Page 9 of Deceptive Vows

The man doesn’t look at me. Instead, he continues to shoot Felipe.

I run toward the doors at the other end of the hall, hoping he doesn’t shoot me down as I run away. I just make it through the doors when I hear him coming.

“There, there, princess, run as fast and as far as you can. You won’t escape me.”

His voice carries down the passageway.

He’s right, too. I don’t get far, and I know I won’t escape when another man—this one masked—jumps out from behind one of the columns and elbows me so hard in my face the impact knocks me out.

3

Mikhail

Present time

Ikeep my gaze trained on the princess in her wedding dress as she walks ahead of me with two of my soldiers on either side of her.

The old man—Raul’s senior lieutenant—is behind me.

I want Raul to see her first. I need him to recognize I was serious about his destruction and taking his only pride.

His beloved daughter, Adriana Alverez, will be the last thing he sees before he leaves this world.

Three weeks ago, when I awoke from the coma I’d been in for nearly three months, Felipe’s face was the first image that come to my mind.

What followed next was the full memory of the ambush that motherfucker set up to kill my mother and sister right before my eyes. At that moment, the realization struck me that Raul sent him because Felipe Naveed doesn’t do anything outside Raul’s orders.

It was a good assassination plot, except for the fact that I lived. I was the thing that went wrong.

I wasn’t supposed to be alive to place Felipe at the scene of the crime, or to track anything back to Raul to bring on the massacre I rained down earlier today.

Dead men tell no tales, but I lived to sing them and avenge my mother and sister.

Raul will feel my wrath, and Adriana will witness it.

She’s the reason he kept his silence as I tortured him. He thought he could save her by refusing to talk and tell me why he did what he did.

All his refusal did was confirm the suspicion already churning my gut, telling me he wasn’t working alone.

His actions were already suspicious as fuck. Sure, Raul Alvarez is a powerful man with the type of thirst to conquer akin to most cartel kings. I wouldn’t be exaggerating by saying he runs Mexico, but the Baranov Bratva is world-renowned for our infamy. You wouldn’t be idiot enough to kill the wife and daughter of the Pakhan out of the blue and think you could get away with it.

But there’s a hell of a lot more to this story than simply wanting to conquer a world-renowned giant. I will find out exactly what’s going on.

The princess stumbles, and one of my men rights her by grabbing her arm.

That’s when I notice the bruise on her cheek she would have gotten when that imbecile knocked her out.

I dealt with him after for doing so. He went against my orders and harmed her.

I meant what I said back in the dungeon. Even with blood, guts, and bruises on her, she is beautiful with the striking beauty to rival all the angels.

I’d be a liar and more of a sinner than I already am if I didn’t admit to finding her as insanely attractive as my men, who I catch stealing glances at her.

People everywhere have only heard whispers of how beautiful Raul Alvarez’s daughter is. The fact Raul kept her a mystery only increased the allusion to her beauty.

The real-life version of her certainly beat what I conjured in my mind.

Those bright, large hazel eyes against her vibrant olive skin are breathtaking. As is her body.