The Bratva's Heir (Underworld Kings)

I’d like to wring his scrawny neck.

But he got his facts wrong—the wine was drugged, not poisoned. I passed out on the floor. And Roxy died in a much more horrible way than from a bottle of tainted wine.

“Who paid you,” I growl. “Tell me everything you know.”

“He had dark hair, uh, maybe like thirty years old, wearing like a coat, a normal kind of black coat…”

“A normal coat?” I hiss.

I really, really want to murder this kid. That is the most useless description I’ve ever heard.

Instead, I yank my phone out of my pocket and pull up Roxy’s Instagram.

I loathe social media, and never allowed Roxy to post a single picture of me or our house.

But if you go back far enough, there’s plenty of pictures of Evan Porter.

“Is this him?” I demand, shoving the phone in the kid’s face.

He examines Roxy’s ex-boyfriend, squinting as if trying to be absolutely certain.

“No…” he admits, in a tortured tone. “That’s not him.”

I can tell he considered lying just to make me go away but was too scared to do it.

I want to fling my own phone against the floor of the van. How the fuck am I supposed to find some dude with dark hair and a normal fucking coat?

“Did you see his car?” I demand. “Anything else about him?”

“No,” the kid moans. “Nothing.”

Clare has been driving us through the pastoral upper-class neighborhoods of Desolation, carefully observing the speed limit to avoid drawing attention while I conduct my interrogation in the back.

“Pull over,” I tell her.

She pulls to the curb.

I open the back door.

“Get the fuck out,” I tell the kid. “And here—” I shove a plain white card with Yury’s number on it into his hand. “If you think of anything useful, you call this number. You don’t talk to anyone but me, you understand?”

The kid nods fervently.

“If I find out you’re lying to me, I’ll find you and kill you,” I promise him.

As I shove him out and slam the door in his face, I can hear him calling, “Wait, how am I gonna deliver those flow—” before Clare speeds away.

I climb up to the front, dropping down heavily into the passenger seat.

“I’m sorry,” Clare says, sympathetically.

“Well, it was good you spotted that kid. We know more than we did before.”

“I suppose,” she says, unconvinced. “What’s next?”

“Now we talk to the Irish.”

Clare sighs. “Because that went so well last time.”

Chapter 14

Clare

He’s exhausted. I can see it in his features, written on his face like a road map.

We ditched the van and found our way to another hotel. He called his brothers, a sort of clean-up crew, I guess. They cleaned the van, wiped it of prints, ditched it. Got us a ride to another swanky hotel.

“Why couldn’t we go back to the hotel we stayed in last night?” I ask, as he shuts and bolts the door of yet one more room reached from yet one more privacy entrance.

“It’s harder to hit a moving target, ptitsa.”

“Ah. Of course.” My cheeks flush a little, but I turn away from him so he doesn’t see me. I should’ve known that.

Still, always on the move like this, always on the run. I can’t help but wonder if it takes its toll.

I have so many questions. He’s been forthright with me, and I’d expect he’d continue to be, but we’re both so weary after everything we’ve done.

When the door is sufficiently locked to his satisfaction, his guards discreetly stationed outside our door and our windows, as well as at the entrance and exit to every parking lot, he turns to me.

Even exhausted and weary, he stands tall. Powerful. I could put a sword in his hand and position him in the front line of battle, and he would strike with the power of an executioner. But there’s no need for that. Not now.

He leans against the door and beckons to me with one of his thick, inked fingers.

“Come here, Clare.”

I shiver at the low command in his voice. Even in the short time we’ve been together, my body’s beginning to become conditioned to him. He punished me when I disobeyed him. Made me climax when he was done, rewarding me with the best, most teeth-clenching, most powerful orgasms of my life. So when he calls to me, desire threads through me like an electric current. Pulsing. Heated. Thrilling.

I walk to him across the thick, padded carpet, and when I reach him, he rests his hands on my hips. He gives me the trace of a smile, and my heart flutters. “Good girl. Daddy likes that.”

So wicked. So wrong. And yet liquid heat pools between my legs at the taboo words.

I lick my lips and do what every girl wants to do when she sees a man as strong and mighty as Constantine. I rest my head on his chest.