Page 61 of Lethal Obsession

I know Mickey has been leaning heavily into his ho phase, as Lars likes to call it. I don’t particularly care, so long as he keeps his hands off my friends.

Alexei, however, is another matter altogether.

Because after last night, the mere thought of him putting hands on another woman, of his lone eye looking at them with the same blazing hunger he did me, makes me want to pull out one of my father’s guns and blow up everything in sight.

The savagery of my reaction to the thought actually takes me by surprise.

It’s not like I don’t know Alexei’s reputation. And if I didn’t hear enough of it in whispers, the paparazzi cover what the rumors leave out.

I’ve hated paparazzi since childhood, not least because Inger, my narcissistic mother, coveted the flash of a camera bulb far more than she ever did the love of her children. I stopped looking at online gossip sites as a child, when I saw a photograph of her wrapped in an intimate embrace with a man who was definitely neither Roman, my biological father, or Mikhail, Mickey’s father, who raised us as children and to whom Inger was actually married at the time.

But in the years since I was kidnapped, I’ve developed a very unhealthy relationship with certain paparazzi pages. Particularly the Darkside, an online site dedicated to so-called underworld figures, run by a guy called Lance Ryder. He has a particular obsession with Russian bratva families and a scarily encyclopedic knowledge of their histories. Darya told me once that our family, including Alexei, keeps Lance on side by feeding him just enough photo ops and juicy tidbits to make his site go consistently viral—and stop him from writing anything that might actually damage business.

Alexei is one of his favorite targets. I heard Papa say once that the Darkside’s coverage has done more to create Alexei’s legend than any actual business deal, no matter how profitable.

For years, I’ve pored over the pictures of Alexei on that site like an addict hungry for the smallest hit I can get, no matter how masochistic the habit. Barely a week goes by without some photo of Alexei taken on a yacht or in some seedy nightclub, balancing a model on his knee with one hand and holding a glass of vodka in the other.

Is that what he will run back to now? I tremble with something between rage and longing. Some model who knows exactly what to do in bed, instead of a virgin he isn’t supposed to touch?

Because now that I’ve had a proper taste of my favorite addiction in the flesh, the prospect of being deprived of more is terrifying.

And why are you worrying about that at all, when Alexei is currently somewhere out in the cold, running for his life?

But I can’t think about that. If imagining him with another woman sends me into a cold, savage fury, even contemplating him dead is enough to send me spiraling into utter madness.

“Hey.” Benny’s well-aimed cushion bounces off my head, jolting me out of that dark train of thought. “Why so serious? You’re the only one of us who actually got a good night’s sleep.” Then, watching me, his eyes narrow. “Or did you?”

He and Lourdes turn to me with widening eyes. I give a slight shake of my head, flicking my eyes warningly toward Bryce and Luis, who are, thankfully, distracted by exchanging stories of Miami debauchery.

Benny stands up. “Come, ladies,” he says imperiously, extending his hands to us. “I need to dish the dirt. No offense,” he says, giving the security guys a coy look. “I just don’t think you’re ready for the level of gay detail I’m about to unleash.”

Bryce and Luis, however, going by their relieved expressions, are just happy I’m not going to throw them both under the bus.

As they fucking should be.

The moment the door to Lourdes’s room closes behind us, Benny pulls me onto the bed, his eyes shining. “Oh my God. Spill, bitch. Did something happen between you and Pirate Boy?”

When I don’t immediately answer, Lourdes and he exchange a wide-eyed stare.

“Lo sabía,” breathes Lourdes. “I knew it, in the limo on the way to 404. I knew he was into you.”

“Wait.” Benny’s eyes pin me with the precision of a detective. “What happened, exactly? We need details. When. Where. How.”

Not a hope in hell.

“Before you came home.” I quickly compose a version of the truth in my head. “I fell asleep on the sofa. Alexei carried me to bed. When I woke up, he was still there. Things . . . happened.”

“Things?” Benny rolls his eyes skyward.

“He carried you to bed?” Lourdes sighs. “¡Qué fantástico!”

“I was asleep at the time,” I point out.

“Still.” She has a dreamy look on her face. “To be picked up and carried to bed. It is a fantasy, no?”

Oh, you have no idea.

A fantasy is waking to Alexei’s body beneath mine, his hand gripping my bare leg possessively.