Page 36 of Wicked Proposal
His lips press into a thin, guilty line. “Am I in trouble?”
“Of course not.” I hold him closer. “Thank you. I’m sorry you had to do that.”
He shakes his head. “I want to protect you, Mommy. Like you protect me.”
My eyes grow wet. I force myself to blink back the tears. “Hey,” I whisper. “Wanna know the good news I had for you?”
Eli peers up at me. “What news?”
“I have the day off.” I grin. “Wanna go shoe shopping?”
Eli’s face brightens instantly. “Can we?!”
“Only if you get dressed real fast.”
I watch him hurtle towards his bedroom like a tiny tornado.
Happy—like kids are supposed to be.
For the first time in hours, I feel like I’ve done something right.
13
YULIAN
I’m staring out the windowed wall in my Manhattan office when Maksim bursts in with a folder.
“You were right,” he announces. “It’s them.”
That’s all he has to say. We don’t say the name anymore, because every time I do, it’s ash on my tongue and fire in my veins and it takes many, many sessions of spilled enemy blood before I can calm myself enough to think clearly again.
So it’s just them.
Them.
Prizrak—that’s what they’re called. It means “specter.” A syndicate of men who do not exist in any government database.
They are ghosts. Spooks. Bloodstained phantoms in the dark.
Originally from Bulgaria, they hire themselves out as contract killers to anyone with the cash to pay and the balls to dare. Allegedly, they’ve been behind every major unsolved assassination since the Fifties.
And twenty years ago, someone hired them to destroy my bloodline.
It took me twenty-four hours to find out who did the paying. To learn who had the cash and the fucking balls.
A friend—or so I thought. I tied cement blocks to his ankles and fed him to the Hudson. Ever since, I’ve refused to speak his name, even in my mind.
But it’s taken me twenty years longer to get even a whiff of the bastards who actually pulled the trigger.
I’ve sworn to kill them all. I won’t stop until it’s done.
Only then can my family rest in peace.
Only then can I move on with my life.
Because, as it turns out, they’re still carrying out their task: “Destroying the Lozhkin bloodline.”
They’ve taken a creative approach this time, I’ll give ‘em that. Instead of shooting at me, they’re shooting at every woman I’m seen with more than once.
