Page 181 of Modern Romance December 2025 1-4

He was not certain he knew what to do in such extraordinary circumstances, so he concentrated on the usual things. The simple necessities that got him through a job, which in this case involved carrying hiswholly routinecargo to the door at the end of the hall. There he cast an assessing eye over the guards he’d carefully incapacitated on his way in.

Because he never killed unnecessarily.Quality over quantity, he had once told his uncle in his cousin’s hearing. He lived by this.

The men were both still out and would come to, eventually, to find that they had terrible headaches. And likely far bigger problems than that when they had to explain their inability to do their jobs to a man like Boris Ardelean, who did not play by Jovi’s rules.

But then, everyone had problems.

Jovi’s included this appallingawarenesshe had of the woman over his shoulder. The way he could feel her body in a variety of concerning ways, when he shouldn’t have given her a second thought. Yet he was entirely too clear on exactly where her breasts brushed against his back. And he couldn’t seem to stop thinking about the fact that his hand was on the sweet curve of her ass as he held her in place.

These were details that should not have affected him one way or another.

Worse than that, he kept getting the scent of her in his nose, soaps and lotions and whatever else she used that made her smell the way sunshine felt. The taste of her blood in his mouth, a shimmery copper that made him wonder if vampires were onto something.

As if he was fanciful enough to believe in mythical creatures in the first place.

And beyond all that—all horrifying enough—there was the curious predicament of his heart.

Jovi could not recall ever thinking about hisheartbefore. It was an organ. It beat. The end.

But tonight it seemed to have taken on a life of its own. It was as if when he’d put her fingers in his mouth, her blood had made his thicken. As if she’d infected him. Now his heart seemed swollen, tender.

And it beat far harder than it should.

So hard and so loud that he was surprised all the rest of the arms dealer’s largely useless guards weren’t summoned by the noise.

But they weren’t.

Somehow, only he seemed to hear it, hammering away like it wanted out.

Once out of Rux’s hallway and back in the main part of the house, he looked around. And stood still a moment, listening. Making sure that everything was as quiet as it had been when he’d slipped inside.

Only when he was certain it was did he methodically make his way through the house, down into the servants’ quarters and out the side door that he paused to rearm from his mobile, because anything electronic could be hacked.

When the door was armed, he waited another moment and then moved quickly through the shadows of what was meant to be some kind of courtyard, timing it perfectly. Ardelean, convinced of his own importance, had a whole show of spotlights and barbed wire to announce his great significance to all of Czechia, yet had failed entirely to account for human error. In Jovi’s experience, this was often the case with men who paid others to do what they would not do themselves.

Bought loyalty was merely betrayal in waiting.

In this case, Jovi walked out the way he’d walked in, through the unarmed door the servants used to sneak a smoke on duty.

He closed it tight behind him and walked quickly but without any urgency down the hillside until he reached the armed Range Rover he’d parked in the drive of a quiet house whose owners were abroad. Having backed in, he paused at the boot of the vehicle and listened once again. For footsteps. For dogs. For any hint that he’d tripped a security measure somewhere. But the little neighborhood of wannabe oligarchs on a Czech hill was sleepy in these predawn hours, and still.

He opened the hatch of the Range Rover and loaded Rux inside, waiting for her reaction—but once again, all she did was gaze at him with those sober gray eyes. And nod, as if she was extending him her permission.

That, too, made his heart catapult about in a way Jovi did not like.

Profoundly.

He secured her, but he also covered her with a blanket in a manner that he could only call considerate—careful, he corrected himself, he was only beingcareful, as befit the situation—and was perhaps a little too relieved to drive away.

He needed to remember himself. He needed to regain his bearings.

That he had never once forgotten himself or lost his bearings before was something he could interrogate and explore once this was finished.

Tonight was a show for an audience of one, who would react predictably to this demonstration that his power was a joke, and Jovi thought he’d set the scene beautifully.

The first act of the play that was about to unfold required specific extra inducements. Just to make certain things clear to a man like Ardelean who had dared reach so far above himself.

A man who truly believed he alone could stand against Il Serpente.