Page 5

F lashback. Six years ago.

The Wilted Wallflower was the hottest club in Manhattan, but I still crinkled my nose at the cloying stink of perfume and cologne as I walked inside.

The bass was bumping, and the strobe lights were blinking so brightly they stung my eyes. I blinked twice before my eyes adjusted.

“Micky Baby! Where you been?” Shelly screeched and pulled me in for a bear hug.

I grinned, hugging her back. Shelly was still my best friend. Even though we’d spent our college years apart, we managed to stay in touch. Tonight was for her.

She’d just been offered an internship at her top choice hospital in Manhattan, and I was so damn proud of her.

Shelly— or maybe I should call her Dr. Michelle Davis —worked damn hard to get where she was, and I couldn’t be happier for her.

I’d recently graduated from Stevens Institute of Technology with a master’s degree in computer science and was also in the mood for celebrating.

Four years of constant studying and pushing myself to excel hadn’t left much time for fun. So, when Shelly decided we needed to go out, and that this was the perfect place to let our hair down, I agreed.

She invited a couple of her friends from med school, and I invited my cousins, Clementine, Lucy, and Aella, to join us.

Technically, Lucy was my only blood relative. But that did not matter when you were as close as we were. Our parents were best friends, and as children, we’d all been raised together.

These women had been a part of my life for every holiday, vacation, and celebration for as long as I could remember.

We were all family. And we all looked out for one another.

Being from high-profile families with overprotective parents and more money than was probably wise, we were all used to the private security detail Clementine’s father, Uncle Josef, provided.

Hell. I was so used to it, I didn’t even blink at the heavily muscled, likely armed, men who always seemed to pop up whenever I ventured out and about.

Shelly, however, still did a double take every time she saw me with a bodyguard.

“Oh my God! Is he new?” she asked, licking her pink painted lips.

I snorted a laugh and glanced at the quiet, stern looking man behind me.

“Yes, he’s new. Stop flirting with my bodyguard,” I teased, then turned around to face the guard dog in question.

“You can wait by the door, Antonio. We’re staying here for a few hours,” I told him.

“Um, miss? My detail is to follow you?—”

“You have followed me. Report back to your team leader that my cousins and I are at a graduation party for Shelly Davis, and we will be here until they close the place. Got it?” I asked, and I let him feel the weight of the obsidian stare I inherited from my father.

“You are so bad,” Shelly whispered, and handed me a shot glass.

“What is it?” I asked.

“A slippery nipple!” she shouted over the pounding music.

“Ooh! Gimme!” Lucy, my obscenely beautiful cousin, came crashing into us, stealing my drink, and grinning wildly as she slammed back my shot.

“Lucy!” I scolded her as she handed Clementine and Aella, who just turned twenty-one, two more shots from Shelly’s tray.

Much like her father, or so I was told, since I really did not think of my uncle as being in any way attractive—I mean, gross. But if I had to pick someone as the personification of beauty, it would be her.

She was the tallest of all the female cousins at five foot seven, with glossy dark hair that cascaded down to her waist in a chestnut waterfall. Her eyes were spectacularly blue, and her hourglass figure could rival a 1950s pinup girl.

Clementine was the mirror image of her mother with a fiery mane of red hair and emerald colored eyes. While Aella had her mother’s celery green gaze and straight black hair that she kept cut in a severe chin length bob.

“What? I thought this was a party! Speaking of which—Clem, gimme the bags,” she muttered.

“Here,” Clem replied, handing her two packages.

“Okay—we got PRESENTS!” Lucy yelled and handed one brightly wrapped gift to Michelle and one to me.

Me and my bestie locked gazes before racing to open our gifts, matching smiles spreading across our faces.

Inside were matching bracelets with several little BFF hearts dangling from them. I cocked my head to the side, curious as to why so many, but Shelly was already squealing.

“I love it! You guys are the best,” Michelle shouted over the music, and hugged each of my cousins enthusiastically.

Shelly and I had been friends forever, and I knew how much it meant to her to be included in things like this. I mean, I didn’t understand, but I was glad she didn’t run screaming from us.

It was simply the Volkov way. Our family had a knack for embracing everyone we cared about, drawing them into our orbit.

And Shelly? She was the best person I knew.

Her kindness and warmth radiated from her, making anyone feel at ease.

Seriously, she was more like family than just a friend.

We practically lived in each other’s pockets, even through the chaos of grad school and med school. She meant the world to me, and I was so happy to be celebrating our successes together.

“We got them too!” Aella said, shaking her wrist for us all to see.

The rest of our group arrived shortly, and after introductions were made, all bets were off.

We danced.

We drank.

We danced some more.

The DJ was so good. The music on point. The place was packed, and the crowd was fantastic. Young, energized, and fun as fuck.

Even though I grew up in Manhattan, my life was pretty sheltered. That tended to happen when your father was Adrik Volkov.

But I wasn’t a baby anymore. So, when the DJ shined the spotlight on me and declared me the winner of some sort of prize. I didn’t hesitate. Laughter rang out behind me as I ran to the booth to claim my treasure.

Only, what I found behind that one way glass door wasn’t a trophy.

It was a nightmare.

I was just too stupid and na?ve to know better.