CamilaI’ve chewed my thumbnail down to the quick. The skin splits, blossoming red. Hissing in pain, I shake my hand out, clenching my fingers. I have to quit this bad habit one of these days. I always do it when I’m stressed. And right now, I am very stressed.After a fitful sleep in Asher’s bed, I woke with a nagging feeling in my head. Though walls and floors separate us, I keep picturing my mother in the house. Did she sleep okay last night? Did Layla meet her, get food for her? How is she getting along compared to my first night?And on more than one occasion, I wonder if she heard us last night.Her arrival left me flushed with joy. But after enough hours, the happiness faded to something bleaker. There’s something she said yesterday that I can’t shed.Sleep didn’t erase it. If anything, the time passing has made my curiosity sharper.Why did Mom react like that on hearing Yannick’s name?I replay the scene over in my head. My mother was hanging on my every word when we spoke, s
CamilaDAYS LATERWithout Mila’s phone number, my only way of contacting her is to wait for her to show up at the mansion. It would be faster and more reliable to ask someone for her info, or ask them to reach out to her for me. But it’s risky. Everyone here works for Asher, and I can’t risk him finding out what I’m up to.He’d never approve.In the meantime, I’m forced to tiptoe around my mother. When we spot each other in the hallways, we go in opposite directions. Her meals are taken in private. I saw Masha delivering a tray to her last night. She gives me an apologetic nod whenever I catch them walking out of her room. It’s no secret that my mother and I are at odds. Both of us are being as subtle as elephants.Mom doesn’t want to be here, and I don’t know how to be around her without prying into what she’s hiding. But one thing is for sure. There’s no question she knows something about Yannick.Asher isn’t much easier to be near lately either. He stalks around, glaring at nothing
Jealousy that I thought was reserved for Kristina washes up my spine. Hunching over a box, I dig through, barely looking at the details on the paperwork as I talk in a clipped tone. “He and you must be very close after all that time together.”Mila snorts. The light bounces wildly off the walls. I glance up to see her covering her mouth with one arm, shaking enough that the phone is no longer being aimed.“Camila Marakov,” her voice turns light and teasing. “Are you jealous?”“I didn’t say that!” But my argument is weak. I look away in shame. “But yes. I am. I mean … You’re the perfect woman for him. And you’ve been working for him since his previous wife died, so I just thought that …”I can’t bear to finish the sentence.Mila points the light directly in my face and I gasp at the brightness, shielding myself.“Don’t be an idiot,” she says. “I never thought about him like that. Besides, Asher is too much of a professional. He doesn’t shit where he eats.” Moving the light from my eyes
CamilaThe papers are spread across my bed like I’m planning to make a thousand paper flowers for a wedding. They cover the blanket so thickly you can hardly see it between the gaps. Stalking around the mattress, I write hastily on the back of a scrap piece I’ve folded in half.My notes must make me seem insane. No one could decipher my scribbles, which have been made in increasingly frantic lines. But I need to write to keep track, and also … to believe that what I’m seeing is true.This can’t be real. It just can’t!Staring in between my writing and the documents, I finally sink onto the floor in a heap. There’s no denying it. I’ve gone over everything a hundred times—it’s nearly dawn. After the high- octane escape out of the mansion and back again, I’m awake from pure adrenaline.What I’ve learned is going to change everything.Mom ... is this what you didn’t want me to know?The major trail of income into the dance studio points in one direction. For years, my father accepted mone
AsherFacing my reflection in the mirror, I pull at the bags under my eyes.I look like shit.It’s not just sleep that eludes me. It’s that when I do go under, my dreams are shifting, torturous things that assault me. I’ve always been plagued by demons. For a little while, with Camila at my side, they retreated. But since Mila came by with more useless intel, nothing soothes me.My most talented assassin has no idea what Yannick is doing. She doesn’t know where he is, what he wants, or when he’ll act. Fuck, or if he even will act. The bastard has gone underground without any indication of resurfacing.Scratching at my hair, I shut my eyes with a shaky sigh. My world is falling apart. It’s dramatic, yes, but it’s how it feels. I’m nothing without my plans. All I’ve focused on for the last ten years is how to eradicate Yannick with my own two hands.How do you kill a ghost?Shambling into my bathroom, I run the hot water in my shower until the room is covered in steam. It’s so thick it
Slipping my hand between us, I slide her tights down her thighs. She moans in my ear. I cling to that sound like it’s a buoy in the rocky ocean. Camila has been taking me apart bit by bit, day by day. This newest revelation that she’s pregnant is detaching me from the world.“I love you,” I tell her, kissing her before she can answer in kind. Her little gasp tickles my tongue. My cock stirs, hardening to the point of pain.Running my fingers through her luxurious hair, I go further, caressing her ribs, pushing my thumb pads along the line that leads to her navel. Hooking her dress up, I lightly pet the front of her panties; they’re soaked through. My cock flexes eagerly. Then I trace her pussy lips through the silk, discovering how engorged they are, and my entire body tenses.She’s turned on as much, or maybe more, as I am.“I love you too.”With my breath quickening, I move aside the elastic band. Camila acts instantly; gripping my wrist, she works to get my fingers inside of her. H
Camila“Thank you for having lunch with me,” I say. My mother and I are sitting in a small nook split off from the main floor. I had two of the staff set up a small table with finger sandwiches, glossy eclairs, and my mother’s favorite, pirozhkis stuffed with potatoes and onions.Mom, who has taken to dressing like the house is as cold as a cellar, is wearing a fluffy blue sweater over a pair of sleek white pants. I’ve chosen something loose—a bishop’s sleeve dress the same color as the chocolate on the eclairs.“You say that like I wouldn’t agree,” she chides. “What mother doesn’t make time for her daughter?”One who knows her daughter is trying to pry info from her … Putting on a big grin, I pick up a cucumber sandwich, taking a nibble. My stomach isn’t loving any kind of food with intense flavors just yet.My mother plucks up a pirozhki. “Hm,” she muses, judging it critically. “Who made these?”“Chef Danil did.”“Chef?” she mocks. “Asher has a private chef? Well of course he does.”
AsherIs it too reckless to burn a whole city to the ground?That’s what I’m wondering as I flip through my piles of paperwork in the library. My eyes scrape over the notes I’ve kept for the last few months. Plans upon plans exist in my esoteric scribbles. Some are in code, others meaningless drivel to the untrained eye.But for people like me—a man neck-deep in a bloody war—it’s an instruction manual. Except it didn’t work, I remind myself furiously. Meticulous planning, yet nothing has come to fucking fruition! None of my men have reported movement by Yannick in the last week. Other than sending someone to shoot up the studio, he seems to have vanished from the face of this earth.I have to dig him out of his hole. My fingertips crimp the edges of my notes. I imagine the paper is his throat and start crushing it into a ball. It’s not like I need these documents anymore. They haven’t done me any good.There’s a light knock on the frame of the library door. My head jerks up. Camila is