Page 49 of Koroleva

"How can you... How can you look at me? Or touch me?" It was the first thing I thought when I felt the tips of his fingers on my face. Adriano was motherless because of the pills!

"It wasn't your fault." That he said that so sweetly brought me back to reality.

"Of course it wasn't!" I reminded myself. Both Romeo and I knew the name of the person responsible.

"Why do you say that? Is it your fault?" I prodded him.

He had tampered with the medication; he was responsible for killing his son's mother, not me.

"How could it be mine?! No! Of course not!" he exclaimed, not understanding my reflection. He said it with such fervor that it made me doubt. What if someone outside of us was responsible? Someone like... Cheng. It was the first name that came to mind.

Automatically, my mind rejected the idea. No, impossible, he was behind it. I regained my usual composure and coldness. I searched his dark gaze.

"Then, we need to find the person who has tampered with the formula and bring them to justice," I growled softly.

"If there is someone who has altered the medication, of course we'll find them. I promise you I'll move heaven and earth to uncover the truth."

His index and middle finger ran along the edge of my jawline.

"If I find him, I'll kill him," I declared sharply.

"An eye for an eye, Nikita. If you're right, I'll be your alibi. Italians carry vendetta in our blood."

"And Russians stop at nothing and no one. There's a proverb in my country that says, 'God protects those who protect themselves.'"

"Amen."

I added nothing more. I turned my head, pressed the remote, and started the car's engine.

21

I promise you

I glanced sideways at Nikita while dirving.

I wasn't sure what was happening to me with her, but I was certain that something was going on.

If I had my friend in front of me, I would have given him a piece of my mind. To say that she was like him? Not even close!

She was cold, despotic, with a biting sense of humor, hated children, and nothing seemed to matter to her except herself. Yet, on the other hand, she was intelligent, decisive, daring, and damn attractive, not to mention her physique and how hard she turned me on.

Right now, with that damn dress that rode up way beyond decency, I felt the urge to slide my hand between its folds and finish what that fool of a masseuse couldn't.

If Yuri saw me so unsettled by his dear little sister, he would be splitting his sides laughing. In fact, he probably was, from some corner of the damn hell I felt plunged into. Damn the moment I made that promise!

If it weren't for her, I wouldn’t now be married to this nightmare of long legs and a thousand-demon temperament, from whom I didn’t know what to expect.

I thought back to the last night I spent with my best friend, the same night he extracted that poisonous promise from me.

Yuri was with me on the night of the shooting.

The Chinese mafia had made a strong entry on the Costa del Sol, and their boss, Cheng Yu, wanted a significant slice of the pie that until then my friend and I had been sharing.

The Chinese network limited itself to marijuana and methamphetamine, drugs that didn’t hold much weight in our organizations. They owned their own cultivation warehouses and a specialized parcel company to export the drug to France, from where it would be distributed. The problem was that they were no longer satisfied with just that; they wanted more of the market, and that's why the Chino, as we nicknamed him, asked to meet with us to negotiate.

He wanted to enter our sector, as well as offer us the possibility to use his distribution chain.

Yuri and I, who until then had divided the area equally behind our families' backs, were discussing whether it was a good idea or not to reach an agreement with the Chino.

---