Page 53 of Lies He Told Me (Bratva Crime Syndicate 1)

Joy leaving is unfortunate. But not dire.

“Boss?” It’s Ludmil, coming out on the steps to join me.

I smile. “Ah, there you are.”

“Do you want me to …” With two fingers, he indicates walking legs in the direction Joy went.

I shake my head. “Won’t be necessary.”

“But she’s—”

“She’ll be back.” I know that for certain, without any reason to believe it. I just know it, deep in my bones. She’ll be back. This isn’t the last we’ve seen of each other.

I know what I sensed:sgorayu ot lyubvi.Both of us felt it. The heat. The fire.

I go back inside, shut the door behind us. The air is still buzzing with her. I can smell her, sense her, damn near taste her. Fuck, she’s intoxicating—and she doesn’t even know it. Is this what it feels like to find a diamond in the rough? To see something beautiful, so mired in muck that she can’t even recognize her own beauty? I am practically fucking giddy. She is perfect. She is goddamn perfect.

“I’ll say one thing,” Ludmil mutters, sighing. “She would work.”

“Not just ‘work.’ She’d be …” I stop myself in time.

I don’t know that, really. You can never tell how something plays out until it does. And even if Joy has the fire and the odd flash of grace, there is no telling what lies beneath that pretty, naïve face.

Enough,I growl wordlessly under my breath.Restrain yourself, Vaknin.

Ludmil gives his head a slight tilt.You’re sure?, his expression says.My consigliere and I have known each other for so long that words are often unnecessary. I can see in the wrinkle of his brow and the jut of his chin what he means.

I nod, gesturing around us.Look around. Of course she will.

A perfect blank template. An uncut gem. Only I can see how valuable she truly is. Of all the men in the world, I am the only one who can see her for what she is.

And that makes hermine.

“Want me to call Rudy and arrange the wedding?” Ludmil’s only half joking. “He’s likely to cream himself over this one.”

“Not yet. The situation is still too delicate for our heavy-handed campaign manager.”

“Good point. Then he’d have to crawl out of the penthouse he’s been hiding away in.”

“Hiding?” I swing a look at my friend. He knows something I don’t.

His smile says it all. “I may have mentioned something to him the other day about not getting on your bad side.”

It’s not bad advice. Many men have crossed me in the slightest of ways and found themselves in less-than-desirable situations as a result. We chuckle together at the memory of Rudy quaking in fear of me. “Is there any end to you tormenting the man?”

Ludmil’s cheeky, elfin expression curdles into something indignant. “When he helps us, of course.”

“Which he should soon,” I say. “I give her a week.”

“Only that?”

“Life on the streets is hard.” I know that firsthand. I still haven’t forgotten it.

We hear a trilling sound, and Ludmil picks up his phone. “Yeah?” His face drops, then he hands the phone to me.

“Boss …” I hear through the speaker. My hands tighten around the chrome case. No conversation that starts that way has ever culminated in good news.

“Jaul. What is it?”

---