Page 33 of Desperate Crimes (Mergers & Acquisitions #6)

I hear his voice, but it sounds far away.

Like it’s coming through layers of glass and velvet and smoke.

A merger.

An empire.

A proposal built behind my back, but maybe not for me this time.

The words come at me like smoke and silk.

Rare-earth commodities, ports, legitimate.

So clean. So calculated.

And Nico, my husband? He is the one delivering it.

The Viper with an ivy-league law degree and a silver forked-tongue.

I don’t even recognize him.

He’s speaking with the same mouth he used to whisper filth into my ear just nights ago.

Gesturing with the same hands that cradle my face so tenderly in the dark, like I’m something holy.

And yet here he is now—poised, impenetrable, brilliant—dropping the crown jewel of international strategy on my father’s lap like it’s a bouquet of flowers and not a bomb.

A gift. Or maybe a bride price.

My stomach turns.

My throat tightens.

He’s always intense.

Obsessive. Unrelenting.

That’s the man I fell for.

The one who carved a castle for me out of shadows and silk, who made me feel like I was a queen even when I didn’t ask to be one.

But this?

This is business.

And I don’t know if I’m part of the plan or just the reason it works so well.

My eyes sting.

Don’t cry, Leanna. Not here. Not now.

I try to keep my breathing even, my expression calm.

The way my mother taught me when I was young, when she’d pin my hair back before a recital or big game and say, “Never show them you’re afraid, Lee-Lee. Be cool like ice.”

But even ice cracks under enough pressure.

My mother’s watching me now from her seat across the room, eyes glassy but proud.

Aunt Destiny leans in close, murmuring something. And Nico’s mother— Anna Fury —blesses me with a kind smile, soft and motherly, the kind I didn’t know I needed until it landed.

“Want to sit, sweetheart?” Anna asks gently.

I shake my head before I can think. “No, thank you. I’m okay.”

Liar.

I am not okay.

But I feel Nico’s hand in mine, warm, firm— like a tether.

He doesn’t know what I’m thinking.

Or maybe he does. Maybe that’s why his thumb strokes mine, slow and deliberate.

Maybe it’s why he hasn’t looked at me since he said merger.

I don’t know what this marriage is anymore.

And that terrifies me.

I thought I was falling in love with a man who saw me. Who wanted me.

Not the daughter of Adrik Volkov.

Not a pawn in some glittering corporate chess match.

My father is nodding now, asking more questions, probing numbers and projections, completely unaware that something inside me is breaking.

And Nico?

He’s answering flawlessly.

Like he was born to do this.

But when he glances at me— finall y—his eyes soften.

Just a little. Just for me.

And I hate how much I want to believe that look.

How much I need to.

Because if this was all a setup, a long game built on bloodlines and profit margins?

Then I wasn’t stolen like Persephone.

I was bought.

My father’s voice interrupts my spiraling thoughts.

“I think the ladies should retire while we discuss the terms, gentlemen. Then we’ll see what kind of man you really are, Junior.”

I move woodenly, walking out of my father’s office, past the chair I used to hide behind and play with dolls while he worked.

The doors close behind me with a hushed click, and I stand there for a moment, suspended in glass.

Frozen.

Cracked.

He went with him.

Just like that.

Dad spoke, and Nico stayed behind.

For business.

My husband.

My secret husband.

The one who swore this wasn’t about anything but his obsessive need for me is now in talks with my father about a merger.

He is in there discussing Volkov Industries, Viper Enterprises, Fury Holdings, Southeast Asia, someone named Caas, and a bunch of shit I know nothing about.

He never said a thing to me.

Not a peep about any of it.

And I feel so stupid.

Like maybe this was always the why behind it all.

Like I was just a piece in the game. A fucking prize.

The rook.

Disposable.

To be used.

A Volkov daughter with the right blood, the right pedigree, the right signature on the right document.

Was this all a lie?

Did I really believe in the fairytale?

That he saw me?

That he wanted me ?

I turn and walk fast— too fast —down the wide hallway toward the east atrium, needing air, needing space, needing anything other than the ache forming behind my ribs.

My heels click like accusations on the marble floors.

“Leanna!” my mother’s voice calls, followed by the rustle of silk. “Leanna, wait.”

But I can’t.

I keep walking.

She catches up anyway. So do Aunt Destiny and Anna Fury, her expression soft and unsure.

“I—I can’t talk about this, Mom,” I murmur, my voice brittle.

She doesn’t stop. “But Lee-Lee, why didn’t you tell us? I just want to know what’s going on with you.”

“Nothing,” I whisper, hugging myself.

“You married him for love, right?” Mom asks, her voice cracking.

“I love him,” I confess.

Her hand touches my arm, but I can’t meet her eyes. “You didn’t even call me. What about your sister, does she know? Were you two dating? How did this happen?”

The words lodge in my throat like glass.

I can’t tell her.

I just shake my head. An apology on my lips. “I know I didn’t call. I’m sorry.”

Aunt Destiny speaks then, her voice low and velvet and full of all the things I don’t want to hear.

“You’re not alone, sweetie. Not in this. Whatever you’re thinking right now, don’t let it eat you alive.”

I blink back the sting in my eyes.

And then Anna— his mother—steps closer, and there’s something about the way she moves.

Calm. Regal. Knowing.

She’s seen the worst of men. Lived beside it. Loved it anyway.

“Leanna,” she says gently, “my son isn’t perfect. Neither is his father. But I can tell you one thing I know for sure.”

She pauses until I lift my gaze to hers.

“That man loves you. He looks at you like I’ve never seen him look at anyone else. Not in all his life.”

Her words hit me like a blow.

Because I want to believe them.

I want to believe in him.

But right now, all I feel is the weight in my chest. A dull, thunderous ache I can’t shake.

“Thank you, Mrs. Fury,” I manage, voice tight. “I appreciate that.”

I step back.

“I just think I need some space,” I whisper. “I need to breathe.”

They nod. Quietly.

No judgment. Just sadness.

And love.

But I still walk away.

Down another hallway, out toward an empty section of the huge wraparound patio, where the night is just starting to fall.

Where I can be alone with my doubts, my foolish heart, and the sick fear that maybe I was never his the way he said.

Maybe he was never really my Hades. And maybe I’m not his Persephone.

Just a pawn on someone else’s board.