Page 50 of Ruinous Need

Goddamn it.

There is some kind of manhunt going on, and Lisette is the subject of it.

We should have left one of the Irish alive so I could interrogate them and find out what’s happening.

I head back to the SUV, sending Markov a text to check he’s still conscious. He replies immediately. “Alive. Gunshot wound hurts like a bitch.” I’ll have to take him to the Bratva hospital as soon as I’m back.

CHAPTER 19

VIKTOR

I WAS TAUGHT to eradicate my weaknesses.

Pain.

Fear.

Any physical discomfort.

My father beat all of it out of me.

Other physical urges can be managed… Quickly and efficiently, without involving emotions. Fucking your wife is to make babies. Fucking anyone else should be transactional and unemotional.

It might not be healthy, but it frees up a lot of space for strategizing in your head. When you’re constantly worried that someone’s going to backstab you, the way my father was, that’s worth any cost.

The old tricks are no longer working for me, though. It seems I have acquired an actual weakness, one that my father couldn’t beat out of me.

The brothel’s mistress raises an eyebrow as I walk out of the room just two minutes after I entered.

“Something wrong, Viktor?” she asks silkily in a heavy Russian accent. “If you’d like to try someone else…”

“No, thank you, Katya.”

“Very well.” She nods at me formally as I leave, her watchful blue eyes, ringed as always with heavy black eyeliner, following my exit.

I’m sure gossip will be spreading about my supposed erectile dysfunction before the day is over. Brothels don’t just trade in women, they trade in information, and everyone in the Bratva knows it.

I thought that fucking someone else would prove Lisette meant nothing to me. The opposite happened.

As soon as the door clicked shut, sealing us in the room with the bed, it felt wrong just standing in a room with another woman.

My body doesn’t want just any pussy; it wants Lisette’s pussy. Her moans. The way her pulse beats under my fingers and her green eyes go wide with arousal.

If it’s not that, my cock does not want it.

But this puts me in a dangerous dilemma. I’m going to have to keep fucking my cousin’s fiancée if I ever want the thoughts of her to leave my head.

“Ever had something so stuck in your head that it distracts you from what you need to do?”

Markov narrows his eyes at me as soon as I ask the question.

“This is about her, isn’t it?”

“Who?” I feign ignorance.

“Lisette.” His voice is harsh, disapproving.

“It could be about anyone. Let’s pretend it’s about anyone.”