Page 80 of Monstrous Urges

I shiver.

“However, that’s irrelevant. Just as it would be if you weren’t Annika. Because fortunately for me…although perhaps unfortunately for you…you look just like her. And if I of all people think that, others who matter will as well.”

I roll my eyes. “You’ve got me. I have an evil twin,” I mutter sarcastically.

“If only you did,” he growls. “You’re an only child.”

“You sure about that?” I toss back. “It would explain a lot of?—”

“My father would have never okayed the marriage if you had a sibling.”

“Why, exactly?”

His mouth thins. “It would have cheapened our union.”

My brows fly up. “Wow, I’m so glad feminism is alive and well in Serbian Mafia politics,” I mutter dryly. “A sibling would have cheapened our marriage?”

“We didn’t marry for love,” he grunts.

I bark a laugh. Drazen glares at me.

“We were betrothed as children to cement a peace between our families. The union was essentially a treaty. But that treaty would have been worth far less if you had a sister that could be married off to another family, thus forging other alliances.”

Well, there goes that theory.

“Who did you mean when you said ‘others who matter’ would believe I was this Annika person even if I wasn’t?”

His smile hardens. “The Iron Table.”

My brow furrows. “The what?”

“Iron Table,” he mutters again. “A governing leadership council in the Bratva world, based out of Russia. There are…” He clears his throat. “I have business with them. Business that will go much more smoothly with you at my side.”

Motherfucker. He’s trying to play coy. But I’ve seen and outmaneuvered every trick in the book in court.

“You need me, is what you’re saying.”

Drazen eyes me. “Perhaps.”

The wheels in my head quickly whirl to life, and the pieces fall into place.

“Aaah,” I murmur. “I see.” I smile broadly. “They think this Annika girl has been missing for fifteen years. Or that she’s dead. And whatever business you have with them can’t happen unless she’s not.”

Drazen raises an eyebrow, his tattooed fingers drumming on the armrest of his chair.

“Yeah… Maybe next time you kidnap someone and want to keep them in the dark, don’t pick the woman that The Legal Journal just slapped on their cover and called ‘the brightest young new mind in law’.”

“I’ll try and remember that,” he says dryly. “But to summarize, essentially, yes. I need you to play the role of my wife. Which you are.”

“Highly debatable.”

He shoots me a look. I sigh heavily.

“Do I have a choice in this?”

“Of course,” he says, far too easily.

“What’s the catch?”

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