Page 19 of Immaculate Deception (Romanoff Bratva)

So there was this stranger…

Things will be better if we never cross paths again.

I start pacing through the apartment. I thought the shower would help take the edge of my restlessness, but it hasn’t done a damn thing. I ought to sleep, think, meditate on my next moves.

But I can’t sit down. Can’t sit still. Even striding back and forth through this shithole apartment isn’t doing a goddamn thing to take the edge off.

I go from the living room to the hallway to the bathroom to the bedroom to the foyer and back out into the living room.

Repeat, ad nauseum. The same circuit again and again and again.

Time passes. But I’m just as pent-up and frustrated as I was when I first arrived an hour ago. And my thoughts are going in circles the same way I am.

The same old voices in my head, playing on endless loops.

There’s the irritating angel on my shoulder, telling me to leave this woman’s apartment before I bring the storm down on this place.

Gennady, telling me to lie low, away from cops and Albanians and Zotov alike.

Worst of all is the ghost of my father’s angry snarl. He’s been dead for a decade and I can still hear him rasping his unhelpful input on the whole situation.How could you let this happen? If there was insurrection brewing, you should have known about it. You should have killed Zotov before he had the chance to gather forces. Made an example of him.

“Gee, thanks, Father,” I grumble out loud. “Why didn’t I think of that?”

The hallucination alone pisses me off. Fuck that son of a bitch. I’m glad he’s dead.

Still snarling, I snatch a picture off the wall carelessly. The nail rips out with it. My father’s voice fades as I study the smiling face inside the frame.

It’s her. The woman whose baby I delivered.

A thin brunette, smile too wide for her face, drowns in a too-large graduation robe. She’s cute, but young. A high schooler when this one was taken, by the looks of her.

I drop the picture on the floor and look at the next one. Another graduation photo. Same girl, but she’s blossomed. Her round cheeks are more sculpted and her graduation robe is open to show off a tight white dress with a low neckline. More curves. More sex appeal.

Beautiful, yes—but haunted.

Again, looking at her, something tickles in the back of my mind. A memory I can’t quite grasp. Like a word on the tip of my tongue.

I study her face. The almond-shape of her eyes, the fierce arch of her brow. Those sparkling eyes. Full of fire and intelligence.

No parents in any of the pictures. No boyfriend or husband, either. Wonder where he is. She didn’t strike me as the type to fall for a deadbeat dad.

My frown deepens. It’s right there on the tip of my tongue. The connection. The—fuck, thesomething.What the hell is it?

It’s been a long few days since Zotov made his move. Maybe my neurons are just short-circuiting. Crying out for sleep, food, vengeance. I’ve almost convinced myself that that’s it…

Until I look at the stone sign behind her in the picture and see the words “Cornell University of Veterinary Medicine” etched in the rock.

At that, the memory lingering in the back of my mind becomes a movie.

The curvy, feisty veterinarian with her legs wrapped around my waist as I fucked her. Drawing me into her, begging me for more.

“Harder.”

“Touch me.”

“Make me come.”

How many times have I played those filthy words over and over in my mind? She fucked me like she didn’t know if she’d ever be fucked again.

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