My vision dimmed, terror inflating in my throat, when he stood and slammed the man’s hands flat on the table.

“Any last words as a ten-fingered man?”

The man clenched his teeth.

Ronan chuckled. “So be it.”

With a quick glint of silver, the man’s pinkie rolled off the table and fell to the floor with a sickening noise. His painful groan didn’t swallow my gasp of horror.

Ronan’s dark gaze came my way.

I couldn’t breathe, paralyzed beneath the heartless, brutal sheen in his eyes as he wiped the blood off the knife onto the side of his pants leg. A hot rush of adrenaline lit inside of me.

I ran.

Knowing a man sat at the end of the hall, I took a sharp right into the dark kitchen, crawled behind the stainless steel counter, and pressed my back against it. Soft steps sounded in the hallway, growing closer. Tears ran down my cheeks. I covered my mouth to hold in a sob.

Dread tightened my lungs, smothering each breath before I could inhale.

“Kotyonok,” he mocked, the soft endearment sounding from somewhere in the dark. He didn’t turn the lights on, and I knew it was because he was enjoying this twisted game of hide-and-seek.

I crawled away from his voice.

Now, I could see a light from the service door leading out near the bar. My chest moved up and down in anticipation. Without warning, I was on my feet and running to it, but I didn’t make it out of the dark before arms caught me from behind.

Ronan’s hand covered my mouth, muffling my screams, while I fought against his iron grip with tears flooding my vision.

“Where are you going, kotyonok?” His menacing words pressed against my ear. “The party is just getting started.”

A sharp sting poked the back of my neck.

And then heaviness pulled my consciousness, down, down . . .

Until everything was dark.

FEEL LIKE PLAYING A GAME WITH THE DEVIL?

—Anonymous

faodail

(n.) a lucky find

I tossed the empty syringe to the floor when her body went limp in my arms. I’d kept the injection in my pocket since she ran into me on her first night here, waiting for the right moment to put it to use.

And this was not the right fucking moment.

Anger sent a rush of heat through me as I wrapped an arm around her legs and lifted her, her long blonde ponytail hanging lifelessly. Beneath her coat, she wore a bohemian skirt with a slit to her hip and some kind of blouse that didn’t reach her navel. So impractical for a Russian winter.

As always.

Her head rolled to rest against me, tear tracks wet on her cheeks. I looked away from her face and turned to see Albert behind me, his cautious gaze on the girl in my arms. He was as emotionless as ice, but I could only assume the barely-there look in his eyes was reservation about what I might do to her.

“I will take her,” he said.

I was sure he would.

Annoyance flared in my chest. “You’ll go clean up the mess with Adams. There’s blood all over the floor.”

I’d never told him to scrub a floor, but the fact he wanted to protect this girl from me . . . Well, that pissed me off. She was mine for the time being, and I’d do whatever I goddamn pleased with her.

His gaze touched her again before he moved to comply without a word.

Albert was loyal to a fault; he’d taken bullets for me. But I’d realized since Mila set foot in Moscow, I couldn’t trust any of my men with her. The first fuckup was only ordered to scare her toward my door, not take one look at her and decide to rape her. My moral compass may be pointed south, but something felt . . . inappropriate about abducting a bruised teenage girl with a concussion. I prided myself on being a fair man, so, naturally, her attacker was floating in the Moskva without a single tooth or finger to be identified.

“Andrei,” I said, passing him in the back room.

He pulled the toothpick from his mouth and followed me to the car in the alleyway. I deposited my package on the back seat. Her skirt rode up, baring too many inches of smooth, toned thighs. The girl had an annoying issue with pants. Instead of enjoying the sight, I experienced an urge to pull the fabric down and wondered if this was what human decency felt like. Slightly nauseating.

Slamming the door, I turned to Andrei. “Anyone even looks at her, kill them.”

He put that stupid toothpick back into his mouth, his attention stuck on the girl’s legs through the car window.

I clenched my teeth. “That includes you. I have better things to do than watch you blow your own brains out.”

He gave me a curt nod and slid his gaze from the window.

I headed back inside and made my way to Kostya, who sat on a stool at the end of the hall, his attention on his phone. I stopped beside him to see he was playing Candy Crush. The fucker was so engrossed in his little game, he jumped when I spoke.

“You got four jelly beans there.”

Cautiously, he looked at me. “Gde?” Where?

“There.” I pointed them out.

He pulled the red jelly bean into place and swallowed. “Thanks, boss.”

“No problem.”

Then I punched him in the face.

He flew backward to the floor. I kicked the stool out of the way and stepped on his phone, hearing it crack as I walked toward him. Grabbing a fistful of his shirt before hitting him again, I revered the burn in my knuckles.

“You better have a good fucking reason for allowing her back there,” I growled in Russian.

Blood poured from his nose. “She’s poisonous. Just like the stories of her mother.”

“Not a good reason.” I grabbed my gun from my waistband and pressed the barrel to his head.

He tensed. “You have been playing with her for too long. We can all see she’s digging her Mikhailov claws into you.”

Yeah, maybe I had let this go on for too long, but I made the goddamn decisions around here.

“We? Who else had a hand in her coming here tonight?”

He hesitated, and my finger tightened on the trigger.

“Vasily,” he blurted. “He only scared her.”

Irritation crawled up my back. I was losing patience with my men when it came to this girl. But what infuriated me the most was that nobody had the right to scare her except me.

“Do you think you could do my job better than me?” I asked. He’d have to kill me to do that, and we both knew that was a fight he’d never win.

His jaw clenched. “Pasha was my brother.”

The unfortunate truth was, I forgot the kid’s name when I had my fingers deep inside Mila.

Maybe she was poisonous.

I’d had my fair share of beautiful women and then some, but this one . . . It was like her body was designed just for me. Unfortunately, beneath that all-American cheerleader exterior lay a Woodstock advertisement. I had nothing against free love, but it would be an understatement to say I wasn’t someone who threw around peace signs.

A cab driver/drug runner of mine recognized Mila minutes after she stepped out of the airport. Since then, I’d learned a number of her ridiculous achievements: valedictorian, cheer captain, homeless shelter volunteer. She even organized a fundraiser to save humpback whales when she was fifteen. If that didn’t paint a clear picture, she was voted “Most Likely to Win a Nobel Prize” at her prestigious high school.