Page 14 of Only for Him (Starkov Bratva #1)

“How long have you been working at this office?” Teddy asks once we’re alone.

“Six years.” I close the folder, set it between us like a buffer. “Russo pulled me out of Vice personally when I first joined.”

“Why?” Teddy asks.

“He was the one who worked on Serena’s case fifteen years ago,” I reply and find my voicewavering unexpectedly. “I guess it stuck with him and he’s felt like he owed her that much. Couldn’t save one Cantiano, so he might as well watch over another one.”

“Small world.” Teddy mutters.

“Not that small when you come from a family of alcoholic cops.” I sigh. “What about you?”

He shrugs. “They sent me to D.C., then Quantico for a year. Now I’m stuck working nothing but Bratva cases.” His laugh is self-deprecating. “Probably because I know all the Russian curse words.”

I can’t help laugh at that. That had been how Teddy and I bonded in the first place. Both of us had a penchant for swearing in Russian. But as soon as the laugh leaves my throat, my phone buzzes.

My personal phone and not the burner that my stalker gave me.

When I glance down at it, the message preview is just five words:

If he even thinks about…

The air leaves my lungs, but my thighs instinctively squeeze together as a trickle of warmth dances down my spine.

The full message is longer:

If he even thinks about touching you, little viper, I will split him open from balls to brain.

I suck in an involuntary sharp breath.

Fuck .

“You okay?” Teddy steps closer, but not too close. He remembers boundaries. I wish I did.

How the fuck is my stalker even seeing me right now? My apartment is one thing, but this is the goddamn precinct! If there’s anywhere on earth that should be able to keep him out…

I glance up, see the security camera, and feel the hair on the back of my neck stand at attention as if I’m staring right at his glacier blue eyes.

I’m not alone anywhere.

He’s always watching. I consider giving him the finger but then I’ll have a hard time explaining that to Teddy.

“It’s nothing,” I shove the phone in my pocket, wishing I can somehow break the screen in the process.

Everything tightens and swells. My heart starts racing. A bead of sweat trickles down my ribs. My nipples tighten as disgust and fear and desire war for dominance in my head.

He tilts his head. “You sure?”

“I’ll be fine.” I shrug. “Part of the job.”

He doesn’t buy it, but he lets it go. Then, he says, “Can I ask you something?”

“Shoot.”

He hesitates, and then: “You want to get a drink after work? Catch up with an old friend?”

The urge to say yes is immediate and stupid. I should say no, obviously. My phone vibrates again, a fresh burst of anger in my pocket.

I know it’s another message from my stalker telling me to turn Teddy down. I don’t have to check to know that.

I shouldn’t need to second-guess getting reacquainted with an old friend. Teddy always understood me in a way few others did. Maybe not as well as my blue-eyed shadow does, but I don’t want anyone to know me as well as that.

I’ve been hiding that version of myself from everyone for a reason. I barely like seeing it myself.

He doesn’t get to tell me what to do, how to do it, or who I get to do it as.

“Sure,” I say, and the word is out before I can stuff it back in.

Teddy grins.

My phone buzzes a third time, this one a little longer, a little more insistent. Is he fucking calling me right now?

“Great! I need to run back to the field office.” Teddy checks his watch. “You still have the same number?”

He sounds tentative, as if waiting for me to back out.

“Yeah.”

“I’ll give you a call after work.” He smiles. “It’s good to see you again, Giselle.”

“Same,” I say, but my voice cracks.

Only when he’s completely out of sight do I dare to pull out my phone.

Turns out my stalker wasn’t calling me. He was just firing off so many messages, each one angrier than the one before.

But the final one stops my heart cold.

I’ll make you pay for that, little viper.

And then, I look up at security camera in the corner watching everything and stick up my middle finger.

Teddy is already waiting for me by the time I get to the bar in Inwood.

I spot him at the corner table, his jacket thrown over the back of his chair and the sleeves of his shirt rolled to the elbow.

He waves when he sees me, and it’s a gesture too open for this city, a flare against the skyline of people who don’t want to be seen.

“Giselle!” he calls, and there’s a real happiness in it.

For a second, I hate him for it.

When I slide into the seat opposite, he pushes a glass of whiskey toward me.

“Woodford, neat,” he says.

I take a sip. “You still remember?”

“Hard to forget you puking it all back up that night.” He laughs, and I remember the guy who once drove forty blocks through Queens the next morning after making sure that I was alright the night before.

Like I said. Too safe.

Sincerity and kindness have only ever left me ravenous for cruelty and punishment. At some point, I decided to live with the hunger rather than find someone to slake it.

But it seems like my days of living with it might be numbered.

“So, how’s the city treating you?” Teddy asks.

“Same as always. Wake up angry, go to sleep even angrier.”

“The city, or you?”

“Yes.” I grin.

He smirks back. “You haven’t changed a bit.”

It’s probably a compliment.

“Neither have you.”

He laughs. “Really? The old me was a mess.”

“Tidiness is overrated.” I sip at my whiskey and start softening in all the places that have hardened since those simpler days.

We drink and Teddy tells me about D.C. About the soullessness, the politics, and the way no one ever looks you in the eye unless they want something from you.

“At least in New York, a threat is a threat. You don’t have to worry about someone stabbing you in the back, they’ll just do it in front of your eyes,” he says. “There’s honesty in that.”

Everything Teddy says reminds me of him, even this. Part of the draw is not needing to worry about what my stalker might be hiding behind a pretty smile.

He’s feeding me the black heart he wears on his sleeve, bite by delicious bite.

“Certainly more preferable,” I say, and mean it.

I watch Teddy watch me, his eyes never quite settling as he keeps scanning for the next threat. He spins his half-empty glass on the table, and then asks the question I knew he’d always ask.

“You ever find out who killed her?”

“No,” I snap, a little faster than I like and definitely harsher than Teddy deserves.

But it’s the honest fucking truth. Because what else am I supposed to say to that? That six years in the NYPD haven’t gotten me any fucking closer? That instead all I’ve done is nurse an anger and hatred for an imaginary face of her murderer with nowhere to express it?

With every passing day, I can’t help but feel myself starting to believe that poisonous lie that it’s the city that took my sister, and that it was the city that killed her.

I hate it. Not because I don’t have an answer, but because I won’t ever have the satisfaction of hurting the person responsible.

Maybe that’s why I’m drawn to my stalker. Because in his own fucked-up way, he’s putting a face to those same crimes before he snuffs out their worthless lives.

He’s giving me a place to direct my anger. My hatred.

My need for vengeance.

I throw back the rest of the whiskey in a single practiced swoop, clench my jaw to feel it burn all the way down, and set my glass down so that the bottom lines up with the ring it’s already left on the table.

Teddy nods, and his sympathy is genuine. “I’m sorry.”

I wave it off. “Don’t be. Serena’s the reason I’m still here.”

“You want another one?” Teddy nods his chin towards my empty glass.

I nod.

But when Teddy gets up to go to the bar, I taste the faintest hint of scent memory: a mixture of spices, sweet and cloying, and something that seems to reach the depth of my soul. Something that reminds me of a dark bathroom, and wet heat moving along my neck.

He’s here!

My back tightens in alarm as I frantically scan the bar, but the smell has already faded. There’s no huge blue-eyed shadow lurking in the corners.

Maybe I’m losing my mind. I must be. Smelling phantom stalkers in a crowded bar must be a sign of psychosis at this point, right?

Teddy returns, and I almost jump when he puts my drink down in front of me.

I breathe through the fear and anticipation while Teddy studies me, his fingers running around the rim of his glass.

“You seeing anyone these days?” he asks.

The question is so sudden it almost sounds like a dare. I blink.

Little viper.

My mind flashes back to that bathroom and a pair of blue eyes.

Two souls, both corrupt and dark, twisting closer to each inch of skin touching skin. I swallow my shame as I cross my legs and squeeze, needing the friction for an ounce of relief.

But then another image floats forward. One where Teddy is hanging by chains in a basement like Ivan Tupolev. His hand is gone. His body is split open while his guts dangle out like ribbons in the air.

Somehow, I get the feeling that my stalker wouldn’t carve “ TO DETECTIVE CANTIANO” onto Teddy’s corpse.

No, he’ll address that murder to his little viper.

I’m sure of it.

I’m quiet for too long, and Teddy laughs.

“It’s okay if you are,” he says. “You deserve to be happy, you know.”

There’s an ache in my chest, a static behind the breastbone that’s more hunger than regret. “Thanks, Teddy.”

But I don’t deserve to be happy. That’s why all this is happening. This is what I deserve. Being stalked by a serial killer who leaves my body burning with hollow, crazy lust every time he sends me another flower-stuffed corpse with my name on it.

“What about you?” I ask, trying to banish the creeping sensation of the world tilting out of control. “You ever settle down with someone?”

“Nah.” He snorts. “This job keeps me too busy. Wouldn’t be fair to a nice girl to waste her time with my workaholic ass.”

I can’t help but laugh at that. But the moment I do, I feel it.

The prickle at the base of my skull reminding me that my shadow is glaring at me. Unlike the scent, it doesn’t flash then fade. It throbs, unrelenting.

I can feel his anger that I’m sitting here with Teddy.

His jealousy that I dare to laugh at what Teddy is saying.

I shift in my chair and glance at the window. It’s full dark outside now, the neon sign of the bodega across the street flickering.

There!

Under the awning, just outside the light.

Broader than the door frame, hood up, hands in pockets, the posture of someone who knows exactly how much space he occupies. I can’t see his eyes from here, but I don’t need to.

I know they’re blue.

My pulse goes triple-time. I feel his gaze drilling into my skull.

In a blink, I’m back in the bathroom with him. But this time, I let him bend me over the toilet to fuck me until I don’t have to be Giselle anymore, and can be exactly what he’s making me.

His little viper.

Teddy follows my gaze, but all he sees is the street.

“What’s wrong?”

I swallow, try to find the words, but they tangle up with the whiskey.

“I have to go,” I say, but I’m already half out of my seat.

Teddy reaches out, hand meeting my shoulder, and I twist away from the touch so sharply it looks like he’s assaulting me rather than providing comfort.

He pulls back, concern on his face. “Giselle?”

“I have to go,” I say again.

He stands, blocking me for a second. “You need me to walk you home?”

“No.” I shake my head. “I’m fine. Thanks for the drinks.”

He looks wounded, but he knows better than to argue. “Call me if you need anything, okay?”

“I will. And I’m…” I nod, already backing away. “I’m sorry.”

I wish I can tell him more. I want to warn him to be careful. I want to apologize for putting him in danger, for what my stalker might do to him, and for the slickness that is already leaking from my pussy.

Outside, the air is cold, snapping me back into focus. My stalker is no longer there, but I can feel the residue like the ghost of a handprint on my skin.

My thumbs dance furiously on my burner phone screen as I walk.

He’s just a friend.

Message read. But he doesn’t respond.

Nothing more.

Message read. But he doesn’t respond.

Don’t hurt him.

Message read. But he doesn’t respond.

PLEASE!

That gets an instant reply.

I like it when you beg, little viper.

My whole body goes tight. I want to call Teddy and tell him to leave the city. Change his name. Go into hiding before it’s too late.

Instead, I stand there as the chill descends deeper into my bones, rereading the messages until the words stop looking like words and become a threat I can taste in the back of my throat.

Not just a threat.

A promise.

He likes it when I beg, I think, even though I try to think of anything else. And that’s when another thought forms in my mind.

What else does my stalker like?