And then I dragged my ass back to the shithole I was temporarily staying in, dropping down on the edge of the bed, listening to the click of the ceiling fan that no one had likely needed to listen to long enough to complain about, reaching for the bottle of whiskey, unscrewing the cap, and drinking right from the bottle.
There was no shaking the feeling that I had royally fucked up.
I wasn't an overly superstitious man, but I had always trusted my gut. The gut that was currently telling me that something bad was going to result from all of this.
No.
Not just bad.
Life altering.
But what was done was done.
You didn't take back your word.
Not with men like these.
I knew the drill.
As far back as the deal with the Russians, I knew how this worked.
I was in until death.
Theirs.
Mine.
Or until the organization crumbled.
Those were the only ways out.
It was a terrible idea to drink a fifth the night before I was supposed to prove myself to my new boss.
But it was the only thing I could do to numb the gut-churning sensation of regret, silence the swirling thoughts in my head.
One thing it didn't manage to do, though, was make me forget her.
If anything, it amplified the color of her eyes, the shape of her body, the defiance that vibrated off of her, the smell of strawberries that clung to her hair.
As I drifted off to sleep, I couldn't stop thinking about her name.
I couldn't help but wonder if mythology could somehow come true, if she was a real-life version of the most beautiful woman in the world.
If she was the face that would start a war, end an empire.
If anyone would be left standing in the aftermath.
But, really, I mostly wondered if I could get her to look my way, give me a smile, tell me her story.
And that was about as fucking sappy as a man could get.
What the fuck was going on with me?THREEHelenI wasn't supposed to notice them.
My father's men.
Even years after Helga first gave me the warning, I still bided by it.
I kept my eyes downcast around them. I skirted the corners. I made sure we never accidentally touched.
Though, as I did when I was not even ripe enough for the picking, if they deliberately touched me, I handled it.
My father never spoke of it to me, though I still found him watching me sometimes after an incident like he was weighing and measuring me.
I never could figure out if he found me lacking or not, why he didn't scold me, demand I treat his colleagues with respect.
Or, well, maybe that was what it boiled down to.
Respect.
He might not have had any for me - or womenkind in general - but this was his home, I was his daughter, and he did demand respect within the walls. Even toward me.
That was almost a comfort of sorts.
Of sorts.
Because there was precious little comfort to find in my life, in these walls where my own brother could attempt to strangle me in the kitchen and get away with it.
So I made it my business to mind my own business, to never notice my father's men.
But I had noticed him.
I don't know what it had been about him that made me look.
I had felt his gaze on me, but I often did when his men were around. But it hadn't felt prying, like he was picturing me naked, but penetrative in a different way. Like he wasn't trying to see under my clothes, but under my skin instead.
It was a new sensation for me, this girl who everyone wished was invisible, to find someone who wanted to actually see me.
Or, hell, maybe I was just imagining it all, was suffering from a debilitating case of wishful thinking.
Maybe if he was one of the usual men - old enough to be my father, lecherous, with receding hairlines and overflowing waistline, I could have overlooked the under-skin thing.
But he wasn't any of those things.
He was my age, or maybe just slightly older, tall, solidly built, with shoulders that reminded me of the linebackers in letterman jackets. His dark hair was in need of a trim, pieces falling into his eyes. Good God, those eyes. The piercing blue eyes framed with thick lashes in a face made of all hard angles.
His hands were scarred.
I'd noticed when he had reached for the coffee cup I'd handed to him.
All across his fingers and the backs of his hands were a map of old injuries, some white with age, others pink and red, just barely healed over.
I knew enough about the seedy underworld my father existed in to know who hands like that belonged to.
Enforcers.
He was an enforcer.
Which made him one of the lower men on the totem pole. But also one of the most trusted.