Page 3 of Lethal Legacy

I wait to see which language he will decide to throw at me. It’s another part of our daily game. So far he’s tried French, Spanish, German, Russian, and English. He still hasn’t worked out which one is my native tongue.

Nor will he. Keeping my accent neutral is key to maintaining my identity as Lucia Lopez. So is choosing to live in a city renowned for being run by various clans of Russian bratva.

Hiding in plain sight is a real thing.

“Would I be presuming too much,” he says, using the upper-crust English accent that is my personal favorite in his arsenal and that also, to be honest, completely undoes me every time, “if I asked for some water to accompany my coffee?”

“Well,” I say lightly, as if I’m considering it, “you can ask.”

“Ah.” The insolent smile grows slightly. “Then I’m asking.”

“Now would that be a cold glass of water? A room temperature one? Or would you prefer lukewarm? Oh, wait.” I look skyward. “Is it an actual bottle you require? And if so, would you like that cold, at room temperature, or...” I turn a questioning hand upward with an innocent look.

“Surprise me.” The sardonic twist of his mouth is disturbing. “Although I would prefer to take it without the added flavor of snark that’s on offer.”

I reach into the fridge for a bottle of Novoterskaya still water. I began stocking it after I overheard Roman complaining loudly to his assistant that he didn’t understand what, exactly, was so difficult about obtaining that particular brand. It took me several long hours on the phone, heated arguments with various suppliers, and a decent bribe to a Madrid truck driver, but the following day, I served Roman a bottle of Novoterskaya with his coffee.

Slightly chilled, just as he had reduced his assistant to a quivering wreck for failing to anticipate.

His face that day was one of my most satisfying victories in our little war.

He picks up the bottle and puts down his coffee glass. “Next time,” he says in that low growl that does dangerous things to my entire body, “make sure the sugar is close by.”

“Next time,” I retort, “go to any other of the thousand cafés in Malaga. Like I’ve been telling you to do from the day you walked in.”

“And miss running the gauntlet of discovering whether my coffee has been laced with acid? Never.”

He leans across the counter, his dark eyes pinning me in place.

“A life without danger,” he says in a low growl that sends lethal heat licking through my body, “is like sex without passion: not really worth having. Wouldn’t you agree, Miss Lopez?”

He stares just long enough to see the flush I’ve been fighting all morning rise up my neck.

Then he strides out.

Not, however, before I’ve seen the satisfied smirk on his stupidly perfect face.

Game, Stevanovsky.

The café remains busy all day. The retail shops around us close for siesta between one and five in the afternoon, but restaurants in Spain never stop. Abby and I run nonstop until the late-afternoon pause between the lunch and tapas crowds.

I wasn’t raised to work like this. I wasn’t raised to work at all.

Darya Petrovsky grew up in a Miami compound. She attended boarding schools in France and England, and later, finishing school in Switzerland.

Yes, finishing schools still exist. These days they just tend to be stocked with the daughters of oligarchs, cartels, and oil sheikhs, rather than with royalty.

Darya Petrovsky was raised to sit in beautiful rooms and wear beautiful dresses, all in preparation for the time when I would give birth to beautiful children.

Boys, preferably. Bratva men need sons to wield the guns that run our world.

Sons are raised to manage crews ofvor,the warriors who enforce the hard rules of that world.

Daughters are an afterthought. Cherished, certainly. But incapable of running anything more serious than a dinner party.

Gender equality hasn’t really penetrated the hard world of Russian men in general, let alone the bratva clans who run the world of organized crime.

The Petrovsky bratva clan once ran the largest, most powerful organized crime network in Miami. And Miami is a city that knows crime.

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