Page 31 of Sinful Desires
And not just because she didn’t listen, though God knows the woman wouldn’t follow an order if her life depended on it.
No. It was worse.
She was too goddamn beautiful.
I didn’t know what exactly did it—if it was the hair that looked like it had caught fire just to piss me off, or the blue of her eyes, so bright it felt like a punch to the ribs when she looked at me.
Maybe it was her lips—pink, soft, parted just enough to make a man lose his mind. Or that tiny nose dusted with a thousand freckles, like someone had run a brush of gold across her skin and forgotten to stop.
Whatever it was, she was a beautiful fucking ruin. The kind that got under your skin, burned there, and rotted you from the inside out.
And the worst part? No photo, no magazine cover, no PR bullshit could have prepared me for the goddamnrealityof her. Scarlett Harper, up close, was a forbidden prayer dressed as a walking sin. I was just the poor bastard hired to keep her breathing.
I’d seen her broken. Not the public version, the one they photographed and crucified. The real one. And it was worse, because that version had stayed with me for years.
When the call had come in from Russia, I’d already known it wasn’t going to be good.
Mikhaïl Volkov.
No mafia mobster should have known my name. And definitely not one whose enemies usually ended up rotting under frozen fucking lakes.
I didn’t work for the mafia. I didn’t owe them favors. I didn’t even breathe in their direction. That was my fucking rule.
So, when Oliver Sawyer, the jackass who signed my paychecks, had asked to see me, I’d known exactly whose mess I was about to step into.
His office had smelled like cheap coffee and cheaper aftershave, the blinds half closed against the harsh noon sun slicing the room into strips of shadow. Papers were stacked everywhere, a half-eaten box of donuts bleeding grease onto a file markedConfidential.
He didn’t even look up when I walked in, just kept shoving a chocolate-frosted donut into his mouth.
“Volk’s an old friend,” Oliver said, like we were talking about some guy from his Saturday poker night, not a man who ran a syndicate built on blood and fear.
I just stood there, arms behind my back, spine locked straight. Old military habits died hard.
“Volk. Mikhaïl Volkov,” he said, spraying crumbs everywhere. “Big guy. Head of the Silas. Whenever he does business around here, he hires my men for backup. Leaves his own crew back in Russia. Wants to keep things clean, especially now that he’s playing house with a wife and kids.”
Oliver slurped his coffee. “Paid me fat and shook my hand,” he said proudly. “Nice guy, really. If you can ignore the fact he’s got enough blood on his hands to repaint the Kremlin.”
Nice. Real fucking nice.
I bit back the irritation crawling up my throat. “He called me last night. Said you told him I was your best man. Harpers are dangling five million a month. Wanted me to think about it.”
Oliver licked icing off his thumb, finally glancing up. “Well? Did you?” he mumbled around the bite.
“Yeah. Thought real hard. Picked up the phone. Told him to fuck off.”
Oliver choked on the donut, coughing crumbs onto his desk. He lurched out of his chair, eyes wide like I’d just shot his dog.
“Are youfuckinginsane? You don’t say no to theSilas!”
I shrugged. “Guess I just did.”
He slumped back into his chair with a groan, rubbing his chest like he could already feel the heart attack blooming.
“Théo,” he muttered, reaching for his coffee, “one of these days, it’s not gonna be a bullet that kills me. It’s gonna be you, you stubborn fuck.”
Everything had changed that night.
I told myself I’d fake it. Pretend I didn’t recognize the name when Mikhaïl Volkov had said it. Pretend I had no fucking clue who he was talking about. But I knew.
