Page 22 of Wicked Sinner

I’ve made my choice, and I need to see it through. But I have every intention of doing that with the woman I’ve picked by my side and the heir she’s carrying as the son who will inherit, not any of these women here or the children they could give me.

After the dinner, Konstantin hangs back, a clear signal that he wants to speak to me. “I gathered these three women were the ones you liked the most at the party,” he says, once the others have left the room. “Was I right?”

I nod, irritated that he read me so easily. “I don’t particularly enjoy Isabella’s company,” I say smoothly, choosing for now to leave the subject of Bridget alone. “But she is beautiful, and she has enough to keep her occupied that she won’t bother me too much. The other two I like better.”

“Enough to pick one of them as a wife?” Konstantin’s gaze sharpens, and I force my expression to remain bland and smooth.

“I’d like to get to know them a little better. Make sure that I’m making the right choice. I’ll prioritize it,” I say quickly, before he can argue that there isn’t time. “Catherine said she’s here for the next two weeks. I’ll let you know by then.”

Konstantin’s lips press together, and I wonder if he’s irritated that I so easily sussed out his time frame.

Good, I think to myself. He’s not the only one capable of maneuvering, plotting, and planning.

I was raised for seventeen years around all of this, and my life since hasn’t been one of smooth sailing and nonviolence.

I’m just as capable of playing this game.

“Two weeks,” Konstantin says finally. “I expect an engagement announcement by then. In fact, I’ll plan an event for you to announce your bride. I look forward to it.”

He walks past me, striding to catch up with his wife, and I follow behind, my stomach tightening with anxiety. I’m well aware that two weeks isn’t going to change things with Bridget and me significantly—at least, I don’t think it will. But I’ll have to figure it out somehow.

I have to convince her.

The valet brings my car around, and I head home, wondering if I should try to speak to her tonight or just leave it. As I drive, I feel a prickle of awareness down my spine, and I glance in my rearview mirror.

There are headlights behind me—nothing odd for Miami streets this time of night. But as I make a turn, I see that the car follows me. Another turn, and it’s still behind me—a silver sedan that might be following me… or might be just someone headed in the same direction.

I want to get back to the penthouse and check on Bridget, but if someone is following me, I’m well aware that I can’t just lead them back to her. I grit my teeth, reaching for my cell phone as I take a different turn, watching to see if the lights follow me.

They do. I drop my phone into my lap and tap Marco’s contact icon, putting the phone on speaker as I make another turn, heading toward the water.

“Caesar?” He answers brusquely.

“Has there been any trouble at the penthouse tonight?”

“Other than the woman you’re keeping here?” He chuckles, and when I don’t respond, his voice turns serious. “No. Nothing is happening here. What’s going on?”

“I think I have a tail.” I grit my teeth. “I’m going to try to lose them. Keep an eye out.”

I take a series of turns, pulling back out onto the highway with the silver sedan following me. As I turn down another side street, they start to fall back, and after ten more minutes have passed, they’re no longer in my rear view. I have a feeling that they finally realized I’d caught on to them.

Knowing they could still be out there, I don’t head home immediately, regardless of how much I want to. I check in with Marco once more, with him assuring me that all is quiet there, and then finally head back toward the penthouse, my nerves jangling.

Who the fuck could be tracking me? Did Konstantin put someone on my tail? I don’t think it’s that. Konstantin is an up-front kind of man, diplomatic for as long as he can be and violent only when necessary. I don’t believe he’d do something as underhanded as put a tail on me.

But Tristan… my jaw tightens as I consider that possibility. Would he do that? I don’t know him at all—he came to Miami after my father was dead, and before I returned home. I know almost nothing about the Irishman, except that Konstantin brought him in to take over after Russo’s betrayal.

Konstantin clearly trusts him, and I’m aware that he’s a good judge of character. I’d be surprised if Tristan went behind his back, especially knowing how his predecessor ended after betraying Konstantin. But I can’t shake the feeling that there might be something to that.

That Tristan might be tracking me, if only to see if he can find some weakness, some way to convince me to leave. I have no doubt he wants to consume my father’s legacy along with Russo’s. That would make him a power equal to Konstantin in Miami, rather than the second fiddle.

I’m tired by the time I get back. I park the Ferrari, shrugging off my jacket and loosening my tie as I walk into the building and to the elevator. Marco is waiting for me just inside the penthouse, sitting at the bar with his handgun next to him, and I nod at him as I walk in.

“All quiet still?”

He nods in return. “Everything’s fine here. You said you had a tail?”

“Seemed like it. They dropped off after a while.”

“No clue who it might have been?”

I shake my head. “But I’m not up on everything that’s happened recently, let alone in the last twenty years.

Who knows what enemies my father might have made that could still be hanging around?

” I toss my jacket and tie over the back of the sofa nearest me as I walk into the open-concept living room.

“Do you know anything about Tristan O’Malley? ”

“Probably less than you do.” Marco slips his gun back into the holster.

“Showed up shortly after Giovanni Russo’s death.

Konstantin married him off to Simone Russo, gave him the whole mess.

Heiress, money, legacy. Must have had some prior ties with the Abramovs.

But I don’t know more than that.” He chuckles.

“I’m just the help. But I can do some digging if you like. ”

“I’d appreciate it.” I run my hand through my hair. “I’m going to go check on Bridget.”

“Good luck.” Marco pauses. "Maybe you need some sleep, boss. You've been pushing pretty hard lately."

He's probably right. Between the pressure from Konstantin, the situation with Bridget, and the general stress of trying to establish myself as my father's successor, I haven't been sleeping well. It would make sense that my nerves are frayed.

“I’ll do my best.” I nod at him and head upstairs.

When I reach Bridget's floor, I pause outside her door. It's quiet—no shouting, no sounds of things being thrown. Either she's finally resigned herself to her situation, or she's planning something.

Given what I know about her, I'd bet on the latter.

I unlock the door and step inside to find her sitting by the window, staring out at the city lights. She doesn't turn when I enter, doesn't acknowledge my presence at all.

"You're very quiet tonight," I observe.

"I'm thinking," she says without looking at me.

"About what?"

"About how long it would take to fall from this height," she says matter-of-factly. "Whether I'd have time to regret it before I hit the ground."

The words hit me like a physical blow, and I'm across the room before I've even consciously decided to move. I grab her shoulders, pulling her away from the window, my heart racing with sudden terror.

"Don't," I say roughly. "Don't even joke about that."

She looks back at me, and her lips curl, but it’s not a smile. “You don’t think I was serious, do you?” She shakes her head. “I’m pregnant, Caesar. I’m not going to fling myself from a window. Do you really think I give that little of a shit about my child?”

“Our child,” I snap at her, my fear making it impossible to soften my words.

I don’t let go of her, my fingers curling into her shoulders, and I realize that at some point she changed clothes.

She’s wearing a soft black T-shirt, not unlike the one she was wearing the first night, and my momentary terror starts to dissolve into something else.

Something much more heated.

My hands slide down to her upper arms, squeezing lightly. Defiance flares in her eyes. “My child,” she hisses back. “You did your part, Caesar. I don’t need you anymore.”

“See?” I lean in, looking down at her. The room is dark, only the Miami lights glowing around Bridget’s face, and there’s something warm and intimate about the moment, despite her ice-cold refusal to let me in.

“See why I might think you don’t care? I’m offering you everything, and you want to struggle to raise our child.

You want to be left alone with your stack of bills and your crumbling house, with a child that I could—”

Her palm strikes the side of my face, so quick that I didn’t see it coming.

I was too focused on her, on her hazel eyes, dark in the dimness of the room, on the fragile lines of her face that hide so much strength.

My cheek burns from the impact, and Bridget glares up at me, her nails curling against my cheekbone for a moment before she drops her hand.

“Don’t fucking insult my life,” she spits out. “Or my house, or my garage, or any other part of it. I don’t need you or your ivory tower, Caesar. I had everything I needed before this, all on my own.”

She shoves my chest, hard, stumbling back as I let her go. For a moment, she stares at me, our eyes locking, and I can see that despite what I might have thought before, there’s no progress here.

She hasn’t given an inch. And I don’t know how to make her take even a single step down that path.

I’ve never been further away from making Bridget mine.