Three fucking days. Three days of pretending I was fine, of plastering on the mask I wore so well. But inside? I was unravelling. She'd done something to me. My little bird. My ptichka. She didn't even know she was making me crave her second by passing second. Completely.
Every time she looked at me with those wide, innocent eyes, my chest tightened, and I forgot how to breathe. Me. Judas Romanovski. The man who broke necks for sport, who found peace in chaos. Now I was losing my goddamn mind over a girl who probably didn't even know the power she held.
I wanted her. Every. Damn. Second. And not just to fuck her-though, God knows, the things I wanted to do to her would make a sinner blush. No, I wanted to own her. Body. Mind. Soul. She was mine, even if I had to remind it to her thousand fucking times.
And worst, I felt the primal urge again. In middle of the fucking meeting.
That itch. That fucking pull. I sat at the head of the table, Kyle saying something about death of the president's son, but all I could think about was her. The curve of her throat. The way she tasted when I kissed her. I clenched my fist under the table, my jaw tight.
I wanted to wrap my hand around her delicate little throat-not to hurt her, no, fuck no. To hold her still. To watch her shiver. To feel her pulse race under my palm. And then I'd kiss her. Hard. Deep. I'd devour her until she was gasping for air, trembling in my arms.
I'd wondered before, just once, what sin tasted like. Now I knew. It tasted like her.
"Are you listening?" Kyle's voice cut through my thoughts.
I blinked, dragging myself back to the present. I was still in the meeting with him on the phone. My hand was gripping the edge of the table so hard I thought it might snap.
"What?" I snapped wanting to get over with it and go and see my Ptichka. What she would be wearing today? Yellow? Nah, fuck she looked fuckable in red.
Kyle's voice came through the phone on the table. Calm. Too calm. "I said we've got a problem."
I didn't have time for his games. "The fuck you talking about, Molotov?"
"A bug in the house," he said. "An advanced one. It doesn't need to be placed in the security room. It could be anywhere."
I stilled. A bug? In my house? The one place no one could touch?
"Bullshit," I growled.
"It's real," Kyle insisted. And that had my attention. "The signal's been tampered with. Someone breached the system."
My blood boiled. If someone in my security team was betraying me, I'd carve their fucking heart out myself. "Who is it?"
Kyle sighed. "It's not that simple. This tech is... sophisticated. It could've been placed by anyone."
"When the fuck are you coming back?" I demanded. His absence was a problem. I didn't like problems.
"Not anytime soon," he muttered and I knew he was grumbling. That bastard.
"Why the fuck are you even in Japan? Anya would've been safer in the house."
Kyle hesitated.
"What aren't you telling me?" I kept my voice low.
"I killed the president's son."
My brows shot up. "You what?"
"He tried to rape Anya."
For a moment I thought I heard him wrong. He what? Caden Reed? The fucking junkie did what to my fucking sister?
Rage wasn't the word. Rage was too small, too insignificant to describe the storm ripping through my chest. My fist slammed down on the table before I even realized I'd moved, the wood splintering under my hand. The sound echoed in the room, but it wasn't loud enough to drown out the roaring in my ears.
"And why didn't you fucking tell me?" I snarled.
Kyle's calm answer only fueled the inferno burning in me. "It needed to be handled privately."
Privately? He thought killing the son of a man who could crush us politically, who could unleash hell on everything I owned, deserved privacy?
The image of Anya flashed in my mind, followed immediately by the thought of that bastard laying a hand on her. I didn't even want to imagine it. Didn't need to. My mind was already painting the details for me. Her fear. His intentions. I fucking told her to be careful but that troublemaker was too much to handle. And now I wondered what Alexei Volkov had to say.
Something inside me snapped.
"I'll kill him," I hissed through gritted teeth. The president. His son. His entire fucking family tree. I'd burn their name from existence. Their bloodline would end with me.
There was no hesitation. No doubt. Just cold violence. I'd keep him alive long enough to watch his empire fall. Piece by piece. Person by person.
"Calm down, he's already dead. You can't kill a dead person."
"No shit, Molotov. You'll answer when you come back."
"Yes, sir. But first find the bug… I guess…. It's in the…" He typed something. "Second floor."
That fucking bug.
I needed to find it. To destroy whoever was stupid enough to think they could invade my space.
My steps were quick, but my thoughts? A fucking mess. Chaos. Violence.
The second floor.
I didn't have to think twice to know what that meant. Ptichka. Zayne. The only two people I gave a shit about in this entire goddamned world.
If this bug put them at risk, I'd dismantle whoever was responsible. I'd carve their flesh into pieces so small even vultures would find it useless. I'd peel their skin back and watch the terror bleed from their eyes.
My breath was ragged as I reached the second floor, my fists clenched so tight my knuckles ached.
What if it was in my fucking room? Or Zayne's? But no one knew Zayne's room except for me and my fucking parents. What if whoever planted it was already watching them? Listening to them?
The very thought made my vision blur with fury.
The beeping from my tracker led me to my own room.
My stomach dropped.
No. No, this doesn't make sense.
My room? Why the fuck would anyone-
I stormed inside, tearing through the space like a madman. The faint sound of the bug was there infuriating me with its presence. My hands moved on instinct, pulling open the wardrobe, tossing clothes to the floor. Nothing.
Where the fuck was it?
Then I saw it.
The laundry basket.
My breath hitched, a heavy weight settling in my chest. No. It couldn't be.
I flipped the basket over, rummaging through the clothes. My hands stilled when I found it.
A small, black device.
On a cardigan.
Her cardigan.
My ptichka.
I stared at it, my heart thudding painfully against my ribs. Rage? Betrayal? Confusion? It all hit me at once.
She wouldn't. She couldn't.