“You can ask.” He shrugged, “But I’ll lie.”

“Alright, then.” I put down my fork and folded my hands. “So it was a hard day. Doesn’t mean you have a right to own a girl, make her sign over her life all within an hour of meeting her, then yell at her.”

“I never yelled.”

Sighing, I rolled my eyes. “Well, you sure don’t like using an inside voice.”

His face cracked into a smile. “Like I said before, I need someone of your talents.”

“I don’t have sex for money.”

“Why are you so concerned with having sex with me?” He smirked, “Seriously, I want to know.”

“Uh, I just, you seem like the type of man who—”

“—can’t get a woman without paying for her services?” He finished, “That type?”

“Well no, but—”

“The type of man who needs to make a woman sign a contract in order to engage in an illicit affair?”

Was he seriously asking me that? My cheeks burned with embarrassment while my heart thumped with a wild curiosity. Images of bondage and blindfolds danced through my mind… and those masks.

“That’s not what this is.” His eyes were kind, damn him, and I felt like crying. I could handle an ass, but someone sensitive to my feelings? Not so much. Because I hadn’t experienced it much in my short life… my mother ignored me as much as she could, paying all her attention to my father. And my father, well safe to say if he was ever given a father of the year award it would be because he freaking paid for it.

“So you need me,” I finally said after a few moments of tense silence. “Why exactly do you need me?”

“Your research—” He drummed his fingertips along the counter. “—amongst other things, is absolutely brilliant.”

My heart soared. “You really think so?”

“Absolutely.” He smiled. “I see real promise, and I want you to study under me, but some of the ways I do my own personal research isn’t exactly…” He shrugged. “Legal.”

“Thus the contract.”

“Exactly.”

“But thirty girls?”

He froze, drew a deep breath, then shrugged again. “They didn’t follow the rules, therefore they got fired. I decided that what I needed wasn’t necessarily an assistant to replace Jac but someone who could empathize with what I was doing.”

It was the most information he’d told me in two days. I clung to it like a lifeline. “And if I do well?”

“Then the world is yours.” He flashed a smile. “But all the rules from yesterday still stand… what I deal with is very sensitive and not known to the public. Do your job, with a smile on your face, and as we build trust… slowly, I’ll amend the contract.”

“So I prove my trust and I get Netflix?”

He chuckled softly. “Yeah, something like that, but one thing… you still can’t date… or sleep around. I can’t imagine that will be a problem for you all things considering but, I can’t have you mixing business with pleasure.”

And all the happy moments we shared just went out the window. “I’m not a saint.”

“Lie.” He leaned forward and winked. “I know everything about you. Now, let’s get to work. We have a short day before we go… fishing.”

“Fishing?”

“In a sense.” He shrugged. “For patients.”

“What?”

“Keep up.” He knocked the counter top with his hands. “I’ll show you what you’ll be doing during the day and during the evening… you’re mine.”

“Can’t wait,” I said dryly.

“Most women… would be… pleased.” He shoved a pair of keys in his pocket, looking sexy as hell while doing it. “I imagine you’d rather stab me.”

“Good guess.” I said with a sweet voice.

“Russians.” He shook his head. “Always so ruthless.”

“Don’t I know it.”

“Prove your worth, Maya. Let’s go.”

Fear has big eyes—Russian Proverb

MY PHONE HADN’T STOPPED BUZZING IN my pocket all morning. The very second I led Maya off the elevator and escorted her into my office, I knew, something was very, very wrong.

I felt it in the pit of my stomach.

I saw it in the gray cast sky.

She was dead.

With shaking hands, I basically shoved Maya into a desk, fired off instructions about some shit research I needed done then excused myself and went into one of the conference rooms.

Seven missed calls.

All from Sergio Abandonato, cousin to one of the most influential Italian mafia families in Chicago. He was married to Andi, Maya’s half sister. I’d basically grown up with Andi. While Maya was kept away from what her father did, Andi was used as a shiny tool for the FBI, infiltrating their systems at such a young age that even I had been impressed.

After selling out her father and one of the dirty agents at the bureau, the Abandonatos had offered Andi protection by marriage.

I’d expected her to kill Sergio the first night.

She hadn’t.

I’d expected her to drive him insane with lust.

She had.

Their marriage was supposed to be an arrangement, a way to protect her with their family name while she fought a losing battle with leukemia.

Instead, it had turned into so much more.

I’d visited during the wedding a few months ago, and even then I knew. I saw it in the way she talked to him, her body language whenever they were in a room together. And well, she was Andi; no sane man could deny her anything.

“You love him?” I asked once we were alone in her bridal room. She did a twirl for me then shrugged her shoulders and reached out her hand. I grasped her fingertips as anger washed over me anew. Ice cold. I was a doctor. I knew what was happening to her, damn it. It was almost like I could see the sick blood in her system, and even me being who I was, one of the most brilliant minds in modern medicine, I could do nothing to stop the disease—nothing.

It was like a sharp knife getting twisted into my chest, watching her smile as if she had all the time in the world. Normal girls, on their wedding day, look in the mirror and fuss over makeup or the way the dress fits, but Andi? She didn’t have a complaint in the world. And out of everyone I knew, she should complain—she never did.

“Nik?” Andi gave my shoulder a little squeeze. “You’re doing that weird thing where you stare into space and you get a wrinkle between your eyes.” She pressed the skin between my eyebrows and scrunched up her nose. “Penny for those dark morose thoughts?”

With a sigh, I pushed her hand away then pulled her into my arms, my mouth hovered near her ear. “He will never deserve you.”

“And you did?” She fired back quickly.

I sighed and pulled away. “I guess I deserved that.”

“Yup.” She grinned.

I licked my lips and forced my gaze away from her mouth. “I’ll do what I can to keep your father away, Andi. But you know even I can’t make any promises.”

“He still owns you… doesn’t he?”

I didn’t answer her.

“Nik, I worry for you.” As she should. The Cosa Nostra was organized in a way that the Russian Mafia could only dream of, there was a certain respect amongst the Italians, a loyalty, not just based on family ties but blood.

“Don’t,” I said in a detached voice while I anxiously rubbed the sickle tattoo imprinted in black ink across my hand. “The last thing you need to do is add more worry to your life. Just promise me, if the Italians don’t hold up their end of the bargain, you’ll leave a trail of blood in your wake.” I had to say it, even though I knew they would. That’s just who they were.

Andi barked out a laugh. “Violent Russian.”

“Half Russian.” I corrected.

“Still counts.” She winked, then sobered. “Are you still a Boevik for my father, Nik? Tell me…”