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YULIAN

I’m staring out the windowed wall in my Manhattan office when Maksim bursts in with a folder.

“You were right,” he announces. “It’s them.”

That’s all he has to say. We don’t say the name anymore, because every time I do, it’s ash on my tongue and fire in my veins and it takes many, many sessions of spilled enemy blood before I can calm myself enough to think clearly again.

So it’s just them.

Them.

Prizrak— that’s what they’re called. It means “specter.” A syndicate of men who do not exist in any government database.

They are ghosts. Spooks. Bloodstained phantoms in the dark.

Originally from Bulgaria, they hire themselves out as contract killers to anyone with the cash to pay and the balls to dare. Allegedly, they’ve been behind every major unsolved assassination since the Fifties.

And twenty years ago, someone hired them to destroy my bloodline.

It took me twenty-four hours to find out who did the paying. To learn who had the cash and the fucking balls.

A friend—or so I thought. I tied cement blocks to his ankles and fed him to the Hudson. Ever since, I’ve refused to speak his name, even in my mind.

But it’s taken me twenty years longer to get even a whiff of the bastards who actually pulled the trigger.

I’ve sworn to kill them all. I won’t stop until it’s done.

Only then can my family rest in peace.

Only then can I move on with my life.

Because, as it turns out, they’re still carrying out their task: “Destroying the Lozhkin bloodline.”

They’ve taken a creative approach this time, I’ll give ‘em that. Instead of shooting at me, they’re shooting at every woman I’m seen with more than once.

It’s why I’ve been bringing a different woman to every event, showing up with a different date on my arm every night. It’s why Nikita was the perfect choice for last night.

Because she’s a woman I have no feelings for, who can handle herself as well as any of my men. A true Bratva lieutenant.

But somehow, they got to her, too.

Funny enough, it’s not Nikita that my thoughts go to. It’s not that I don’t want to find her—she’s given me her loyalty for years, and I’ll spend my last breath hunting for her if that’s what it takes.

But I know that, wherever she is, she’s giving her captors hell.

So it’s another woman who draws my attention.

Mia.

Mia, who came there with me.

Mia, who was so shaken she almost forgot how to speak.

Mia, who didn’t doubt for a second the attackers had been after Brad.

I didn’t correct her. Didn’t bother. Didn’t tell her the truth about last night, not even when she gave me the perfect chance to explain things at the diner.

Those attackers—they were never after Brad.

They were after me.

Whoever shot up Brad’s wedding venue… They were the same people who shot up my estate. The same people who killed my family. Who killed Kira.

Prizrak.

Them.

“Why now?” My fists ball up at my sides, knuckles going white. “Why there?”

“Haven’t the faintest.” Maksim shrugs. “You?”

You know why. My skin has been crawling all night with suspicion.

Mia.

You can’t have her. She’s mine .

I replay those words in my head. I was pissed off, angry that some entitled daddy’s boy thought he could just take the woman on my arm.

As if I’d ever let that happen.

But Prizrak must have thought differently. They must have thought Mia meant something to me.

That I intend to marry her.

The same thing they thought I intended for Kira.

“ Blyat’! ” I slam my fist on my desk, the sharp crack of wood bouncing off the glass walls. “These fucking mudaki. ”

“We’ll get them,” Maksim vows. “They’ve shown their cards now.”

I shake my head, because if I keep dwelling on the rage, it’ll consume me. I need to do what I’ve always done: focus. Plan. Prepare.

“Update me on Nikita,” I order.

“No news, I’m afraid,” Maks sighs. “But we found her getaway bag. Which means she didn’t take it.”

“Which means she didn’t run.”

“Exactly.”

Of course she fucking didn’t, my instincts snap. Nikita wouldn’t run. Not when she’s got as much skin in the game as I do.

“Find her,” I growl. “I want men looking for her ‘round the clock. No one sleeps until she’s back.”

Maksim inclines his head. “Yes, boss.”

I make a mental tally of the past twenty-four hours.

Nikita, gone.

Mia, shot at.

Fuck knows how many wedding guests, dead or traumatized.

All because of their tenuous connection to me.

All these years, I’ve been asking myself one question. It’s a piece of shrapnel lodged in my skull, a splinter I haven’t been able to pull out no matter what: why go after my women? Why not just kill me ?

Why, when their task has always been to obliterate the Lozhkin family?

There’s only one answer I’ve been able to come up with. Only one that makes sense.

Torture.

This isn’t just about destroying me. This is about revenge. They don’t simply want me dead—they want me to suffer.

To always be looking over my shoulder, waiting for the moment everything I care about will be taken from me again.

They want me to be alone, die alone, leave my empire up for grabs. It’s a long, cruel game, one where I’m king and pawn at the same time.

But joke’s on them: solitude suits me.

I cast a telepathic thought out toward those ghouls, wherever they are hiding. Stop aiming at innocents and come for ME, motherfuckers. I fucking dare you.

“Oh, that reminds me.” Maksim snaps his fingers in the air. “I’ve got that thing you asked for. The background check on that nurse.”

Immediately, my thoughts take a hard swerve. “Go.”

He plops down across from me. “Bullet points: her financial situation’s not good. Actually, it’s kind of a mess. Debts, loans, overdue bills—you name it, she has it.”

I flip through the file he hands me. Mia’s driver license picture is right at the top. She’s younger in it—nineteen, tops. Her face is rounder, her blue eyes brighter. Her hair, pulled back in a braid over her shoulder, is dyed a rich, dark brown.

I glance up at Maks. “How much debt?”

“Quarter mil, give or take.”

I frown. “That’s a lot of money for a nurse to owe.”

“My thoughts exactly.”

“There’s student loans in there, I gather?”

“Around fifty grand of it.” Maks turns the page and points. “The rest is from… this.”

My eyes narrow as I see what he’s pointed out. “A settlement?”

“Yup. Last year. Record’s been sealed, but people talk. There was a fire at her old place. Rumor has it, her kid set it.”

“Her kid?”

“Oh, yeah. She’s got a rug rat. Little boy of four, going on five.”

I do the math in my head quickly. “She must have had him young.”

“Wasn’t even twenty-one.” Maksim flips through a few more pages. “Here’s his birth certificate.”

I scan the document quickly. Eli Winters, male.

“There’s no father listed here,” I note.

“No father anywhere I could find,” Maksim confirms. “He’s either a ghost, or very much not in the picture.”

Suspicion spreads through me, but I push it aside. It’s not like it matters who the father of Mia’s kid is.

But it does matter to you, doesn’t it?

I shut that voice up and turn to Maks again. “You mentioned a fire.”

He pages back to the incident report. “Apparently, she left her kid home alone over a night shift. Probably thought she’d be back before he woke up.”

“But she wasn’t.”

“No, she wasn’t,” he sighs. “Kid woke up, started playing around with the stove. Luckily, he managed to run off to a neighbor before the fire spread.”

“He was unharmed, then?”

“Why?” Maksim ogles me with a cheesy smirk. “Looking to adopt an heir?”

His smug face irks me. “Keep reading,” I snarl. “And keep your idiocy to yourself.”

“Oof. Yessir.”

The truth is, I’ve got no idea why I asked. Why is the thought of Mia and her kid’s well-being on my radar at all? Mia’s business is her own—it doesn’t concern me.

“Anyway,” Maksim yawns, “that’s pretty much it. Landlord sued for damages; she settled. Most likely wanted to avoid a full-blown court case.”

“Or a jury,” I muse. “Might not have looked kindly on a mother leaving her kid alone overnight.”

“That’s what I thought, too.” He shrugs. “Unfortunately for her, child protective services got involved anyway. To paraphrase their report, she’s on thin fucking ice.”

“Is that all, then?”

“Almost.” Maksim’s face splits into a grin like he’s been waiting for this exact question. “Wanna know the kicker? Until five years ago, Mia Winters didn’t even exist. At all.”

That finally catches my attention.

“And you waited until now to mention it?”

“You know me, boss. Got a flair for the dramatic.”

I ignore my idiotic best friend and focus on what he just told me.

Five years ago.

Didn’t exist.

I knew Brad a lifetime ago, she told me.

“A lifetime ago,” I mutter aloud.

“What’s that?”

“Nothing.” I shut the file. “Any luck tracking down her real identity?”

“Not so far, but I haven’t looked hard. Want me to keep digging?”

“Yes.” I hand the file back to him. “Look for a connection to Bradley Baldwin, too. Those two have history. I want to know what it’s about.”

“Sure,” Maks says. “I’ll do that. But honestly, Yul? This right here is just about enough to wrap anyone around their finger. That’s what you were looking for, isn’t it? Leverage?”

Is that what I’ve been looking for? I’m not certain.

Last night, I just wanted to get under the skin of the nurse who got my car towed. Now…

Now, a plan is forming in my head.

A wild, reckless plan.

My enemies think Mia matters to me. They think I care—enough to make it worth trying to kill her. Once I drop out of her life, I doubt they’ll try again.

But what if I didn’t?

What if I stayed in her life?

Most importantly—what if I kept her in mine?

“You’re thinking it, too, boss, aren’t you?” Maksim murmurs, sober and serious for once. “That this is our chance?”

Mia’s presence already drew out my enemies once. Which means she can do it again. And again, and again, however many times it takes me to catch them.

She’ll be the bait.

They’ll bite. Oh, they’ll fucking bite.

And then I’ll have my revenge.

“Draw up the paperwork,” I order. “Make sure it’s ironclad.”

Custody troubles. Crippling debt. A fake identity and a secret past.

It’s perfect.

She’s perfect.

It’ll be the easiest “yes” in history.

“Sure thing,” Maksim says. “Should we warn her of the danger?”

“No. The less she knows, the better.”

I rise. Manhattan spreads out under me, pieces of an empire. My empire.

Now, Mia Winters can help me secure it for good.