Precise. Controlled.

But there’s nothing now. Not even the rustle of movement.

Rafail notices me staring at the door.

“Relax,” Rafail tells me. “You have to let go of some control, Matvei.”

Well that’s rich, coming from him. Still, he has a point.

My attention gets pulled away when Polina comes down the stairs, having finally put the kids to bed. She looks around, her expression pinched.

“Where’s Anissa? Yana? Zoya? Where is everybody?” she asks.

Rafail opens his arm in a lazy gesture and smirks. “Matvei and I are nobody?”

“I mean the girls,” she says, rolling her eyes.