Page 110 of Ruthless Rustanovs

HE should have known he’d find her through the wedding ring. He’d had it custom made for her by one of the best jewelers in Berlin.

But it had seemed like something was dying inside her when she’d opened the leather box and seen what was within.

“What is this?” she’d asked. Confused, like he’d given her a box with a cockroach inside.

“It is wedding ring,” he’d answered, dropping the article like he did when the Darkness got in the way of the English classes he’d taken at the German University.

“But I thought…” She blinked down at the ring. “I thought yesterday was just a formality.”

He chose not to answer. Simply let a dark second tick by before saying, “Put it on.”

“But—”

He stopped her with a cold look. “You know better than to question me on these things, Siren. Put it on.”

Proving just how far their relationship had descended since his brother’s last visit, she quickly took it out of the box and slipped it onto the correct lovely brown finger.

There used to be a time when she’d question his orders. Ask from under sultry eyes what exactly he planned to do to her if she said no. Then filled the room with her husky laugh when he bent her over the nearest surface to give her the answer.

But now she merely put on the ring, no more questions asked.

“Why are you not smiling?” he’d asked her, too irritated not to let her see how she was affecting him. “This is nice ring. Very nice ring. What don’t you like about it?”

“You’re right,” she’d answered, pasting a smile on her face. Such a pretty smile, but it didn’t come anywhere near her eyes. “It’s real nice. Thank you.”

She’d said all the right things when he’d given her that ring, but he’d punished her anyway.

Scooping her into his arms and carrying her back to their bed, then keeping her there all day so that she ended up missing a recording session.

Fucking her and fucking her until they both passed out.

Until every inch of him knew she still got wet for him.

That she still screamed for him. No matter how dull her smile.

Then he’d left for Russia the next morning, only to receive the call a few weeks later. They’d lost her. She’d disappeared and couldn’t be found, even after scouring the city.

The only place him and me work is in bed.

The words continued to haunt him six years later, even before he got the call.

“That ring we inquired about just showed up in a D.C. pawn shop with a new name…” the voice on the other end of the line told him.

Less than forty-eight hours later, however, his hopes were dashed.

His investigator was able to track her down to a house in Virginia, but she wasn’t there.

And keeping a house under surveillance in such a small town wasn’t so easy, the investigator told him when he called after only two days on the assignment.

“No one’s seen her,” he said to Alexei. “Only her mother and sister and a nephew have been in and out of the house, and if I probe any deeper, I’m going to set off some alarms.”

He was most likely right, Bair thought. In a small town like that, his New York private investigator wouldn’t exactly blend in.

And if he asked too many questions he might tip Sirena—who was apparently really named Thelxiope—off.

Keep her from returning home, because she’d know Bair had finally found her.

Still, the thought of her having once again run off with another lover burned him inside. Made it easy to pay the astronomical fee to have the investigator back off but continue to check weekly on the house.

“Patience,” he told the Darkness roaring inside him. Now that he knew her real name, it was only a matter of time.

He’d find her. And then he’d make her pay.