Page 8 of Corruption

“No. We wouldn’t. Where would be the fun in that?” Addy says with a twinkle in her eye as we cling our glasses together. Then, somehow managing to be smooth and unsubtle at once, she asks, “What’s all this about, Nadia?”

“I could ask you the same? A secret daughter? That must have caused a lot of turmoil.”

“It was from before my husband and I ever met. You know his old reputation. It was bound to be a thing that came up,” she says with a shrug. “Now, are you going to answer my question or am I going to have to do some digging for it?”

“If you’re going to make me dig about where you got that pretty girl from, it’s only fair.”

“Not afraid of what I’ll find?”

“Are you?”

Addy and I stare each other down before falling out into laughter together.

“We need to hang out more,” Addy decides. “At least the one good thing about all this is being able to integrate you into my social life.”

I feel two pairs of eyes on me. My husband’s and my ex-fiancé’s. Both making sure I’m behaving myself but for two totally different reasons.

“I see you all got the evening started without Kiya and I,” comes Adrian Fantoni’s voice from the entrance into the room.

All attention goes in his direction. Adrian cuts an impressive and handsome figure with his tall, lean stature, his lips turned in a cocky smirk, and a scar over his right eye that makes him look more severe and intimidating than he already is. It’s impossible for him to enter a room and not to notice him. But, tonight, his secret daughter gives him a run for his money.

Her kinky-curly ginger hair is pulled back into a sleek ponytail with a barrette at the base of her neck with the ends out and bouncing about to her mid-back. She’s wearing a fitted off-shoulder ivory dress that stops right above her knees, a gold necklace that brings out more of the warmth of her skin, and cute ballerina slipper shoes.

She looks exactly like the photo of her that Alik showed me, yet she’s somehow much more stunning in person.

And then she speaks in a soft, angelic voice with a slight breathy drag that only just gives away her southern United States upbringing if you’re paying attention to it.

“Hello. Sorry for holding everything up.”

She briefly looks up from where she was staring at the floor to scan the room and then looks back at the floor with a pretty blush after seeing Vaughn and Alik.

Instinctively, I look to where Vaughn and my husband are standing.

Vaughn is looking at the girl with something that’s definitely lust. That’s not surprising. However, next to him, my husband is looking at Kiya the exact same way, along with some curiosity. And that, coming from my reserved, aloof husband who doesn’t generally like people and keeps to himself—that is surprising.

Huh. Pretty girl, indeed.

I fight the urge to grin. Behaving tonight just got a lot less appealing.

4

Kiya

Itremble as I walk up the dimly lit stone path to the luxurious mansion where I’m about to meet my fiancé and future husband. Afraid that I’ll mess all this up and these people, the Russian mafia, will see right through the lies of the family I’m pretending to be part of.

“You all go ahead inside,” Adrian says to the rest of his family—my family as far as everyone else is concerned. “I want to talk to Kiya.”

Addy gives Adrian a questioning glance, looks at me, and then nods her head before ushering everyone ahead of her and into the house. When Adrian turns to me, I begin to immediately catalog all my actions for the night to figure out what I’ve done wrong already.

“You’re nervous,” Adrian points out.

“I’m sorry,” I blurt out instinctively from years of placating my mother whenever I did something wrong. Not because I was afraid she would strike me physically, but to avoid being struck by her barbed tongue that always made me feel so much worse than anything she could have physically done to me. Sometimes, if I was sorry enough, if I was condescending of myself enough, it was enough to make her take pity on me and not make me feel worse about myself.

But Adrian is the mafia. He might really kill me if I mess up. Or have me sent to jail and my future prospects ruined. Not that forcing me to marry a Russian mob boss is much better.

“There’s nothing to be sorry about. Of course you would be.”

I look down at the ground and avoid his gaze.

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