Page 111 of Joey

“Money?” She snorts. “I have nothing, Joey. My mom has burned through it all. Every last cent.”

“I didn’t know.” I frown.

She sneers. “Of course you didn’t. Because you wander around in your own little perfect Joey world.”

“Are you out of your freaking mind?” I scream. “My world is far from perfect.” My mom died when I was three. My father was a maniac. I was sent off to Italy for three long years—for reasons I still can’t fathom—and she knows all of this.

She folds her arms across her chest and looks down at me like I’m something she just stepped in.

“Mo? Please?” I plead with her. Surely she has to see reason. “Why are you doing this?”

She sighs dreamily. “For Viktor.”

“Viktor?”

“Hmm. He’s my ticket out of here.”

I only know one Viktor, but it can’t be him, right? “Tell me Viktor Pushkin isn’t Mystery Guy?”

Her only response is a smug smile. It makes a sick kind of sense. Her man was always disappearing for weeks on end and more recently seemed to have gone completely off the radar. “But why? What does Viktor Pushkin want with me?”

She runs a finger through one of my curls and I yank my head out of her reach, making her laugh. “Poor little naive Joey. Nobody ever tells you what’s going on, do they? Even screwing Max didn’t make him open up to you.”

My stomach rolls again. “What the hell are you talking about?”

Before she can answer, the door opens and a heavyset man with tattoos on his face and a shaved head walks into the room.

“Hey, baby,” she squeals when she sees him. This must be Viktor.

He doesn’t smile. There isn’t even a flicker of affection for her in his eyes. He lifts his arm, and it’s only then that I see the gun in his hand. I close my eyes and shrink back.Dear god, he’s going to kill me.

A deafening gunshot rings out and I’m splattered with warm stickiness. Opening my eyes, I take a deep breath, and something drips into my mouth. Blood. Is it mine?

Refocusing on my surroundings, I see Viktor standing directly in front of me. On the floor is Monique, face down with a huge hole in the back of her skull.

I lurch forward and vomit onto the floor.

“We meet at last, Guiseppina,” Viktor says in a thick Russian accent. He smirks, not in the least bit bothered by the dead body or the puddle of puke at his feet.

“You’re a psychopath.”

“Maybe.” His smirk transforms into a full smile. “But I am your husband also. At least this time next week I will be.”

ChapterForty-Five

MAX

“Ican’t fucking stand this, D,” I snap, pacing up and down the corridor. “We need to be out there doing something, not sitting around waiting.”

“Doing what, Max? Lorenzo has a team of men ripping Monique’s house apart. Dmitri has half his army scouring the city. I got all my tech guys searching every traffic camera for Monique’s car. But our best lead is in that fucking room having his chest sewn back together.” He nods in the direction of the operating room. “This is where we need to be. But if it makes you feel better to be out there busting some heads open, you go do that.”

I glare at him, hating him for being right. “It’s been six fucking hours, and nothing.” I rake my hands through my hair. My ability to think logically or rationally has fled. I’m consumed with rage and terror. My girl is out there somewhere, and they could be hurting her right now. They could be—

A woman in scrubs steps into the waiting room. “Mr. Moretti?”

Please, fuck, let Ash have made it.

Dante steps forward. “Yes.”