Page 17 of Emerald Malice

I dig in my heels. “My boyfriend is waiting for me,” I inform them. “He’ll call the police if I don’t show up.”

The blond chuckles. “He can go right ahead. In our experience, imaginary boyfriends tend not to pose much of a problem.”

My body goes cold. They know I’m lying. And the only way they could know that is if…

“So you guys are no joke, huh? The serious kind of baddies?” I say it mockingly to show I’m not scared of them.

But when the blond replies, I have to admit I’m losing the battle.

“Oh, yeah,” he says with an amused laugh. “We’re the dead serious kind.”

6

ANDREY

Natalia Boone.

The details of her life are splayed out before me, and I damn near fall asleep reading it. “Mundane” doesn’t even begin to describe her.

She lives in a four-hundred-square foot studio in Queens. Works a dead-end job at an insurance company downtown. No loans, no criminal history, not even a goddamn parking ticket.

And yet, somehow, she’s managed to find herself on my radar.

“Is this all you managed to dig up?”

Shura paces behind the couch in my hotel room, forever restless. “The girl’s clean, ‘Drey. There was nothing to find.”

Her phone is lying on the coffee table next to her purse. It only took me a few minutes to hack into it. Even that was a disappointment. Apart from a bunch of messages and calls to “Aunt Annie” and the infamous Katya Petrova, her social circle is empty.

Her Notes app is filled with a list of romance novel titles under the header Books to read on the subway and a grocery list consisting of exactly two items: boxed wine and Cherry Garcia ice cream.

The girl certainly seems clean. Pure as the driven snow, really.

In other words—too good to be true.

Maybe Nikolai picked her for this exact reason.

Shura’s phone vibrates and he ambles over to the door. “They’re here, boss.”

I gesture for him to let them in. Leif escorts her through, bows briefly in my direction, then steps back out into the hall, closing the door behind him.

The sexy green dress she was wearing at the beginning of the night is gone. She’s swapped it out for an oversized t-shirt that barely covers her ass. If my Spanish can be trusted, I’m pretty sure her shirt reads “dirty.”

It’s a little on the nose, considering she fucking reeks. A corrosive mixture of big city stink and the sweat of fear.

“Natalia—” She flinches when I use her name. “Long time, no see.”

Her green eyes are wild as she raises her bound wrists towards me and sneers. “Untie me. Now.”

The last time I was given a command was from my father. That was years ago.

It’s kind of funny—almost endearing—that this little bird thinks she can get away with bossing me around, when she’s the one with her hands tied together.

She seems to realize the same thing a second later, because her tone softens considerably. “Please.”

I pull out my engraved switchblade knife. With one swift slice, her hands are free.

A second later, one of those hands flies out and slaps me.

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