Page 31 of Deceitful Vows

It takes me longer than I care to admit to work through the barrier Mikhail is attempting to throw up. The delay ensures it is nothing short of brilliant. “Extend the brief I gave you this morning. Add any discrepancies to our servers to your reports. I want to know if a camera is offline for even a second.”

When I couldn’t find any information on Zoya this morning, I put a tail on her instead. She’ll be able to move freely, but each step will be monitored.

Well, they would have been if my punk-ass brother hadn’t tossed himself into the ring of a fight he’ll never win.

Konstantine jerks up his chin before his focus shifts to his laptop. He only types one line of code when a clear warning to pull in my theatrics smacks into me.

“Who is this girl, Kazimir?” My father stands from the chair he begrudgingly sat in at the commencement of our meeting and paces closer to my desk. “Is she someone we need to be worried about?”

He saysweas if we’re a team, completely neglecting how often he’s only ever looked out for himself since I was five.

Unsurprisingly, his comradery doesn’t linger for long.

“Do I need my team on this?”

“No.” I almost use my frequently spoken “she’s no one” line. I don’t see it playing out how it generally would, so I devise another tactic.

I fucked up by exposing my hand, but they don’t call me The Fox for no reason. I’m sly, intelligent, and adaptable—more cunning than anyone in this room. And it is proven without a doubt when I say, “She was placed on my radar when she was spotted with Mikhail’s keys last night.”

Just like that, my father’s interest wanes.

“Mikhail?” He chokes on laughter. “All this worry for a bitch in heat hoping to sink her hooks into a Dokovic nowhere near the top of the pyramid.” Huffing, he returns to his seat, unbuttoning his suit jacket on the way. “I give it until the end of the week before her cum melds in with the other hundreds of samples smeared on his sheets.”

He drags his eyes across the room, missing my spasming jaw. I thought leaving Zoya to rest was the amicable thing to do. I like my women floppy with sexual exhaustion, not genuine fatigue. I didn’t consider the possibility of another man smelling the delectable scent of her multiple arousals.

That man may be my brother, but the itch to kill still floods my veins when I imagine him dragging his nose across the sheets we made sticky with more than sweat.

“Half of the Chelabini female population has been in Mikhail’s bed at some stage over the past six months. Promiscuity is theonlytrait he inherited from me.”

My father’s snarky comment gets a laugh out of the fools unaware of the repercussions they’ll face for siding with him. The only people not grinning are Konstantine and me. We know he’s not finished yet. His “solutions” always include bloodshed—even for a son he considers below his league.

“Still, I’ll get someone on my team to unearth where her interests lie.”

His hand freezes halfway into the breast pocket of his jacket when I snap out, “I said no. I’ve got a handle on it.”

My father takes a moment to authenticate the legitimacy of the threat in my tone before he removes his hand from his pocket and slumps low in his chair. “I’m just trying to be helpful.”

He isn’t, but I’ll pretend that this is the only lie he’s ever told me by focusing my attention on Konstantine, who’s been inconspicuously trying to obtain it for the past two minutes instead of my gun.

Upon realizing he has my focus, Konstantine spins his laptop around to face me. Hundreds of cameras monitor the guests and staff of the Broadbent Hotel, so the pattern of their failures over the past five minutes announces one thing.

Zoya has landed on my turf.

Unfortunately, so the fuck has the devil I’ve been avoiding this morning.

12

ZOYA

I’m hesitant to hand my coat to the hostess of Tsar’s. The wind today is like ice, but that isn’t the cause of my hesitation. My coat’s hem sits halfway between my knees and my ankles. My skirt’s hemline is far more indecent. It will be a struggle to sit without exposing myself, and the boutique beside the restaurant is closed until two.

Yesterday, I didn’t care about the scandalous rise of my skirt’s hemline.

Today, I can’t stop playing Andrik’s threat from last night on repeat.

Six? Don’t test me on six because I can guarantee neither you nor him will survive the outcome.

A shiver runs the length of my spine.

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