The Darkest Temptation (Made 3)

“Ah,” I mused. “The little mouse.”

She was the most obvious suspect. Although, I had my doubts. I only needed to look in the girl’s general vicinity, and she’d tremble with fear. It annoyed me so much, I ignored her presence like she was a frightened, stray dog. If she poisoned Mila, she didn’t do it alone.

“How’s Mila?”

My eyes narrowed at the concern in Albert’s voice. “Alexei’s daughter is fine.”

Kirill was confident she didn’t ingest enough poison to be in a critical condition.

Thank fuck I called the girl a whore. Otherwise, she might not have destroyed the rest of the poison in her teacup, and I would have lost my collateral. But the thought of my revenge slipping through my fingers didn’t explain the tight sensation inside each time Mila’s look of betrayal flitted through my mind.

“You know she doesn’t belong here,” Albert said.

Darkness spilled through me. “You got a new mind-reading ability you haven’t told me about?”

“If Alexei hasn’t relented yet, he’s not going to.”

I held his gaze. I hadn’t told anyone but Kristian her papa was ready to trade himself in. The knowledge of that getting out would make me look weak, as if Mila had actually dug her Mikhailov claws into me. She hadn’t. I just wasn’t finished with her yet, and I knew if I let her go now, I would end up dragging her back to finish what we started. That felt too close to monogamy for me to stomach. Not to mention, it would probably be a much more difficult task to get her into my bed with her father’s head as a centerpiece on my table.

“We could have followed Alexander,” he told me.

“We didn’t need to follow him.”

He raised an annoying brow.

“Alexei will come to heel soon enough,” I said shortly, finished with the conversation.

“It would probably move things along if you sent him a finger or two.” He was baiting me. I wasn’t going to cut off Mila’s fingers, and Albert knew it.

“Go make yourself useful somewhere,” I said, eyes hard. “Like finding the fucking rat in my home.”

I swore, the bastard fucking smiled as he stood.

He hadn’t even stepped out of the room before we found the traitor. In fact, she threw herself at my feet and confessed in a flurry of Russian and tears. The little mouse was actually a rat. Viktor stood in the doorway. At least one of my men was making themselves useful.

I lowered my gaze to the trembling girl dripping tears to the floor. “I want names,” I said quietly. “The names of who helped you. The names of anyone who even heard a whisper of the conversation.”

“I—it was just me,” she cried.

“Look at me,” I demanded, and, rigidly, she lifted her gaze to mine. “You’re going to tell me the truth sooner or later. And the longer it takes, the more time my men will have to make good use of you.”

I really didn’t want to torture this slip of a girl, but I didn’t get to my position by being forgiving.

Anna swallowed, fighting an inward battle, and then she gave me three names. She didn’t say them with sadness or loyalty, but fear. The girl was afraid of her own shadow, so it didn’t mean much to me.

I nodded at Viktor. He grabbed the girl’s arm and dragged her from the room. Two of the men she’d named were here, the other—Abram, her papa—in Moscow.

Another annoying family affair.

Pasha wasn’t the only casualty instigated by Alexei’s hands. Abram’s uncle was killed last year in a hit-and-run. He was old enough he’d have probably died of heart failure if he got the chance.

“Find Abram,” I told Albert, who still stood by the door. “Put his son and nephew in the basement until then.”

Three hours passed, the sun high in the sky, before the four were lined up in the snow. The girl stood on the end, gaze to the ground, shaking in the basic white dress she wore every day.

“As I already told Albert, I didn’t have anything to do with it.” A drop of sweat ran down Abram’s face and glistened in the sun.

I raised a brow. “You don’t even know what you’ve been accused of, so how do you know you didn’t do it?”