“You’re right about one thing… you’ve done nothing wrong. Except, you were born, and that… according to your father… is a problem.”

“And second?” I asked in a calm detached voice, already trying to climb into myself so I wouldn’t feel the stinging sensation or the warm blood trickling down my arms.

“It takes experts seventy-two hours maximum to brainwash a person, to wipe their memory, to make them a whole new individual.”

“So?” I croaked, jerking against the chair.

“Ah, Maya… it rarely takes me twelve hours.”

My heart slammed against my chest.

Warm lips brushed against my ear. “The minute you were brought in… you were already broken.”

I woke up from the dream in a cold sweat. It was always the same. Someone slicing my arm, and a smooth voice taunting me. The message was always the same.

I will break you.

I shivered and looked at my clock.

It was time to call in a favor. I was tired of the nightmares, but more tired of putting my life on hold… I needed to finish my research if it was the last thing I did. So with dread, I picked up my cell and dialed my father’s number.

The Pier killer is at it again, claiming its first victim in two years...—The Seattle Tribune.

THE CLOCK IN THE CORNER CHIMED noon. I waited in anticipation for the doors to open. His secretary had said he’d be out in five minutes. It had been six, not that I was crazy OCD or anything, I was just a bit freaked out that I was about to meet the Nikolai Blazik. He was considered a god in the medical community.

And he was considered royalty if you asked anyone else.

Graduated with honors from Harvard at the ripe old age of fifteen, went on to get a degree in Human Sciences and Technologies, which basically meant he was a certified genius. His research on disease and its effects on the body gave him the freaking Nobel Prize at nineteen.

Which was naturally followed by a cover on Time Magazine, followed by Forbes, I think you get the picture. He was ridiculously smart and extremely hard to pin down for an interview.

The only reason he was even giving me the time of day was because my father had made a call, and my master’s thesis was based on Mr. Blazik’s newest research on STDs.

I exhaled and looked at the clock again.

Eight minutes.

He was three minutes late.

What if he wasn’t going to do the interview? I needed to finish my thesis in order to graduate—and I had to graduate in order to pay off my student loans. Regardless of how much money and power my father had, he was adamant that I make my own way.

Except in this particular situation.

I’d had to damn near sell him my own kidney in order for him to arrange the meeting. Leaving wasn’t an option. He’d told me no on several occasions and then finally, picked up the phone this morning and said to be at the Blazik offices downtown at noon.

I wasn’t sure why he’d finally given in after all these years of basically ignoring me. My family was dysfunctional. I stopped trying to figure them out years ago. My brother Pike had died a few weeks ago, leaving my mother heartbroken, and it was always rumored that my sister had been killed by another crime family when she was an infant, leaving just me.

I felt like the disappointment of the bunch, not that my father ever said a word about me being a disappointment. His words were always brittle, cold, and indifferent, I would have killed for some sort of emotion from the guy, but I had nothing but empty smiles and arched eyebrows.

With another sigh I tucked my dark brown hair behind my ears and drummed my fingertips along my black skirt.

I’d put on my new Nordstrom business suit, hoping it would give me confidence, and when that failed to work—after I looked in the mirror and saw the petrified look on my face—I put on a red thong and crossed my fingers.

Underwear always did the trick. Like a secret nobody knew about… I could walk in the office confident that although I looked prim and proper on the outside—I was scandalous underneath.

The phone ringing caused me to almost fall out of my chair.

“Miss Petrov?”

I stood, my knees hitting the glass table in front of me. “Yes?”

Her smile was tight, almost as tight as the bun currently torturing her hair. “He’s waiting.”

He’s waiting? As if I was the one that was late and had been sitting here wasting his time?

“Thank you,” I managed to choke out, making my way toward the large black doors.

She opened both of them, making my entrance look a lot more grand than it really was.

Floor to ceiling windows lined every inch of wall except for the one behind me leading back into the lobby.

A large oak conference table was in the left corner and a desk that looked more like a spaceship about ready to take flight than an actual desk, had been placed in the very middle of the room.

Two black leather couches rested against the right wall with a white fur rug topping off the masculine look.

The office screamed money.

And for some reason that made it seem cold.

The door clicked shut behind me.

I did a circle, my heels clicking against the marble tile. “Um, hello?”

“Um,” came a dark menacing voice from somewhere in the room I couldn’t locate. “Isn’t a word. Try again.”

“My name is—“

“I know who you are,” the voice snapped impatiently. “Now, try again.”

I tried to get my shaking under control, hoping it wouldn’t show through with my next few words. “Where would you like me to sit? For your interview?”

Static filled silence followed for a few seconds before I heard a sharp irritated exhale.

“Are there not enough options, Miss Petrov?”

I licked my lips and glanced quickly around the room trying to decide what would be best, finally I settled on the couch, setting my purse on the floor and pulling out my notebook.

“Interesting.” The voice contained little humor, and I would bet my right eye he found my choice in seating anything but interesting. Whatever, not my problem. I had expected him to be nicer, or at least, you know, present?

Did he get off by acting like the Great and Powerful Oz? I still didn’t know where the heck he was or why he was choosing not to show his face.

First he’s late.

Then it’s somehow my fault.

And now he’s mocking me from afar.

Screw you, Oz. I clicked my pen and waited.

“I would have taken you for a conference table type of girl,” the smooth voice said, this time sounding closer. “Then again, the couches are more comfortable.”

I opened my mouth, but words didn’t come out. Instead, a croak or a crackle or something that sounded a lot like a strangled gasp emerged when Mr. Blazik walked through what I’d thought was a wall but was actually a door leading into another part of the office.

Shirtless.

Well not shirtless, I mean he had a shirt on—high-end red silk—but it wasn’t buttoned. He was in the process of doing that, covering taut abs and well-defined pecs.

And I was watching him.

Shamelessly.

I quickly averted my eyes and stared at the blank notebook in front of me as my cheeks sizzled with awareness.

His approach was silent. I couldn’t hear him, but I felt him, felt his body heat. Still I didn’t look up. I studied his nice Italian shoes, black, shiny, they looked new, expensive.

“Are you planning on interviewing my feet?” A dark chuckle emerged from him. “Or can we get on with it?”

Get on with… yes, the interview. I blinked, then slowly inched my gaze up his body.