Page 7 of Gemini Wicked

Then those lush lips, slicked with mauve, part around the purring Italian drama diva voice I remember like it was yesterday.

“Ciao, bella. Surely you’re not leaving us already. Not without saying arrivederci.”

Sweet.

Fucking.

Jesus.

I’m not hallucinating.

My mouth is open. I close it so I can swallow, because my throat’s gone dry as a goddamn ashtray. Then I pull my shit together, plant a hand on my hip, and give her and her partner in crime—the good-looking guy in a spiffy tux who’s hovering submissively at her heels—a cool once-over.

Yep. It’s official.

My celebrity-studded twenty-first birthday bash is a goddamn fucking ambush.

I’m standing three feet away from my backstabbing bitch of an ex-BFF.

And my lying sack of shit ex-boyfriend.

“Well, there goes the fucking neighborhood,” I drawl. “Cleo Ferrari. And Xiao Long Zheng. You two come all this way just to finish the job you royally fucked up in Singapore and kill me?”

Chapter Two

Vasili

It isn’t often yours truly is caught by surprise.

Anyone at this Academy will tell you. I’ve built my horrible reputation around being hard to startle and easy to enrage.

Yet here I stand, caught flat-footed and slack-jawed, like the village idiot. Reeling as though I’ve just been sucker-punched.

Is it the sight of my little queen getting ambushed at her own birthday bash? Going toe to toe while the cameras roll with the bitchy bestie who betrayed her and the ex-lover who did his damnedest to get her kidnapped or killed?

Well, I’m certainly not amused.

But that isn’t the reason I’m reeling.

I’m reeling because I’ve just made the staggering connection between Zara’s ex-BFF (whom she never cares to discuss) and my own family history with the fishy bitch.

All through my cold and loveless childhood, the Ferrari girl now stealing the limelight was the favorite deadly protégée of my fucking father.

Nikolai Romanov.

His name alone is enough to trigger the ugly landslide of loneliness and shame I’ve never really left behind.

And to ignite my rage.

Especially when that arrogant former flame of Zara’s—Xiao Long Zheng—prowls in close, all sleek muscles and dangerous attitude, looking like a fuckable feast in an Armani tux that’s open to show off the gold chain at his throat.

Dear fuck.

I’m incensed, but I manage to close my mouth, fix my face, and pull myself together. This is simply not the time to deal with my truckload of unresolved queer-boy-rejected-and-tossed-away-by-Daddy emotional garbage.

It’s time to deal with Xiao.

Surely, he can’t be planning to kiss her?

---