Page 5 of Reign of a Billionaire

I’d cultivated this festering hole, nourishing it with bitterness and hatred. It was red, angry and raw. I welcomed the feeling. Embraced it even. It was better than the numbness I’d felt for so long.

I would not rest until I got my revenge. Until I made her death count.

They killed her, and I would kill every last one of them for the pain it’d caused.

My fist clenched, shredding the cigarette to ashes as my enemy dined across the room. How could Liana sit there like the world was still turning when Lou was gone?

Shutting down my nightmare before it could stir to life, I focused on the present, downing the whiskey and relishing the burn in my throat.

I had a purpose, a goal that drove me forward. Revenge was within reach. No mistakes. No rash decisions. Day after day, week after week, year after year—each metaphorical step brought me closer toher.

Sofia Catalano Volkov.

The bitterness and hatred seeped into my cells and mixed with the ashes of those years spent in captivity. With the loss I felt whenshewas taken from me. The innocent young woman who watched me with golden eyes, promising warmth and happiness.

I rubbed my thigh absently, stroking the phantom pain that haunted me. It was always present, the result of cold, dark nights spent in that basement full of horror. Full of nightmares.

A flash of movement brought my attention back to the young woman with hair the color of warm wheat. It was identical to my Lou, but I knew it wasn’t her. Lia was a fraud, the faded version of Lou.

Yet I found myself unable to tear my gaze away. It fed my broken mind. My body healed after Alexei Nikolaev saved me, but my mind didn’t. Nobody came out of that shit sane. Fucking nobody.

I watched my enemy as she focused on her daughter, unaware of the ghost lurking in the shadows. If Sofia turned around, she’d spot me easily, but she was distracted by her greed. With plans of her own. Or maybe she was too confident.

They’d never see me coming.

I watched as she handed a piece of paper to her daughter, and disappointment washed over me. Liana was knee-deep in this shit now.

Lou had insisted on trying to get her twin out, sensing it’d be Liana’s downfall. She was right, except my and Lou’s downfall came first. Could I blame her twin? Fuck yes. She knew right from wrong, and she—along with her mother—signed their own death warrants.

Sofia Volkov apparently hadn’t learned anything, keeping her daughter in that world. She’d lost two daughters—her firstborn, Winter Volkov, who was kidnapped by the Irish andthen later died in childbirth, and Louisa. She was about to lose the third one.

There was no forgiveness for the pain Lou had suffered. What they did to her in her final hours.

Her punishment for trying to run with me and loving me was death.

Giving my head a subtle shake, I decided not to follow that train of thought. Lou’s screams tattooed themselves onto my brain, haunting my dreams and plaguing my waking hours.

My lips curled in disgust as I studied Liana’s profile, her eyes scanning over the document before she handed it back to her mother. A terse nod and her mother extended her hand to Perez Cortes’s men for a handshake.

My eyes drifted to the piece of jewelry around my wrist—made of teeth dipped in silver and gold. It was Lou’s, once upon a time. Now it served as a reminder to finish the job—eliminate the people who’d hurt her.

Ivan Petrov and Sofia Volkov made me their ghost. Lou was mine.

It became my signature. I craved death, wanting to follow the shadow of my dead woman, but it wasn’t time yet. First, I’d make the world pay. Over the years, I’d wondered about the distinction between justice and vengeance, where one ended and the other began, but ultimately, I knew it was up to me to bring it all to an end.

My gaze flicked back to my bracelet, and memories of rare smiles and friendship dug a hole in my chest.

It was time to add more teeth to my collection.

Chapter 2

Liana

The Godfather was the most expensive and elitist restaurant in Washington, D.C., located smack-dab in the heart of the city. You’d think the restaurant name would make it clear who ran it, but people flocked to it eagerly, ignorant to the fact that it was run by the mob families.

I hated this place.

Every single thing about it—the atmosphere, the criminals who frequented it, the corruption. That this restaurant was one of Perez Cortes’s favorites made me hate it even more. The fucker wasn’t here, but his presence was felt at the table.