Page 45 of Monstrous Urges

“On it,” Milos grunts, pulling his phone out.

Again, Kenzo and I aren’t enemies. But we will be if he keeps asking questions like the one he just did.

“I heard a rumor, Drazen. One involving you recently finding a target that’s evaded you for some time. A woman.”

Not “a woman”. A thief. A destroyer of worlds. A phony, who’s escaped my wrath by living a lie as someone else.

And I hate how close I’ve been to her without ever realizing it.

I haven’t been a client of Crown and Black for long. And Gabriel Black himself typically handles my affairs. But I’ve crossed “Taylor’s” path before. We’ve been in meetings together. On group Zoom calls.

I’ve looked her in the eye, and never once imagined she was Annika.

My eyes draw to slits, my jaw clenching.

I never dreamed Annika was even alive. I saw the wreckage of the car the morning after the carnage. I saw her charred, burned body half melted into the front seat.

On top of that, Annika had dark hair, and perfect eyesight. “Taylor” has flaming ginger red hair, and wears glasses. I’d say she’s dyeing her hair, but… I saw her naked the other night.

The red hair is definitely real. Which means she was dyeing it brunette fifteen years ago. Needless to say, I never cared to check to see if the dark locks were her natural color back then.

It was a marriage neither of us wanted. The Brancovich family and mine were mortal enemies, and we’d been taught that since childhood. Forcing us together was like Romeo and Juliet without a single line of the love story.

It was the tattoo that gave her away. It was a bit of a surprise when I jumped “SecretSlut” in her hotel room and realized it was “Taylor Crown”, name partner at Crown and Black. But then again, that was a side of her I’ll bet none of her clients or coworkers ever see.

I’d seen and tasted the dirty girl underneath the smooth, polished lawyer. The subby little slut with cravings as dark and fucked up as my own. At least, nearly as fucked up as mine. It’s a rare, rare thing for me to find a woman willing, let alone wanting, to indulge in my level of dark kinks.

And by “rare” I mean “virtually impossible”.

I’m an investing partner in Club Venom these days. I’m also a billionaire with more power in his hands than most elected officials. So it’s not exactly difficult for me to meet women. What’s difficult is telling them what I’m actually looking for, and then coming up with a dollar figure to go along with the NDA after they inevitably freak out.

Women think they want a monster. They think they want to get choked, or fear fucked, or slapped around a little. To “play rough” or “be my sub”.

They have no idea the depths of my depraved tastes.

But “SecretSlut” did. I told her, and then showed her all my cards. At least, nearly all of them. More than I’ve shown most. And she didn’t run away screaming. Well, not outside of the context of our planned, twisted games.

She didn’t shut down or disappear.

She showed up. She came to the woods. She let me run that blade over her skin, never once even whimpering her safe word.

She turned on her location feature in the app.

And all of that is…fucking with me, and my plans for her, which don’t—or at least didn’t—include playing deviant games with her.

And then that tattoo gave her away.

That’s when I knew who I had in my clutches.

My fucking wife.

I’d never seen Annika naked before the other night. But I have seen that ink on her.

I’ve seen it on someone else, too.

On her, it was two days before our wedding. My father drove the two of us, followed by a number of his men, to the Brancovich compound. Mihajlo Brancovich was a notoriously paranoid man when it came to threats on his and his family’s lives. He, his wife and daughter rarely went outside the perimeter wall of their estate grounds. It was a rarity even to see them outside the house itself.

But that day, when my father and I arrived, Mihajlo met us outside in the driveway. He shook our hands, smiling, and then took us to the back of the sprawling old castle-like mansion where the pool was.

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