Chapter 70: Codename: Aconite Chapter Twenty

I leisurely make my way down the hallway towards my apartment. I look down at the Tupperware container in my hands with an amused smile. While at my parent’s estate, the thought of eating another morsel of food had me fighting back regurgitation, but now as I approach my front door with this container of goodies, I can’t help but be tempted to take another bite, even at the risk of my stomach exploding like a Monty Python skit. What is it about Italian mothers? I think my grandmother picked the wrong Modis Operandi for her career. She should have just force-fed people to death. Codename: Nonna.

With my keys in hand, I unlock my door and let myself in. The moment I shut the door behind me, I feel a sense of unease as I detect a distinctive and familiar scent of cologne. I don’t wear cologne. The hairs on the back of my neck stand on end as I realise someone is in my apartment. The door didn’t look forced, so I’d be very interested to know how the fuck they got in.

I place the Tupperware container down on the low cabinet that stands against the short dividing wall to my right. I quietly place my keys beside it, casually walk across the living room, and proceed to turn on the lamp between the sofa and the chaise lounge. As I reach my hand under the lampshade to switch it on, I carefully retrieve the knife I keep there for emergencies. I sense small movement at my five o’clock, and so, with my hand firmly grasping the hilt of my knife, I spin around and hurl it in the direction I sensed the movement.

I look on in stunned disbelief at the ghost across the room sitting at my dining table, who just managed to dodge my knife with an unfazed side lean. He has to be a ghost. There is no possible way Silas Istrati is sitting in my dining room. He glances behind him at my knife, which is now embedded in my coral-painted walls, then looks back at me in amusement.

“That’s no way to treat a guest,” he muses.

“Funny, all I see is a corpse in my dining room.”

“I was under the impression Aconite preferred poison,” he says teasingly.

I straighten up as I casually walk around the chaise lounge towards him. “And I was under the impression Scythe was a better shot,” I say mockingly.

He raises an intrigued eyebrow at me, “How’d you figure it out?”

“You can thank that slug you left in my shoulder. Though I usually prefer flowers as a memento from a first date as opposed to bullets,” I say, folding my arms over my chest.

With a smirk forming on his still bruised face – I assume from me breaking his nose – I take a moment to look him over. He looks exceptionally good for a dead man. Even better than I remember. I can only assume the way he was dressed when we met was part of his persona, and that the man sitting before me now is the real Silas. His black brocade jacquard pants cling to his muscular thighs as he sits with his ankle resting over his knee, his shiny leather Oxfords glinting in the light. He leans back against the chair, and all I can see is the outline of defined shoulders and biceps in a black, long-sleeved button-down, with a black tie tucked behind a man’s black corset vest with silver clasps down the front. It provides him with an impressively narrow waist and I’m almost jealous, though there’s nothing feminine about it. The corset sinches in his waist making his pectorals and shoulders look all the more defined and enlarged to the point of making me salivate. He clasps his hands together in his lap, perfectly showcasing each of his tattooed fingers, and as if programmed, my mind instantly runs through a catalogue of things he could do with those fingers. I look up into his emerald eyes which are watching me with deep fascination as he slowly grazes his teeth along his bottom lip.

“You’re supposed to be dead,” I point out as I remove my leather jacket and toss it on one of the other sofas. “Can honestly say I’ve never seen someone survive aconite poisoning before. Just how did you manage that?” I ask curiously.

“I can tell you right now, I would much rather get shot any day of the week. That was extremely unpleasant, and definitely a close call,” he says as he slowly rises to his feet and stalks towards me. “I had a suspicion I was poisoned when the symptoms I began having had nothing to do with being stabbed.”

“Get stabbed a lot I take it,” I smirk.

He smiles down at me, “Not too often, but enough to know that was no ordinary stabbing.”

“So, are you here to finish what you started?” I ask, looking up at him as his cologne invades my senses making my insides throb and a damp patch to pool inside my panties.

“Would only be fair. You did leave me for dead in the streets of Moscow.”

“As I recall, you pointed a gun at me first,” I remind him.

“And as I recall, it’s not a gun you were expecting to find,” he smirks.

“I don’t like guns being pointed at me.”

“But cocks you’re okay with,” he says in amusement.

“Depends on the cock,” I say matter-of-factly, taking a step closer as I eye him up and down. “So, how do you want to do this?”

“Ladies first,” he says in a dark sensual voice, bending down to my height until our noses touch.

With a seductive smile on my lips, I lean forward and ever so slightly brush my lips against his. “Age before beauty.”

His warm breath fans against my lips as his mouth curls up into an evil smile. “As you wish.”