Page 15 of His Order

“You said you would tell me after you came back.” There is no point beating around the bush. “Start talking.”

“Always the eager one.” He reaches for me and brushes his hand against my cheek. “The same way that Dmitri stole your brother from you. He stole something from me and Mikhail.”

I pause, “Mikhail?”

He nods. “It’s why he is on this mission with me. We have a common goal, and that is to destroy Dmitri and his entire empire. The outcome of achieving that goal will vary, of course.”

“Why do you want him dead?” The words hang in the room heavy over us. “Tell me why, and I will help you.”

I’m surprised that I actually mean the words that I speak. I will never admit it out loud, but this man has somehow managed to worm his way into the thorn-covered crevasses of my chest.

I…feel things for him. These are things that I know I’m not meant to feel. But I do, and I can’t deny them or push them away—I tried.

“Tell me, Pavel.”

A storm rages in his eyes, and then he opens his mouth and says: “He killed my daughter.”

Chapter 9

Pavel

“Your daughter?” She looks at me with wide eyes filled with sorrow and…sympathy. I hate the latter. Never in my life would I accept anyone’s sympathy for me.

“Yes, my daughter—Francesca.” The words leave my lips with much effort. I don’t talk about Francesca. She is a sore spot for me that I never like to revisit. I focus solely on avenging her and Lilian.

“Can you tell me what he did?”

I lock my jaw in place and grind my teeth together. “There is no need for you to know that information. Now you know why I’m after him. Will you do the work that I need you to?”

She reaches her hand and places it over mine in a comforting gesture. But the gesture is anything but comforting. The last thing that I want right now is to be pitied. I had taken that shit in as a child, and it served me nothing. I don’t need it now as an adult.

“I’m sorry for your loss, Pavel.” What irks me the most is the sincerity in her voice. “No one deserves that kind of pain.”

I rip my hand from under hers and push away from the bed. Her voice echoes. It resounds against the walls of my mind. I am sorry for your loss. Sorry for your loss.

My stomach churns just thinking about it.

“This isn’t some soap opera shit,” I snap, wheeling around to face her. “I don’t need your pity. I just want to know if you will do your job and hack into his systems. We don’t have long until he’s back.”

The confession was not meant to elicit this. The grip I have on my emotions is slipping away with every fucking second that I spend with this woman. She is not meant to get underneath myskin like this. That was never the plan. But somewhere along the line, it became the reality. And now, the days are blurring into one confused mess, and lines that have never been crossed are now being plowed through.

“I don’t pity you. I just…I know what it feels like to lose someone you love. I can’t imagine a child, but I did lose my brother at the hands of Dmitri.”

I don’t speak.

My desire for her has bred a weakness in me that has produced her sympathy. That has made me spill secrets that I have kept close to my chest since the day Dmitri stole them from me.

I need to get my shit together and contain the emotions that are quickly turning me from the man that was feared by many into something that is weak and common, and pathetic. Into a man who can’t control his own desires and lets a pretty face dictate his every move.

I think back to the mess I’ve already made by letting my emotions get the better of me. It has cost me much more than I can bear to admit. I will not let it consume my present or my future like it did my past.

I won’t let it consume me again.

I can feel that sadness. Her chest bleeds for my loss, and I hate it. I hate how genuine she is. I hate how she is affecting me when all I set out to do is affect her. I hate how it’s working.

I know that my reaction is shocking to her. She has never seen me so open. It doesn’t matter that Dmitri is in Spain at the moment. The man has eyes everywhere. I need her head in the game, not bleeding for my loss.

I need my head in the game and not bleeding over her.

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