Page 33 of Emerald Malice

Then, finally, the door flips open.

I paste on a forced smile, but it wilts when I realize that the man standing on the threshold is no nervous, sweaty doctor.

This man is tall, broad-shouldered and decidedly not nervous.

In fact, he’s never looked more in control.

“Fancy seeing you here, lastochka.”

12

ANDREY

The last three months have been a fucking shitshow.

The campaign I launched against Nikolai the day after Viktor’s wedding proved to be a miscalculation. I thought Rostov would have enough pride to fight back like a man. But, as it turns out, he’s happy to fire bullets from the shadows and retreat into the darkness immediately after.

His guerrilla warfare has cost me good businesses and good men. I was sick of it the first time—after the fifth, sixth, and seventh episodes, I was fucking livid.

Then, today, I was sure we had them cornered.

It was a bold move on Nikolai’s part, daring to strike the textile factory I own that’s responsible for producing sixty percent of my drug supply. Fortunately, I increased security around the premises only days ago.

I also put some of my most trusted men in charge of daily operations, which proved to be a good move. Vaska spotted a worker he didn’t recognize and sounded the alarm.

But it was too little, too late.

The worker was strapped with a suicide vest that took out him and four other workers. A dozen more were injured. Vaska himself took shrapnel in the gut. He was losing blood fast, and this shithole doctor’s office was the closest resource we had.

To anyone with eyes, this seedy little clinic is not a place you’d walk into voluntarily. But I happen to have the doctor here on my payroll.

Which is why my men and I stormed in, Vaska wedged between Yuri and Efrem so we could get him patched up before he bled out.

Of course, I didn’t count on spying a certain name on the patient list lying open on the nurse’s desk.

Natalia Boone.

What are the fucking odds? Could it just be a coincidence? Or is there some grand design behind her sudden reappearance, three full months after our last encounter?

I don’t find any immediate answers to those questions in Room 12. I do find her naked from the waist down, feet in stirrups, her face flushing as pink as the glimpse I catch between her thighs.

My first thoughts are depraved. So are my second and third. But once the shock of seeing her again wears off, I’m pissed.

What the fuck is she doing in a dump like this? She deserves better.

It’s not saying much—everyone deserves better than a clinic that requires bulletproof vests and a vaccine just to set your toe in the door.

“Why are you here?” I ask.

“None of your damn business,” she hisses like a viper. “Get out of my room.”

“Is that any way to greet an old friend?” I scoop up a fallen clipboard and peruse the forms.

She looks like she wouldn’t mind carving me up with the closest scalpel. Honestly, a part of me wishes she would try. I’d love an excuse to put my hands on that tight little body.

“‘Friend’?” Her green eyes burn like they’re on fire. “We are not ‘friends.’ We’re not anything. You’re nothing to me but a gigantic mistake. If I could take it back, I’d?—”

Her voice dies in her throat at the same moment my heart leaps into mine. She must know it, see it, feel it—that my eyes have come across the reason for her visit today.

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