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YULIAN

It’s been a week since it happened.

A week since I had real sex with my fake fiancée.

A week since I stopped sleeping.

I’m used to nightmares. After my family was murdered, it was all I could do to pass out wasted for a couple of hours a night.

But no matter what I took, drank, smoked, or snorted, I still saw them.

These aren’t nightmares, though. They’re a whole other beast, one I’ve never had to fight before: obsession.

When I close my eyes now, it isn’t the dead bodies of my family members that greet me on the other side of sleep. Instead, it’s her body: naked, alive, warm and willing under my touch.

Our night together replays over and over in my mind, like a movie I can’t stop.

It’s driving me to madness.

I fucked her to be free. To stop thinking about her so goddamn much. I took her where I took everyone else, fucked her where I fucked everyone else, and left her the way I left everyone else.

And it hasn’t.

Fucking.

Worked.

If anything, it’s worse. Before, all I had to go by was stolen glimpses in the backseat of a car and my imagination to build Mia’s body in my fantasies.

Now, I’ve seen it all: what she looks like taking her pleasure, what she sounds like when she comes, what she tastes like.

She’s not out of my system. Not by a long shot. Instead, she’s crawled in deeper, under my skin and into my bloodstream, like a goddamn infection. I cannot scratch her out.

I’ve tried. Over and over again, I’ve tried.

And then there’s her eyes. The way she looked at me when I told her what we did had no meaning… I’ve broken hopes before—mainly the aspirations of supermodels who already saw themselves on a double spread in Forbes.

But Mia’s face… it was like I’d broken her fucking heart.

So what? that cold voice inside me whispers. It’s not like you care about her. She’s your bait, nothing more.

Right?

Right. This is why I should have kept my distance. From the start, I’ve let Mia get too close. She has everything to gain from seducing her billionaire boss.

But me? I’ve got everything to lose.

She’s a distraction. I can’t afford distractions. If I was just the CEO of StarTech, I could roll into bed with whoever and cash my checks from home.

But that’s not all I do.

I’m Bratva. I’m the pakhan. If I so much as blink at the wrong moment, I’m dead. And with me dies every man under my command.

So why can’t I stop thinking about her?

“ Blyat’. ” I push all the papers off my desk and slam my fist on the lacquered mahogany. The noise bounces off the glass walls, startling the assistants sitting outside my door.

“Whoa,” Maksim says as he sticks his head in. “Which one of those R&D reports pissed in your coffee this morning?”

I don’t bother replying. “Fire the new assistant,” I bark as I drain the dregs of said coffee.

“Why? Don’t like his brew?”

“If he can’t even work an espresso machine, he can’t work here.”

Maksim lets loose a long-suffering sigh. “That’d be the fourth one this week. I get that you’re as all-powerful as it gets, but assistants don’t grow on trees. Not even you can make that happen.”

“Then get R&D to speed up their robotics research,” I retort. “I’m sick of hiring people who can’t tell their ass from their face.”

He gives me a pointed look. “Wow. Someone really did piss in your coffee. That, or you’re back to staring holes in your ceiling until the sun comes up. When’s the last time you slept, man?”

Goddammit. Leave it to Maksim to hit the nail right on the head. “That’s none of your concern,” I snarl.

“Kind of is, when you’re being a dick to everyone else. ‘Cause then they come to me . You know, the Yulian Whisperer.” He makes jazz hands as he says it. “If that’s gonna be a permanent role, I want a pay raise.”

I turn away from Maksim and his annoying chatter. I’m in no mood for it. “Give me a status update on Nikita,” I demand, my glance sweeping over the city at our feet.

“Yessir.” I hear him flip through pages. “So far, we’ve checked all the neighboring states?—”

“The short version, Maks.”

“Alright. Short version: no dice.”

My knuckles pop. “There has to be something.”

“There isn’t,” he sighs. “We’ve got to start considering that?—”

“Don’t fucking say it,” I interrupt.

“Doesn’t make it any less true if I don’t say it.” Then, because he’s Maksim, he says it anyway. “She could be dead, Yul. All this expenditure of men and resources—it could all be for nothing.”

“I don’t care if it’s for nothing!” I rise, slamming my palms on the desk. “Nikita is our soldier. She’s?—”

“Kira’s sister,” Maksim cuts in. “And that’s been clouding your judgment since day one.”

My gaze goes frosty as I turn it on him. “You seem to have a lot of opinions about my judgment lately.”

“I’m just saying…” He shrugs. “You don’t usually ditch me to spend the night in the Maybach unless there’s an emergency. And as far as I remember, there wasn’t one last weekend.”

“Since, as you so keenly observed, I haven’t been sleeping,” I snap, “wake me up when you get to the fucking point.”

“Oh, you slept, alright,” he says with a saucy wink. “Just not alone.”

I punch the desk. “It’s none of your fucking?—”

“Kalinda called me. She asked me where Mia was.”

“Who the hell is Kalinda?”

“ Kallie. Mia’s gorgeous BFF? Moonlights as a babysitter? Smells like a tropical paradise?”

Finally, the pieces click.

“I wasn’t aware she had your number.” Sure as fuck explains how she got mine, though.

“Slipped her my business card when I kissed her hand.” He makes finger-guns and winks. “See? This old man’s got rizz.”

“Mazel tov,” I growl. “Now, explain why that’s my goddamn problem.”

“Because, if you’ve been getting it on with Mia, that means you’re not objective anymore.” He fixes his stare on me. For once, there isn’t a trace of humor on his face. “You’ve got to fire her, Yulian. For everyone’s sake.”

Fire her.

My blood boils. The thought of someone else on my arm—of Mia on someone else’s arm—is enough to make my temples throb.

“I will do no such thing.”

“It’ll put her in the clear,” he says in a diplomatic, pacifying tone. “It’ll keep the plan going and it’ll keep her safe?—”

“ I will keep her safe!” I bellow in Maksim’s face, all patience gone. “Mia signed a contract. She sold herself to me. ”

“She didn’t sell her soul,” Maks shoots back. “She didn’t sell her life. Something that, in light of recent developments, you should be keen to preserve.”

“She means nothing to me.” I spit those words out like venom. “And you’re no one to tell me what to do. I’m your boss, not the other way around.”

“And I’m your friend, ” Maksim counters. “I don’t want to see you getting hurt, man. Not again.”

With that, the fury fades.

The haze clears.

Finally, I see Maksim’s challenge for what it is: concern. Misplaced, but well-meaning. The concern of a true friend.

I sigh and slump back into my chair. “I won’t.”

“You will if you keep letting her in,” he protests. “That’s just what happens, Yulian. That’s?—”

At that moment, my phone vibrates. A text—from the only number I haven’t put on silent except Maksim’s.

MIA: First day of school. Couldn’t have swung this without you, so… thank you. For everything.

A thousand potential replies crowd my mind. Flirty, teasing replies that would bridge the past week’s distance between us.

I don’t type any.

Instead, I shut my phone and pocket it.

“Let’s go.”

“Where?”

“To look for my missing soldier.”