Page 110 of Deceitful Vows

“By whom?” Confusion hits me first when he spins around his laptop screen to show me the email forwarded to Lilia this morning. It is quickly replaced with fury. “Anoushka doesn’t sign off her emails with her job title. She’s family, not staff, so she’d never pretend otherwise.” Konstantine jerks up his chin in agreement. “Find out who really sent that email. I want a name by the a.m.”

Again, he nods.

His brisk shake does little to hide his smirk when I add another task to his list.

“And send extermination orders for anyone who didn’t immediately recognize Zoya. I don’t issue no touch orders for fun.”

My jaw tightens when Konstantine asks, “The men who stayed after she removed her shirt or just her skirt?”

I could offer leniency. The men who remained seated around the stage wouldn’t have seen more than they would have if Zoya was at the beach, but after the day I’ve had, I’m at my limit of pleasantries. I’m fucking done.

“Both.”

Konstantine smiles the way he did when he hand-delivered the last man on the list of names Zoya unknowingly compiled for me when she joined a social media site two weeks ago. Her exes came out of the woodwork faster than I could take them down, meaning someone got word to the final man I need to return her tally to one.

He went into hiding—wentbeing the prominent part of my confession.

He’ll be dead when I get two seconds to breathe without someone from the federation calculating exactly how much air I’m intaking.

42

ZOYA

Iunderestimated Ellis’s wish to keep me away from his son.

The way he bombarded me last night is a sure-fire sign of his desperateness, so I won’t mention his expression as he stands in the entryway of my apartment, glaring at me days earlier than planned.

I thought he’d have the stamina of his eldest son. That’s why I was so gung-ho with my extortion attempt. I had no inkling he was a premature ejaculator.

I didn’t pluck the date and time I gave Ellis last night out of thin air. This weekend is Aleena’s hen party celebration. It was meant to guarantee there’d be three thousand miles between us before the agreed time of our meetup, but he screwed it over by rocking up hours earlier than stated.

That goes against the terms of our agreement, so I am well within my rights to renege on my offer.

“I—”

“Before you say anything, a verbal agreement is as legally binding as a written one.” I was planning to tell him to get the hell off my doorstep with a ton of derogative words, but he steals my ability to talk by reminding me I should never jump before looking. “And Le Rogue never closes, so any lawyer could argue that the time stated was wide-ranging for a reason.” A smug expression curls his lips at one side. “You also said ‘by close of business.’ By means?—”

“I know the definition of by,” I snap out, frustrated.

His smirk grows as he thrusts a plumped-out duffle bag into my chest. It is lighter than what I thought one hundred thousand would weigh. That could be because I’m more measuring the weight it adds to my chest instead of my arms.

I can barely breathe through the pressure.

“I—”

Ellis cuts me off with a threatening tone this time. “Follow our agreement. That isallyou need to do.”

“Or?” I ask, stubborn and confident his threat was unfinished.

I almost fold in two when he murmurs, “Or Vlad’s name won’t be the only one cited on a missing person’s report.”

I’m so reeling from his admission that something bad has happened to Vlad that it takes several long seconds for me to realize the only breaths depriving my apartment of oxygen are mine.

The first thing I lose when my mind is spiraling is my smarts.

The second is the ability to absorb intimidation.

Before my heart can talk me out of it, I snatch up my phone and hit the number one spot above my best friend’s.

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