Page 54 of Ruthless Addiction

My fingers hovered above the keyboard, trembling with a rage and longing I didn’t have the discipline to disguise.

One tap and I could zoom in—trace the new scar on her collarbone, follow the freckles that used to map the constellations of my nights, count the faint birthmarks I once memorized with my mouth.

I wanted to climb into the screen and fall at her feet.

I wanted to bolt every door in this house and never let her slip through my fingers.

Giovanni’s preliminary report sat open on the second monitor.

Pen — no legal record in Greece.

Vanya — no birth certificate that wasn’t forged.

Travel documents — burner.

Bank records — nonexistent.

Digital footprint — erased.

A trail of lies that led straight into Ruslan Baranov’s void.

Ruslan.

The only man on earth who still holds my respect—and the only one I could never read.

Nothing moves through Greece without his knowledge.

Not a fly. Not a rumor. Not a ghost.

The shape of this mystery—this woman called Pen—had Baranov’s fingerprints all over it.

Which meant one thing: If Ruslan knew about Pen... then he...

I was one phone call away from starting a war that would scorch the continent.

And then a small voice sliced through the dark.

“You kidnapped us and now you’re spying on us like we’re pets? We’re not your pets!”

My chair spun so fast the leather groaned.

The boy stood in the doorway—barefoot, hair rumpled from sleep, wearing Iron Man pajamas that swallowed his wrists. He looked like a child... and yet he stood like a commander.

The motion sensors hadn’t even flickered.

The kid moved like a ghost.

My pulse kicked.

I slammed my thumb onto the panel, instantly shutting off every camera in their suite. It felt like baring my throat to a wolf.

“How did you find this room?” I asked, voice rough from hours of cigarettes, fury, and hope poisoning my blood.

Vanya gave me the kind of look only children and saints were brave enough to give monsters.

“You have a biometric lock,” he said, strolling in like the house belonged to him. “It beeps three times when it opens. I followed the beeps.”

Then—without invitation—he pulled himself into the massive leather chair opposite me, swung his legs, and examined me like a problem he fully intended to solve.