Page 35 of Beyond the Temptation: Vol 2

ILLICIT ACTS

BY CORA KENBORN

Bratva’s Mark Duet

CHAPTER ONE

MIKHAIL

Washington, D.C.

Weakness shines like a diamond. It’s a beacon for bloodshed, inviting a man’s enemies to strike. For forty-six years, the world has given me nothing but death and pain, so that’s what I return.

It’s how I live.

And today, it’s how Senator Norton Perry dies.

Tugging on a pair of black leather gloves, I open the office door and invite myself inside to find him standing behind his desk with his mouth hanging open.

“Who are you?”

Ignoring him, I lower myself onto the red leather chair in front of his desk. “Have a seat, senator.”

Stiffening at the sound of my Russian accent, he sinks into his chair and shifts his eyes toward the door. A fruitless endeavor. Everyone in the building has gone for the night.

“Do we have an appointment?”

I smile. “We do now.”

His death will come far too efficiently for my liking. Men like him deserve more suffering than he’ll endure. Unfortunately, time isn’t on my side.

Shame.

His gaze drops to the phone on his desk. I’m insulted. Only a rookie would enter a building without cutting the line first. “Who sent you?”

“That is what I appreciate about you, Nort…” I shift forward with a smirk. “You do not waste time with small talk. Unfortunately, you fucked up the minute you touched that girl.”

“It’s not what you think! I was her mentor.”

I let out a dark laugh. “I always thought mentoring entailed guiding and training America’s youth, not fucking them and slitting their throats.”

“I didn’t?—”

“She was someone’s daughter.” I stand, contempt slicing through my cool demeanor. “A twenty-four-year-old intern who’s only sin was failing to see the evil hiding behind the political pin.” I pull my switchblade from inside my jacket and press the button on the side, popping the seven-inch blade. Holding his gaze, I drive the tip deep into the wood of his pretentious desk.

“S-she t-threatened to expose me after I broke it off,” he stutters. “What was I supposed to do?”

“Keep your dick in your pants, for starters.”

A surge of testosterone drives him to his feet. “Which wallet funded this? This can’t just be about one stupid girl.”

“This is about revenge. You killed an innocent young woman, and you thought her father’s retaliation would be a slap on the wrist?”

“Bullshit. That bitch’s family couldn’t afford a hitman.” His throat bobs with unease, desperate to hold onto the moral high ground slipping out from underneath him.

“Unfortunately for you, Nort, I took this pro bono.”

Not quite true. Her father paid cash for my flight from London to Washington D.C. after I refused my usual twenty-million-dollar contract fee. It was never about money. Some jobs are business, and some are personal.

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