Page 62

DECLAN

I almost beat down my office door to get inside. Air. I need fucking air away from her.

I fall for her every single time. She distracts me.

But I have a name. Potentially.

As I stumble into my office, I find Enzo reclined back on my chair.

“Quite something to watch between the two of you. You know her?” he asks, clasping his hands together on his thigh.

“Uh. Yea? She’s the woman who set me up in Italy.”

“Interesting. Five years ago?”

I nod.

He turns my screen around to face me. I’m not even going to question the fact he’s hacked me.

“The name she gave you. You heard of that family?” he asks as I stare at a guy's mug shot on the screen.

He looks fucking evil. About my age, maybe older.

Enzo points to the screen.

“This right here is Mr. Vlad Kovalyov. One below the leader of the Kovalyov family. They’re going for a Russian takeover. Well, he is, potentially against his family's wishes.”

I scratch my head.

“And you invited him?” I ask. Enzo nods, his blue eyes burning into me.

“There is a lot I want to learn about that family.”

A silent message I’m not getting. My head is spinning.

And then my heart fucking stops.

“He entered his?—“

I can’t finish the sentence.

“Wife. Declan. Charlotte is his wife.”

I smash my fist against the wall beside me.

Wife.

She was never fucking mine.

“Did you know it was her?” I shout, heading straight for the drinks cabinet. I don’t even bother with a glass, I just down it from the bottle.

“No. I wasn’t sure who they would send here. Like I said, I’m figuring them out. I thought it would be a different ghost that ended up here.” The disappointment in his voice is clear.

“Who?”

He shakes his head.

“It doesn’t matter. We have Charlotte. She might have the answers we need.”

I motion to the door.

“Have at it. Ask what you want. Take her.” I dismiss him, returning to my whiskey.

He stands and laughs.

“She broke your heart, didn’t she?”

I scoff as he approaches, swiping the bottle from my hands.

“It was one night. How could that break my heart?” I ask, looking up at him.

“Funny how the heart knows. We all have one person in this lifetime. You know when you find them, and you feel the pain for eternity when you lose them.”

“Even if they betray you? If it wasn’t real?” I ask.

He places the bottle back in the cabinet.

“If it wasn’t real, it wouldn’t hurt, Declan. I think that answers that. As for the betrayal. Maybe we hear her out. Vlad is evil. She said something in there about survival, correct?” He straightens his navy suit as he heads to the door.

“She did.”

I think about the pain in her eyes.

The truth I hear in her words.

And shake my head, remembering that blade on the floor.

“She’s married.”

I rub that tattoo on my pec. I need the whiskey back.

“Like that matters. Plenty of ways to eliminate that problem, Declan,” he says as he swings open the door.

He points to my computer.

“Watch and listen carefully. We might get answers without all the sexual tension boiling between the two of you.”

Does it matter what she has to say? She can’t take back trying to frame me. She can’t give me those days back where I didn’t save my father.

I sigh, leaning back. Would it have made any difference if I did make it back in time? My father knew what he was doing, and he was never a man to be stopped.

As the door closes, I let out a breath and study the monitor. She’s managed to shuffle her chair. Now it’s on its side, and she’s on the floor.

What I don’t like is the familiar look in her eyes when Enzo waltzes through the door.

“Charlotte,” he greets her, heading to the chocolate fountain, leaving her on the floor.

He kicks the knife a few feet away from her and sits the chair back upright.

“Recognize me?” he asks, and she blinks at him.

“I don’t know you.”

He laughs and shakes his head.

“I am not the man to lie to.” His Italian accent deepens.

She shivers, and suddenly, I’m nervous. I’m not sure I want to hear what he will drag out of her.

Chewing on my lip, I watch with apprehension. She’s mine to interrogate.

To break.

Not his.

Cracking my knuckles, I lean in closer.

“We’ve never met,” she whispers.

He pulls out my chair and takes a seat in front of her, resting his hands on his thighs.

“Correct. Not officially on my end.” He holds out a hand to her and chuckles.

“Oops. Bit tied up, aren’t you?”

She scowls at him and I can’t help but smile.

“I’m Enzo. I’m sure your husband knows me.”

Her eyes widen. There it is. That horror. The pain.

Inside, I’m pleading with the universe for her to say he isn’t her husband.

“My husband doesn’t divulge business with me. That’s not my job.” She looks down, disgust on her face as she said those first two words.

As she looks up at the camera, my heart races.

I’m not sure what I feel.

Hatred. Anger. Betrayal. Hurt?

Sympathy?

It’s something. Yet deep inside me, I want to rush down there and throw Enzo out of the room to get my real answer.

I don’t even hear my door, as Conan is behind me clasping me on the shoulder.

“You okay, bro?” he asks.

“Not fucking really.” I nod to the screen.

I thought it would be easier than it was to let my anger out on her.

Yet one look in those pools of blue and I was lost. Transported back to a time where life was easier.

To a time I felt alive.

I’ve lived in a hard shell for five years, doing anything to chase that high she gave me, with no success.

“Tell me, Charlotte.”

Enzo leans in closer, and I clench my jaw.

“Who runs the family you work for? I assume you aren’t just married for love?”

My heartbeat is so erratic my chest burns.

Her shoulders slump, but I see her mind racing as she stares into Enzo's eyes.

“Tatiana is the head of the family. Vlad and Emil are her brothers. I’m married to Vlad,” she says harshly, like it’s poison on her tongue.

“How much do you know of Tatiana?”

Enzo is almost flustered, patting down his suit.

“Her brothers fear her. She recently got shot, she’s recovering.” Charlotte looks deep in thought.

“I’ve come to the conclusion she isn’t as evil as her brothers. She doesn’t know me or—” She cuts herself off.

“She doesn’t even know I exist.”

“And who?” Enzo pushes.

“M-my handler.”

Bullshit. She’s hiding something.

And how would this woman not know that her brother’s wife exists? How fucked up is this family?

“I find that hard to believe.” Enzo leans back, studying Charlotte.

“She thinks I am a contract killer for Vlad. She has no idea I was forced to marry him. I’m under strict orders to not speak or even look at her. My guess is they are scared of what she will do to them if she knew what they had done to me.”

“And they? Who is the other one?”

“Emil. Him and Vlad are the ones who stole me from my family, the ones who have trapped me.”

My stomach drops.

She was fucking kidnapped.