Page 30 of The Payback

I tuck myself back into my trousers and do up the zipper and button. “Good girls get to come. Bad girls get to ride their fingers.”

Turning on my heel, I walk away, sparing one last glance at the woman who could bring everything down around me, especially with how she looks right now, filled to the brim with my seed dripping between her thighs. She moves to get up, and I twist my head away from her and throw open the kitchen doors.

I need to get the cleaning crew in here, and I wonder if Nik thought to call them.

“Do you not wear condoms, asshole?” she shouts after me.

I always wear a condom. But not with her.Neverwith her.

CHAPTERTWELVE

Eleanor

I wonderif Interpol would fire me for killing an asset.

I mean, probably, but maybe not? I sure hope not because I’m quickly losing my sanity, and I’m afraid I might find out the answer to that little question soon.

It’s been a goddamned week since that fucking punishment in the kitchen, and I’m still livid. And turned on as fuck. But mostly livid. Dimitri had better be thanking his lucky fucking stars he’s not here today because my mood has taken a decidedly horrible turn, and I certainly wasn’t sunshine and fucking roses before.

In fact, with every passing hour, I’ve just riled myself up more and more. But this morning, when I saw Dimitri’s note on his pillow, I imagined plunging a knife through it and affixing it to my husband’s chest.

I’m a murdery, horny, frustrated mess, and I’m at my wit’s end as I pace the length of the bed in the suite. This apartment has everything. But you know what it doesn’t have? Sex toys.

Or at least none that I can find.

The showerhead worked in a pinch after I used my fingers so vigorously that they cramped. But could anything truly replace that little rose-shaped clit sucker? The short answer is no. The long answer is that I’m still searching for a stand-in while the one I ordered from Amazon is en route, and it will be a frigid day in hell when I turn to Dimitri to scratch that itch. Not with the way he left me last time.

I uncrinkle the note in my palm and look it over again, feeding that anger roaring in my belly because if I can’t have a decent orgasm, at least I can imagine all the fun ways to make my husband pay.

I crumple the heavy—and probably expensive—paper and ball it in my fist again. Then, like the mature woman I am, I chuck it at his pillow, imagining it’s his face.

Other than to sleep or when he hands over the cameras after wearing them all day for evidence collection, Dimitri and I have stayed clear of each other for the last week.

He’s had meetings every day, and while I knew his job was demanding, I didn’t expect it to bethisdemanding. He always meets with managers of bars, nightclubs, and restaurants in the mornings, then deals with some of the illegal portions of the job in the afternoons.

My asshole of a husband has already collected footage of an arms deal, identifying everyone on camera and getting the shipment details on film. He’s also worked with a few of the men Sergei manages as the brigadier regarding territory issues—again, on camera.

After switching them off in the car, he brings home the cameras, and I review the footage, sending it off to Agent Kim, my handler, fellow agent, and the stand-in father from my wedding.

I wish I had more to do. But I’m still too new, and the people of Dimitri’s organisation would find it odd that I just started attending meetings. So here I am—wandering and aimless. Instead of fussing over it, I’ve been distracting myself by settling into the apartment and putting my things where they need to go. The other day, I was stashing weapons around the house and found a couple of Dimitri’s guns in my favourite hiding spots.

The man has good Glocks; I’ll give him that.

Thinking of my stupid husband has renewed anger bubbling in my belly. I hate myself for succumbing to the passion he stirs in me. For not only letting him fuck me but for demanding it. It’s not fair that my body has betrayed me, and I’ve had a long, hard talk with my cunt, telling it to clam the fuck up and stop drooling for that man.

Before I got here, I’d been briefed repeatedly that I couldn’t let emotion impede the job I was here to do. In fact, it was something my boss had highlighted more than a few times—not that I’d ever given him reason to doubt my emotional separation between work and my private life.

The only time they crossed over, Nik betrayed Interpol and me in one fell swoop. But my boss doesn’t know I was fucked and left sated on a hotel mattress while my partner stole a diamond.

My boss brought up the emotion thing because it’s not an uncommon theme for someone undercover to blur those lines until the two stark sides of black and white mesh into something in between; something grey and dangerous.

The scary thing is that I can feel it happening in real-time, no matter how much I try to fight it.

Dimitri is different than I expected.

Sure, he’s the boss of an illegal syndicate, and he’s scary as fuck sometimes, but it’s the intensity he holds back from everyone else yet unleashes with me that intrigues me the most.

Our wedding was a subdued affair, and Dimitri barely spoke to anyone at the event before ushering us out of there after cutting the cake.

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