Page 1 of Crowned

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Elyah

My hungry eyes scan the face of every blonde in the dive bar. It’s Saturday night and the room is packed with tattooed men in ripped jeans and women wearing skin-tight dresses and eyeliner. The crowd is young, single, broke, and horny, and they don’t give a damn that the carpet is threadbare and sticky and half the lightbulbs over the bar are dead.

My kind of place.

Or it was when I was Ivan Kalashnik’s driver. I would sit in bars like this, moodily stripping the labels from beer bottles as my mind lingered on his beautiful young wife. Ignoring every pair of tits that were thrust hopefully in my face as I relived the precious moments I’d spent in Lilia’s company that morning. Feeling that fierce ache in my chest if I managed to make my angel smile. Sometimes it would only be a matter of seconds before Ivan stomped heavily down the stairs from the master bedroom and dragged me away from her, but what glorious seconds they were. The spill of Lilia’s dark gold hair down her back. The curve of her lips as she flashed me looks from beneath the lashes of her sea-green eyes. She wanted me, and that terrified her. It should have terrified me, too, because if he found us together, Ivan would have made me watch while he slit my belly open, dragged out my intestines, and fed them to the dogs.

I didn’t care. No woman could compare to Lilia Aranova, and one kiss from her was worth a thousand deaths. The first time I fell in love with her, she was filled with sweetness and vulnerability. She needed me to save her from all the cruelty that life had thrown at her and hold her close against my chest. Protect her. Adore her.

The handful of days we spent with her during the pageant showed me that the idea I had of Lilia was bullshit. Lilia Aranova doesn’t need me. She’s not some vulnerable little flower who must be sheltered from the storms. She’s a treacherous bitch who tore myPakhan’sdreams apart, stole from him, and humiliated three ruthless killers.

She’s deceitful.

Dangerous.

She’s all I fucking want.

Lilia could walk up my body in stiletto heels and hold a knife to my throat, and I’d lift my chin and bare it for her. Watching her run from me with the winner’s tiara in her hands, I realized how she played us all. She showed me who she really was that night.

That was the second time I fell in love with Lilia Aranova.

I’m a lost man until I find her again. I want to put a weapon in her hands, hold it to my heart, and tell her, “Either kill me or let me spend every waking moment for the rest of my life begging for your forgiveness.”

There’s no chance that she’ll step foot in this dive bar one state over from where she used to live with Ivan Kalashnik, but I stare into the face of every blonde woman just the same. Some perk up hopefully and smile as their gazes linger on my body, but I turn away as soon as I realize it’s not her. I’m not here for them. I’m not even here for Lilia.

I’m here for blood.

A drunk man in skinny jeans blunders into my shoulder, and I slam him into the wall without looking at him. His nasal voice whines distantly as I step past him, deeper into the bar.

As I scan the room for the person I’m looking for, my focus, my frustration, and my rage combine into one blazing thought. I’m going to commit murder tonight, and my victim’s screams of agony will soothe the turmoil that has savaged my days and nights ever since we left Italy.

“Nice seat. Now, fuck off.” Kirill has appeared at my side and he’s standing over two probably underaged boys seated in a booth. The pair take a long look at his prison tattoos, muscles, and the glittering expression in his dark eyes, and scramble to vacate their seats.

“Fuck this music,” Konstantin growls through his teeth as he sinks into one of the seats. He pinches the bridge of his nose, his brows drawn together in pain as sweat shines on his forehead. Shiny scar tissue scores the left side of his face, from his cheek, through his eyebrow, across his temple, and up into his hair. Ever since the bullet sliced across his skull, loud noises and stress cause ourPakhandebilitating migraines.

Kirill and I exchange dark looks. We both know it’s not the music that’s causing his agony. Konstantin has had perpetual pains stabbing through his skull ever since Lilia Aranova dove headfirst into the waters of Lake Como five weeks ago, ruining his pageant and taking fourteen million dollars’ worth of pink diamonds with her.

“You want vodka?” Kirill asks us.

Konstantin falls back against the shabby booth seat, glaring at the dark-haired man. “I want Lilia Aranova bound and gagged, sitting at my feet.”

“I’ll go pull her out of my ass, shall I?” Kirill mutters, getting to his feet.

I shoot him a warning look. We’re all frustrated, but the last thing we need to do is turn on each other. Kirill stalks toward the bar, a string of Russian expletives swallowed up by the pounding music.

I drape an arm along the back of the booth, trying to look like someone out for a good time with my crew on a Saturday night. On the inside, I’m reliving the moment I put the noose around Lilia’s neck in the judging room. Even when her life was hanging by a thread, she didn’t beg or cry when I confronted her with the proof of what I was so certain she’d done.

“I saw the photos of you sitting in the car with the federal agent. There is not a chance in hell that you are innocent.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about. I never sat in a federal agent’s car. I have never spoken to a federal agent in my life.”

“But I saw you!”

“Believe me or not, but I’m not going to fight with you about it, Elyah.”

She held her chin up like a queen and wouldn’t even look at me. Either Lilia was lying to me, or someone else was. Just hours later, she dove off a cliff into the waters of Lake Como with Konstantin’s tiara on her head.

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