Page 13 of Lethal Obsession

For the first time since I left that Miami cell, I finally see the truth behind the lie of my reflection: Alexei Petrovsky never wanted me the way I wanted him.

Not ever.

Whatever delusion I’ve been living for the past five years is over, revealed to be nothing but childish fantasy.

Infatuation. Obsession.

A fucking schoolgirl crush.

The questions that have haunted me over the years have been definitively answered. In the most humiliating fashion I could have imagined.

“It’s over.” I stare into my own eyes and say it aloud, just to be sure that my inner delulu bitch actually listens.

I wash my face. Reapply my lipstick. Smooth my hair and straighten my dress.

Then I walk outside with my head held high and grab the first bottle of champagne I see.

I’m done with Alexei Petrovsky.

And I have a life to live.

TWO YEARS LATER

1

Alexei

There’s no logic in missing someone who was never mine. Even less in wanting someone I can never have.

Then again, if logic had ever played a meaningful role in my life, I might not be lowering Ron Watkins’s body into the Everglades from the back of an airboat on a humid Miami night.

“I could have done this alone.” Dima holds part of the corpse above the water, while I feed the other end into the marsh by rope. “You don’t need to get your hands dirty like this. Not anymore.”

“Where’s the fun in that?” I twitch the rope up and down, making the corpse dance in the water. We didn’t wrap Ron’s body in plastic or add weights to make it sink. Both would only slow down the Everglades gators, Miami’s most efficient corpse disposal units.

Dima shakes his head. “You need to reconsider your definition of fun, you twisted fuck.”

“So I’ve been told.” I wink at him with my lone eye.

Dima gives me a dry look, then takes a harder grip on the bloated corpse as the gators come slithering out of the saw grass. He might be the only man brave enough to call me a twisted fuck to my face, rather than whispering it from a safe distance, which is what the rest of Miami does.

Then again, Dima not only watched me become a twisted fuck but was forced to play a key role in the horrors that made me what I am. Ours is a shared history that makes danger irrelevant and dark humor mandatory.

“There you go, Ronald.” I watch the corpse’s feet disappear, followed by half of one leg. “In your next life, I recommend staying in the Cays.” I prod one of the gators, pushing it away to allow the others to get their share. It’s not from some sick sense of altruism. Spreading the meat around makes the chances of identification that much less.

“Ron could have had a nice life if he’d stuck to dealing to college kids on spring break.” Dima throws Ron’s head to a gator, who leaps out of the water to take it. “Why do these idiots always have to get ambitious?”

Because it’s man’s nature to want more, Dima.

More than the endless string of women who approach me every time I set foot in one of my own clubs. More than the smiling daughters who get served up by businessmen along with their proposals.

I start the engine and ease the airboat back into the waterway as the gators sink beneath the surface, taking Ron with them. Dima lights a cigarette and pops the tops off two beers, then throws me one as he lounges against the edge of the boat.

The problem with wanting more, I think as I hit high revs and feel the wind in my hair, is that it’s a dangerous path.

Wanting more leads men to make stupid decisions. To risk what they already have.

There’s nothing wrong with keeping one eye on the prize. In my case, the men who stole my father’s empire only left me with one eye to watch it anyway. But even with one eye, I always knew that I would get it back. It took a lot of years and a hell of a lot more cuts of Dima’s knife before I managed it, but I made that fucking prize mine in the end.