The Bratva's Heir (Underworld Kings)

I look my clothes over. Nothing’s torn. Nothing’s so much as even ruffled or wrinkled. The prison has very clear rules for what visitors are allowed to wear, but professionals who work here are given a bit more leniency. I chose this suit on purpose—a classic, double-breasted charcoal gray blazer with matching pencil skirt. Professional, and anything but sexy. Maybe it’s the years of fear of men my father instilled in me, but for some reason, I felt I couldn’t show so much as a flash of skin or femininity when coming into a men’s maximum-security prison.

Didn’t stop him from finding the most feminine thing about me and violating it.

Jerk.

Why did I do this again?

Because I believe in reform.

Because I believe that all humans are capable of greatness.

Because I believe in the power of redemption.

Someone in my family has to.

My phone rings again, and this time I look down to see not my mother but my father on the line. I shake my head, release a sigh, and go to pick it up. I’m twenty-nine years old, and my mother still goes to my father to make me behave when she doesn’t get her way immediately. Charming, really.

“Hello?”

“Clare, your mother’s frantic.” By the muffled sound of his voice, I’d guess he’s sitting by the bar on our back deck, surrounded by his cronies. Politics laid down for a few hours, let the imbibing begin. “Are you on your way?” He’s attempting to sound casual, but I can almost see the tight-lipped question, practically feel him seething because she hounded him in front of his friends. Somehow this is my fault.

“I’m leaving now. I’ll be there in about thirty minutes.”

I’m only about ten minutes away, but Desolation city traffic is notorious for grinding to a standstill during rush hour.

It will give me enough time to compose myself, but first I need to get ready for the party. I can’t exactly wear a suit to a birthday party. I might as well wear a sign across my forehead that says Licensed Therapist. Ask me about my job.

They’ll ask me anyway.

I prop my bag up on the counter and take out the dress I brought to change into, specifically to coordinate with my suit coat and designed not to wrinkle. Felicity said it was “the cutest little off-the-shoulder midi dress, crush pleated,” but I’d just call it a fancy summer dress. With the door locked, I have enough privacy to quickly change, then toss the suit coat on.

Lovely. The little ribbons tied at the top of the dress make the shoulders of my suit coat stand up like they’re stacked with shoulder pads. Either I walk out of here with this ridiculous look, or I walk out of here showing skin.

I choose to look ridiculous. It’s the safer option.

I grimace at my image. My mother would have a coronary.

Before I leave, I pump soap into my hands and wash them with the hottest water I can, as if to wash the memory of today’s assault from my mind.

It doesn’t work.

I unlock the door, sling my bag over my shoulder, and walk with purpose to the faculty parking lot.

I half expect shouts or a prison riot behind me when I leave. There’s the clanging of metal and the murmur of voices in one room, but the rest is silent.

I look over my shoulder, only yards away from the cells where they keep the inmates.

Where is he now?

Why do I care?

My pulse accelerates.

After I left, how long did he sit in the room?

What did he imagine doing to me?

I read the file. I know how badly he hurt the woman he murdered.

Sometimes, you look at a criminal and can’t imagine him or her ever committing the crime they were convicted of. Pretty, boyish-looking boys guilty of school shootings? Never.

But one look in his eyes, and I’m confident Constantine Rogov is absolutely capable of committing murder.

The next day, I wake at the crack of dawn. Party animal that I am, I came home from my birthday party by ten, removed my makeup and finished my skin care routine by ten-fifteen, and slid my eye mask on to get some shut-eye by ten-thirty.

By the time I left, my mom was plastered and teetering on her four-inch stilettos, and my father had broken out his cigars. The irony of the district attorney of Desolation recreationally smoking is not lost on me, but it isn’t a party at the Nightingales until we hit what I affectionately call the plattered and flattered stage—when my mom rolls out the platters of petit fours and shots, and my father’s friends start shining their halos in mutual admiration.

It’s not my scene.

I stretch and slip off my eye mask, blinking at the time on my phone.

5:45.

I don’t have to work until noon, so I’ve got some time to myself this morning. And I know exactly how I’ll spend it.