I don’t know where your fucking dagger is. I haven’t touched it,” Illayana growled, glaring at Lukyan from across the kitchen table.
“It was in my room last night before I went to bed. I wake up this morning and it’s mysteriously disappeared. You trying to tell me you had absolutely nothing to do with that? Huh?”
“That’s exactly what I’m telling you, you long-necked freak,” she hissed.
Lukyan gasped in outrage, hand flying to his throat. “I do not have a long neck!”
I took another spoonful of my cereal, listening to my siblings bicker like a bunch of…well, for lack of a better word, idiots. They’d been going at it since they woke up this morning, and hadn’t stopped once. It was like they’d never left.
Apparently, Lukyan’s favourite dagger had gone missing, and he blamed Illayana for it. A likely culprit, considering she used to do this shit a lot when they were kids; taking his stuff and hiding it somewhere in the house. But she was swearing left and right that she hadn’t done it, and I was inclined to believe her.
Usually, she’d boast and taunt him about it. “Nah, nah, na-nah-nah, you’ll never find it.” Or something to that effect. The fact that she wasn’t doing that right now made me think she wasn’t responsible.
“I didn’t do it,” Illayana snarled.
“No one else could have!” Lukyan aggressively shoved some toast into his mouth and ripped off a piece. “Unless someone climbed up the side of the house, snuck through my window, crept across my room while I was asleep, swiped it from my bedside table and then snuck back out—all without waking me up. Is that what you’re saying happened?”
“It honestly wouldn’t surprise me if someone went to all that trouble to fuck with you, considering how annoying you are,” she hissed.
“You are pretty annoying,” Christian agreed, taking a bite of his eggs.
Lukyan slapped him upside the head. “Nobody asked you.”
“Are you sure you haven’t just misplaced it?” I asked.
Lukyan straightened and turned slightly to give me his back. “Christian, could you please inform my brother that, due to his duplicitous ways, I am no longer conversing with him. And that, although I am saddened by what was revealed, I still want to punch him in the face.”
I rolled my eyes.
Christian shrugged and faced me, opening his mouth.
“I got it,” I said, raising a hand to silence him. If that was the game he wanted to play, then fine. “Christian, could you please ask my brother if perhaps he just misplaced his dagger?”
Christian turned to Lukyan but before he could get a word out, Lukyan said, “Please tell my brother—”
“Oh, for fuck’s sake, you tell him,” Christian shoved him lightly in the shoulder. “I’m not your errand boy. And this is stupid.” For once, I agreed with the man.
“Wait, wasn’t your shit going missing in New York?” Luca took a sip of his coffee, brows formed into a deep frown. “Yeah, I remember you bitching about how someone stole your toothbrush or something?”
I paused mid-scoop, milk dripping from my spoon into my bowl. My gaze locked with Lukyan’s.
“No…you think?” he whispered, like he was afraid of the answer.
I was tempted to say, “thought you weren’t conversing with me,” but thought it best not to poke the whiny child.
“Could be.” Turns out, my youngest brother had himself a bit of a stalker. It all started after he moved to New York with Illayana. Someone had been leaving him little love notes, declaring they were soul mates. Destined to be together. A few of his possessions had gone missing as well. We hoped moving him back to Vegas would get him off his stalker’s radar, but clearly, they’d just followed him instead.
“No,” Lukyan denied again. “There’s no way. How the hell did she even get in the house?!”
If it was his stalker responsible, then she was a lot more cunning and resourceful than we originally anticipated.
It was definitely possible for someone to circumvent our security. Unlikely…but possible. The grounds were meant to be patrolled twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, in two rotating shifts, consisting of six men in each. The odds of someone making it over the fence, across the yard, past the dogs, up the side of the house and into Lukyan’s bedroom without being detected was slim. Less than slim. There was no way. No way.
Fuck.
“Go check the security cameras and see if they picked up anything,” I told Lukyan. I had this sneaking suspicion in my gut that no matter how slim the odds were, Lukyan’s mysterious stalker had somehow managed to do it. He nodded, stuffing the last of his toast into his mouth before getting to his feet.
“Uh, excuse me?” Illayana called out as he began to walk away.
“You’re excused,” he threw over his shoulder without looking back.
“Pretty sure you owe me an apology!”
Lukyan…apologise? I had a better chance of crapping out daisies than Illayana had of getting that shithead to apologise for anything. I finished the rest of my cereal and took my empty bowl to the sink, quickly washing it before popping it into the dashrack. Luca and Christian talked amongst themselves as they ate while Illayana played with her phone and picked lightly at her food.
Lukyan came back a few minutes later with an iPad in his hands. “Look.” He flipped the device to face me.
“What am I supposed to be looking at here?” On the screen were six individual camera feeds, all showing a different angle of the outside of the house. Some pointed out towards the gate surrounding our property. Some pointed directly at the house itself. Nothing looking suspicious or out of place.
Then I saw it. A small figure dressed in what I could only describe as a black cat burglar suit darting across the lawn. The material was skin tight. Based on the slim waist and curves, I was inclined to agree with Lukyan’s original assessment of his stalker being a woman.
She moved quickly and efficiently, taking cover when needed to avoid the soldiers on patrol. When one of the dogs—Boris, I assumed, based on the colouring—spotted her, I thought for sure she was done for. Instead of attacking her, like they’d been trained to do to any intruder, he went right up to her and let her pat his head.
That told me two things. One: he was familiar enough with her that he didn’t consider her a threat. And two: this most likely wasn’t the first time she’d done this.
Who is this woman?
After tossing Boris what looked like a cut of raw meat, she climbed up the side of the house—freehand—opened Lukyan’s window (which meant the idiot hadn’t locked it) and disappeared inside. The timestamp on the footage read 1:59 a.m. She didn’t re-emerge again until 3:17 a.m.
What the hell had she been doing all that time? Watching him sleep?
I swiped to the internal cameras to see if she’d left the room and gone snooping through the house or something.
She hadn’t. For the whole seventy-eight minutes she was inside, she didn’t leave his room once. Troubling.
She climbed back out his window and started down the side of the house. She paused on her descent, stopping right in front of a camera. Using only one hand to keep herself from falling, she unzipped the front of her suit with the other and pulled out a piece of paper, holding it up for the camera to see:
You look so cute when you sleep.
She tucked the note away and then pulled out the dagger Lukyan had been bitching about all morning. She lifted the bottom of her mask up to reveal her lips and then ran her tongue up the dull side of the blade in a sexually suggestive manner. After blowing the camera a goodbye kiss, she dropped to the ground and left the same way she came: quiet and undetected.
I looked up at my brother. “You’ve seen this?”
“Yep.” And he didn’t look the least bit freaked out by it. No. He looked…excited. Exhilarated.
Only my brother would be excited at the prospect of having a crazy stalker.
“Why do you look like that?”
“Like what?” he asked innocently.
“Like you’re giddy with anticipation. You shouldn’t be. This woman broke into your room and watched you sleep for over an hour. She’s dangerous. And crazy.”
“I know.” His eyes practically gleamed. “My two favourite things. I can’t wait to meet her.”
“Lukyan,” I groaned, burying my face in my hands.
He laughed. “Look, obviously she has to die. I’m not stupid. I know we can’t keep having her follow me around everywhere. She’ll eventually see something she’s not supposed to, if she hasn’t already. But I’m definitely going to fuck her first. Maybe twice. Once in that cat burglar outfit, for sure.”
“I wanna see, I wanna see,” Christian sang, coming over.
“See what? Us fucking?” Lukyan shrugged, unfazed. “Yeah, if you want. You can even join in, if that’s her thing.”
“No, the footage—wait, what?”
“Oh, my B.” He handed the iPad over to Christian and plucked an apple from the kitchen island. He took a bite, chewing annoyingly loudly as Christian watched the same video I did a moment ago.
“Damn. She really is crazy.”
Luca joined us. “My turn. Show me.”
“Okay, no.” I snatched the iPad out of Christian’s hands before he could pass it along. “We’re not glamorizing the crazy stalker bitch—”
“Hey, that’s rude. We don’t know that she’s a bitch, or that she’s any danger. She’s never done anything threatening.” Lukyan took another bite of his apple.
“Didn’t she cut the fingers off one of the girls you fucked?” Luca questioned, arching a brow.
“To me,” he amended, pointing at his chest, his mouth overflowing. “Never done anything threatening to me.”
I shook my head in exasperation. It was easy to see in moments like this why Aleksandr was hesitant to entrust Lukyan with more responsibility. His life was in potential danger, and he couldn’t take it seriously enough to at least stop cracking jokes. If Christian and Luca weren’t in the room, I’d reprimand him. This was family business, though, and I wasn’t about to air it all out in front of others. But it needed to be dealt with—and now.
So I did the one thing guaranteed to make the twins disappear. “Where’s Illayana?”
They both spun, staring at the empty seat where Illayana had been with horrified expressions. I’d seen her slip out a few minutes ago, taking advantage of the twins being distracted.
“Oh, shit,” they both said at the same time. Luca pointed at his brother. “You take upstairs. I’ll take downstairs. Go.” They bolted in different directions.
They were never going to find her. Not unless she wanted to be found. She knew this house like the back of her hand. If she wanted to stay hidden, no one had an ounce of luck finding her.
“I have a feeling I’m not going to like what you’re about to say.” Lukyan threw his apple core into the bin next to him. “You have the same look on your face as my tenth grade history teacher when I told him I didn’t do the homework. Angry disappointment.”
“You need to take this situation more seriously.”
“What situation?” He seemed genuinely confused, and it made me want to throttle him.
“The stalker situation,” I hissed. “Stop treating it like a joke and understand your life could very well be in danger from this woman. When stalkers don’t get the object of their obsession, they can become violent. This woman has already killed once for you. What happens if she decides she wants you all to herself? What happens when she finds out you’re arranged to marry Anya?”
He paled.
“That marriage is the only thing keeping Illayana safe. If something happens to Anya, Grandfather won’t care if we were responsible for it or not. He’ll just see that his arrangement was fucked with and punish us regardless. You want Aleksandr to stop treating you like an incompetent class clown and start taking you seriously? Give him a fucking reason to.”
I stormed away, the guilt from my words already starting to worm its way into my heart. I didn’t like telling him off or crushing his spirit. I liked his carefree nature, but there was a time and place for it, and he needed to learn that.
I’d have to tell Aleksandr about the breach in security. He wouldn’t be thrilled about it. I could picture it, his grunting and snarling as he pounded his fist into his desk. Lukyan liked to call him “The Hulk” when he got angry…a fitting name.
I rounded the corner into the foyer and headed for the stairs to go up to Aleksandr’s office when someone yelling made me pause.
“Stop! Don’t you dare! No!”
I frowned, my head tilting to the side as I listened harder. Was that…Drea?
“No! Don’t! Get away!”
It was coming from the dining area. I whipped out my gun and ran back down the hall. Drea and I weren’t exactly the best of friends, but my brother loved her. If she was in danger, I had to save her. For him.
The screaming got louder and more distinctive as I got closer to the dining room. Something was definitely going on. I raised my leg and kicked the door down, running into the room. What I saw made me come to a screeching halt, my mouth dropping wide open in shock.
Drea was tied, spreadeagle on the dining room table, her arms and legs bound by rope. Aleksandr was standing in front of her lower half, shielding her body from view, but I had a feeling she was naked from the waist down. And in his hands was a tattoo gun.
“Nikolai. Oh, thank God. Help me. Your brother has gone insane!” Drea hissed, tugging at her restraints.
“I have not gone insane,” Aleksandr responded calmly. “I told you, I am sick of seeing another man’s name on your body. So I’m getting rid of it.”
“And I told you I would get it covered! I just haven’t had the time. Logan was my tattoo artist. I assumed you wouldn’t want me to go to him for the job, so I have to find someone else.”
“You assumed correctly.” The buzz of the tattoo gun rang out through the room, and Drea screeched.
“Aleksandr, don’t you dare! You have no idea what you’re doing! You’ll fuck it up.”
He frowned down at her. “I know what I’m doing. I googled it.”
“You googled it…” she breathed out, aghast. “Oh, dear God.”
“Just relax.” He looked at the tattoo gun in his hands, twisting it this way and that way, studying it closely before nodding. “Yeah, I assembled it correctly…I think. We’re ready to begin.”
“Touch me with that thing and you won’t be allowed in my pussy for a whole month!”
Aleksandr actually hesitated, a stricken look crossing his face. Then he shook it off. “It’s happening, malyshka. I gave you time to get rid of it yourself and you didn’t. I’m taking matters into my own hands. No woman of mine will have another man’s name on her body.”
A flourish of Spanish curse words flew from Drea’s mouth. Lukyan approached from my side, his eyes widening when he looked into the room. Then he spun on the balls of his feet, going back the way he came.
I backed out and shut the door. Honestly, I was surprised Aleksandr held out for as long as he did. The possessiveness he showed towards his little Cartel wife was almost as strong as my possessiveness of Tatiana. There’s no way I’d tolerate another man’s name on her body. Frankly, in my opinion, Aleksandr had been quite generous with the timeframe. Drea should have known that if she didn’t get the name covered up or removed, my brother would then handle it himself.
Thinking of Tatiana made my heart stutter. God, I missed her. I missed her the second she was out of my sight. I wanted nothing more than to go to her, but I couldn’t fly to New York then. There was too much planning to be done.
My thoughts were consumed with her. What she was doing. Who she was with. Whether she was happy or sad. Whether she was eating enough food or drinking enough water.
I might not be able to be with her right then, but I had a way of checking up on her. Just to see if she was okay. A way she was…unaware of. I pulled out the spare phone I kept charged and with me at all times. I flicked through some of the apps, just taking a cursory glance at them when my entire body locked up, a dark rage washing over me like a tidal wave.
What the fuck is this?
