SINS OF OUR FATHERS

A DARK TABOO ROMANCE

ELLA BURNS
 Edited by
KIM BOOKJUNKIE
Illustrated by
BRIAN SCUTT
 Woof Kyla, bark bark
Ruff ruff woof bark grrr bark woof.

Roughly translated:

For Kyla, the dog.

I like you more than most people, so this one is for you.
 CONTENTS

Foreword
Opening Quote

1. Ginger
2. Ginger
3. Sin
4. Ginger
5. Sin
6. Ginger
7. Sin
8. Ginger
9. Ginger
10. Sin
11. Ginger
12. Sin
13. Ginger
14. Ginger
15. Sin
16. Ginger
17. Sin
18. Ginger
19. Sin
20. Ginger
21. Sin
22. Ginger
23. Sin
24. Ginger
25. Sin
26. Ginger
27. Ginger
28. Sin
29. Ginger
30. Sin
31. Ginger
32. Sin
33. Ginger
34. Sin
35. Ginger
36. Sin
37. Ginger
38. Ginger
39. Sin
40. Ginger
41. Sin
42. Ginger
43. Sin
44. Galina
45. Sin
46. Galina

Afterword
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Also by Ella Burns
 BLURB AND TRIGGERS

Never has it been so easy to buy a human being. The more innocent, the higher the price tag.

Ginger Vincent took the underground world of human trafficking by storm with her technology-based
black market. As a woman, she’s got her work cut out for her when the vultures begin to circle,
closing in on all she’s built.

When someone more beast than man is taken on a routine acquisition run—who has no name other
than Sin—Ginger’s curiosity gets the better of her. She decides to keep him close to learn his secrets.
Little does she know, Sin is there for a reason, and that reason is to take her down.

With equally bleak histories and jaded world views, they both begin to question everything they
believe in the face of one another.

When two dark souls collide, will the world burn, or will they?

Sins of our Fathers is a DARK romance with themes not suitable for those under 18 or those with
triggers. Please check the trigger warnings before proceeding, and don’t say I didn’t warn you.

See here for detailed list of triggers:

Death, abuse, violence/gore, non and dubious consent, loss of pregnancy/miscarriage, knife/blood
play, incest
FOREWORD

While this story is standalone, it is best read following SINS OF THE FAMILY which is a prequel
novellette featuring our anti-heroine, Ginger.
You can it here for free by joining my newsletter or you can get it on Amazon for 99c here
OPENING QUOTE

“The whole question here is: am I a monster, or a victim myself?”

― Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Crime and Punishment

CHAPTER 1
GINGER

LINDA WEBBER
Age: 52
Morality: innocent
Occupation: schoolteacher
City: New Jersey

THOMAS BARLETT
Age: 28
Morality: not innocent
Occupation: drug dealer
City: Venice Beach

BEN WYATT
Age: 34
Morality: outwardly innocent
Occupation: computer hacker and student
City: Toronto

I SCROLL through the day’s submissions while gripping a latte in my perfectly manicured fingers. As I
review the last few weeks’ data, I notice the innocent human acquisitions seem to be drawing more
interest, and therefore increasing auction prices. I make a note to contact the acquisition team about
these. The clientele love a little something different, and the innocent tend to gain the highest price
tags.
Whether it’s for vengeance, a killer in need of a victim, or basic slave and sex trade human
trafficking, we’ve got it all. Humans of all shapes and sizes, ready for sale. Innocent, guilty, and
everything in between.
I think about my most recent personal favorite, the one-legged Brazilian woman. I made almost a
hundred thousand dollars for her because she was an outward innocent who lured men in. Apparently,
a brother of one of her victims hadn’t liked that too much, so he’d hired my company to help him out.
 Jobs weren’t all personal, though. Some just needed that outlet and thrill but didn’t have the time
to hunt for themselves. There were even bargain shoppers, usually fledgling killers who didn’t care
much who it was as long as they had a body to stab.
Whatever the reason, CASH-ULTY has bodies to supply.
I smile to myself and click accept on each of the new entries. Putting my phone away, I straighten
my skirt and head to the meeting room.

“AS YOU CAN SEE, we are at an all-time high in not only the number of submissions we are receiving
but also in overall sale prices. Our Newark facility is almost at capacity, but New Mexico still has
plenty of room for further development should these trends continue.” I point to the graphs behind me.
“This is a comparison of our submissions by innocence. As you'll see, the demand for the innocent
is increasing as is their price tag. We have the opportunity to increase not only our profits but our
overall numbers if we capitalize on this now. We need to have the acquisition team to pick up more
targets who are low on the innocence scale. At the same time, interest in specialized targets is starting
to increase. We’re known for being clean and efficient, and for taking a lot of freelancers off the
market. Because of this and the fact that we consistently recognize and meet the needs of our clients,
CASH-ULTY is set to do an additional ninety-three percent profit this year alone.”
Around the table, several people nod their heads along with my presentation. There are eight men
in total, six in the room with me and two more on screens, attending from other locations. As the only
woman in the room, some may think I’d be worried. But not me. Not one of these rich and powerful
men would ever dare cross me.
I know I don’t look like the person people expect to be heading an operation like X719, an
internatonal human trafficking organization nicknamed ‘CASH-ULTY’. At 5’2 with fiery red hair to
match my name, I spent years building my reputation to this point. While those who meet me for the
first time may question why this little, thirty-two-year-old woman is in charge of the largest
underground trafficking network in North America, those who do know me know how ruthless I can
be.

BY THE TIME the meeting is over, there’s fresh coffee waiting for me.
“How'd it go?” my new assistant Hanna asks as she putters behind me.
“Exactly as expected,” I reply curtly. “What's going on?”
Trying to keep up with her boss's short but fast-moving legs, Hannah pulls out a tablet and starts
scrolling through it.
“It's Henry,” she replies. “We have video footage showing him copying internal hard drive data.
We suspect he’s planning on going to the authorities with it.”
I stop and sigh before continuing on.
“Oh, Henry,” I mutter under my breath. “Call in the E Team, and have them bring Henry to Office
G in one hour. Fucker better not eat up my entire lunch break”
“GINGER, please! It's not like that, I swear!” the old man pleads. His salt and pepper brown hair
looks wild and his eyes are frantic as he shakes his head, tears streaming down his cheeks. I look
down at him with indifference while Kris, head of my Security Team and my partner, finishes chaining
Henry to the steel chair. Kris nods at me once he’s done. “I’ll go grab the butcher.”
I hold up a hand, halting him. I look into his blue eyes, seeing the anger there that reflects my own.
No one crosses us or CASH-ULTY.
Though his blond hair and chiseled face belong on the body of a model, Kris is one of the most
ruthless men I’ve ever known. And considering the men I’ve known, that’s saying something.
“Perhaps you’d rather take care of this one yourself?” I ask, watching as his eyes light up. I
chuckle lightly and nod my head. “Go get your things. I’ll wait here.”
I wait for him to exit the room before turning my attention back to Henry. Pacing in front of him, I
make a small sound of disapproval while wagging my finger.
“Henry, Henry, Henry,” I begin. “How long have we been together now?”
The man stops sobbing long enough to respond, still sniffling heavily. “Three years, ma’am.”
“Three years. Yet you thought you could steal from me. Or perhaps run off to the feds?”
Henry starts sobbing in earnest, tears and snot running down his face which only serves to disgust
me. Wrinkling my nose, I watch the pathetic man struggle and beg, knowing full well nothing he says
will make a difference.
Sighing, I bring a hand to the bridge of my nose.
“Why’d you do it, Henry?”
Although no answer he gives will save him, I will admit I’m curious to know why he did it. I take
ample measures to make sure my employees have no reason to look elsewhere and take something
like this as a personal affront to my skills.
I watch Henry’s face drop at the question, taking a step back when a drop of sweat falls from his
face to the floor beneath him.
“I’m sorry, Ginger,” he sobs. “It’s the screams! They’re haunting my dreams. I haven’t been able
to sleep.”
I tsk and shake my head.
While not terribly uncommon, it’s been a while since I’ve had employee ethics issues. Those who
come to work here know the moral price.
“You should have come to me,” I admonish, shaking my head. “You know we have psychiatrists
for that sort of thing. But no. Instead of coming to me with your concerns, with your nightmares, you
decided to betray me. You know I don’t handle betrayal well, don’t you, Henry?”
“P-please. I have a family. You've met my wife! My son! Please don't do this!” His pathetic cries
grate on my nerves.
Kneeling down before the man, I smile. A small, dark smile causing Henry’s eyes to widen.
“You know better,” I whisper. “You know what happens to traitors.”
Henry opens his mouth to respond, but I put a hand up to silence him as Kris walks back into the
room with a leather bag he places at his feet before crossing his arms and looking at me. The picture-
perfect soldier, waiting for instructions.
“Please send someone to pick up the rest of Mr. Brown’s family and get them all on auction. Low
prices.” I stand with a smile and head to the door, passing Kris who has a devilish grin on his face. I
see him bend down to open the leather bag before I exit.
Henry's screams follow me down the corridor.
Whistling a small tune, I message Hannah to get me a fresh coffee. And this time, a bagel, too.

S IPPING MY DRINK, I go back to my desk and immediately pull up the multitude of recordings I plan to
review before the end of the day. My eyes glance at the corner screen where Henry is being taken
care of by Kris and his team. Watching for a moment, I frown. The violence doesn’t bother me,
although I cringe as Kris tears out the last of Henry’s nails. No, what’s grating on me is that anyone
would dare try to cross me.
Ever since I rose in the underground over a decade ago, I’ve fought to maintain a very specific
persona that’s been integral to my success. Being a woman, much less a small and dainty one, I’ve
had my work cut out for me since day one.
I smile thinking back to my first day. I had entered the boardroom to a room full of men, all of
whom eyed me with obvious antipathy. Not letting this faze me, I began the meeting. It was about an
hour in when an outburst from one of the members, who thought a ‘little girl’ shouldn’t be running
their organization, that I was able to demonstrate my true colors.
At a click of my fingers, Kris and his team were in the room and on the man in seconds. After
stripping him and pinning him naked to the boardroom table, I strutted across the room, speaking to
the other members.
“And let me assure you, gentlemen,” I told them, “that I am willing to do whatever it takes.” I then
proceeded to step onto the table in my stilettos, chopping off the offending member's dick with a dull
knife before letting him bleed out on the quarterly reports.
After that, the board was mine.
Still, I’m tired of having to prove myself. It’s tiresome. Someone like Henry is truly insignificant
and beneath me, but the fact that any of my subordinates would even consider treachery makes me
worry. The fact that a lesser party like Henry would, even more so.
It always has to start with one.
I know the risks of running a business like this, but really, I was raised for this. Apathy is in my
blood, and this market is profitable. Though some people may question why I chose this career path,
for the few who know me, they know there was never any other option.

“GALINA , MOVE YOUR FUCKING ASS , KURVA !” Father yelled from the shore, his breath coming out in
smoky puffs in the frigid Shakhty air.
I walked toward him, keeping my back straight despite the anxiety coursing through me. My
body was completely tense in an effort to keep from shivering. I had learned my lesson often
enough to know that showing visible weakness was not an option.
“Come on, you know the fucking drill,” he grumbled as he began to pull his shirt off. My
stomach revolted at the sight of his hairy chest, but I did as I was told until I stood at the edge
with nothing but my underthings on. At least he gave me that modesty.
With no further preamble or direction, I dove into the ice-cold lake. Despite being used to the
cold in general, the water cut through my skin like knives. My teeth clenched so hard, it was
amazing they didn’t shatter. Regardless, I kept swimming.
Across the river and back again. A ritual to prove strength. One each of my brothers has long
since completed. I am not immune and, now, it’s my turn. But where Father wanted them to
succeed, I don’t doubt he would cheer if my head sank beneath the water.
The hated daughter, not the desired seventh son. Worse, the red hair proof of my mother’s
infidelity….

“MA’ AM?” Hanna’s voice drags my attention from the computer screen before me. With tired eyes, I
look at the clock to see how late it is.
“Come in,” I reply, holding in a yawn as I hold out my hand for the reports I know are coming.
Like the good assistant she is, Hanna rushes across the room to hand them to me before stepping back
a respectful distance.
“Anything?” I ask as I flip through the Manila folder.
“Nothing today.” I nod, flipping the folder closed after I glance at the last page.
“That’s all tonight.” I wave Hanna off, waiting until she’s gone to bring two fingers to the bridge
of my nose.
“What a fucking day,” I mutter as I pull a bottle from my desk.
CHAPTER 2
GINGER

KRIS WALKS IN , MY BROW RISING WHEN I SEE THE CAST WRAPPED AROUND HIS ARM THAT WASN ’ T THERE
yesterday. His blonde hair is cut short, and his face has a slight look of pallor from what was a night
lacking sleep. I know he was working on new acquisitions, though I’ll never understand why he
doesn’t send others to do that.
Then again, I suppose I also get involved with a lot of the nitty gritty I don’t necessarily need to.
Both of us have difficulties delegating, which considering our histories isn’t surprising. It’s hard to
trust anyone else to get shit done when they fuck it up every time.
“Tough night?” I ask, nodding at his arm.
He ignores me completely, handing me a pile of folders.
“We got a few high-profile targets,” Kris continues as I rifle through the pages. “There’s one in
particular I think you should take a look at.”
I quickly flip through the stack and frown when I feel how thin one of the folders is.
“Missing pages?” I ask, holding it up.
He shakes his head. “No, that’s the one I wanted to talk about.”
I look at the label on the front.
“SIN?” I ask. “What the fuck kind of name is that?”
Before Kris can reply, I open the folder and frown again when I see the almost blank card in front
of me.

SIN (only known alias)

Age: unknown
Morality: not innocent
Occupation: unknown
City: unknown

“WHAT ABOUT PDC?” I ask, holding up the single page, referring to the computer program that
revolutionized my business which stands for ‘Personnel Detection Computer.’ Kris shifts where he
stands.
“PDC didn’t come up with anything. The man’s a fucking ghost. I don’t even know how we
managed to grab him, honestly. We lost a man and had to pump him full of enough drugs to down a
horse to get him in here. I’ve got the heaviest chains on him now in the lower dungeon.”
“Interesting,” I reply. “Why was he picked up in the first place? Is there someone specific looking
for him, or will he be going up for public auction?”
“Public auction, just another tip-off, nothing out of the ordinary. Once we started, we had to
complete it, though. I’ll send you the tape. But what do you think? He saw nothing, so it may be best to
cut our losses quickly on this one. Plus, it’ll be tough to sell him without a background.”
“True, but no. Let’s not dispose of him yet. I’m curious.”
Kris frowns. “You know what they say about curiosity.”
I laugh. “I’m far from using up my nine lives. Besides, since when did something being ill advised
ever stop me?”
“Twisted bitch,” he grumbles but doesn’t object further.
I smile and wink at the compliment.
“Takes one to know one.”
“So what do you want me to do?”
“For now, nothing.”
“And when he wakes up?
I tilt my head and smile. “Call me once he wakes up. I want to meet this so-called Sin.”

THE FIRST THING I notice when the cell door opens is the sheer size of him. The cells aren’t huge, but
they’ve never seemed quite this small to me. The thick stone walls that are most of the interior of
CASH-ULTY are particularly worn down here. The once dark corners are illuminated by fluorescent
lights that only further highlight the old blood stains that cover much of the floor. Old, rusted chains
hang from one of the walls, a macabre reminder of some of the fortress’ original uses.
The prisoner, Sin, is chained in the center, thick steel lengths effectively keeping him pinned.
We’ve seldom had to use this room before, but without knowing this man’s history or what he’s
capable of, I’m glad Kris thought of it.
We were both raised to question everything, everyone. It’s one of the early life lessons I am
actually grateful for.
Sin’s head is lowered to his chest, though the tightness of his posture makes it clear he’s awake.
The lights above cast shadows on his features and the hollows of his eyes, creating a haunting look.
He has a thin muscle shirt and jeans on with huge leather boots I’m sure I could fit both my feet in
with ease. His pants are ripped and bloody, revealing a huge expanse of scarred skin. Without a shirt,
his body seems to glow in the neon light. Wherever my eyes fall are burns, cuts, and scars with a
spatter of hair in the middle. There is no smooth expanse of skin I can see, all of it knotted and
disfigured in varying ways.
Even from across the room, he looks huge. The chains confining him do nothing to dispel the aura
of danger that surrounds this man.
My heels clack against the concrete as I move around the room, staying out of reach as I circle
him. I catch sight of a few circular scars on his shoulders, not initially realizing when my own hand
comes up to touch similar scars on my own arm. I remember the day well, when he put his cigar out
on my arm. I’d cried, so he did it again and again until I learned not to cry.
I push the thought from my mind. Vasily and his bullshit has no place here.
 I circle back to the front and stop a few feet away from Sin. His head lifts slightly, I assume to
look at me, but his eyes are still shrouded in darkness, his dirty blond hair falling over his forehead.
The movement reveals more of his face, including a thick scar running down one side of his face
which connects to a mottled piece of skin, causing half of his face to look misshapen.
“They tell me you’re called Sin,” I say, waving the small folder in one hand. “Now, what kind of
mother names a child something like that, I wonder.”
He chuckles darkly, a low and unpleasant sound as he nods toward my feet. The voice that comes
out of him is raw and gritty, like someone gargling glass.
“What kind of interrogator wears fucking heels?” he asks, gaze fixed on my shoes.
“The kind who gives two shits about what you think about her shoes,” I snap back quickly,
immediately regretting it. I never get riled up by comments about my gender. In fact, I intentionally
dress like I do. Only helps throw people off and besides, it makes me feel like a badass bitch.
Breathing out through my nose, I bring a tight smile to my face.
He lifts his eyes, dark and steady as they meet mine. Despite the fact I’m sure his head is pounding
from the drugs we gave him and that he’s literally chained up in a dungeon, he appears confident,
unbothered. There isn’t an ounce of fear in the man in front of me.
“What’s your name?” I ask directly, and this time, he raises an eyebrow. The scar on his cheek
lifts slightly with the motion.
“Sin.”
“What’s your real name?”
“Sin.”
My teeth clench, but I keep my smile. It’s not like I’d expected him to actually tell me.
“Alright, Sin. Do you know who I am?” I ask instead. He takes his time, looking me up and down.
“Red-headed cunt?”
My finger falls to the small button hidden in the palm of my hand, and Sin’s entire body seizes as
electricity shoots through it. If he’s not careful about pissing me off, he’ll get a lot more scars from
electricity burns where the metal is. His teeth clench together, but he makes little sound even though I
know he must be in agony. I let go, and his body deflates, hair falling over his brow before he takes a
few heavy breaths out of his nostrils, his death glare firmly on me.
“That all you got, cunt?”
I press the button again, and this time I’m rewarded with a ragged grunt. I smile and release the
button once more, giving him a moment to catch his breath.
“The electricity, it’s fed through the chains?” he questions after a moment, and I nod. It’s a special
device I put together that’s relatively simple but an effective way to electrocute a prisoner and gain
compliance. He barks out a small laugh. “Not bad, at least for a c—”
“I fucking hate that word, okay? So I suggest you try to be a bit more civil than that.”
I’m surprised when the corner of his mouth turns up a hint.
“Fair enough,” is all he says. I don’t have time to question the reaction before Kris steps in,
placing a metal chair down beside me.
Sin watches Kris closely, making no effort to hide his disdain. I make a mental note to ask Kris
again about Sin’s acquisition. He’d glossed over the details, saying it had been a tough pickup. If the
broken arm is anything to go by, much less the death stares Sin is giving him right now, it ought to be a
good story.
Sin doesn’t take his eyes off Kris until he leaves the room, and it’s only once I’ve taken my seat
that his gaze wanders back to me.
 “Much better,” I say with a smile, wiggling into my seat. “Now, where was I? Ah, that’s right. I
was asking if you knew who I was, and you were being a dick. Let’s try that again. Do you know who
I am? Where you are?”
He doesn’t answer right away, just watches me with those black eyes. I’ve known many men with
dark, emotionless eyes, but never ones with so much depth in them. His face gives away nothing, yet
his gaze hints at so much more. He’ll be a tough one to break.
I don’t think he’s going to answer when he finally gives a short nod.
“I know where I am,” is all he says. A real smile crosses my lips.
“Excellent, that makes this easier,” I say as I stand, brushing invisible lint from my pencil skirt.
“You know what we do, what I do. We can do this any number of ways, but I promise you, I will find
out your name.”
He smirks but says nothing. I shrug and move to the door to knock, the immediate sound of a
turning key following.
“Suit yourself,” I tell him with my back to him. “But it looks like you already have enough scars
on you. Maybe think about it for the next twenty-four hours, and we’ll see if you’re a bit nicer and
chattier then.”
Despite the intense urge to turn around and see his face once more, I don’t turn around, letting the
heavy iron door close behind me.
CHAPTER 3
SIN

MY HEAD HAS BEEN POUNDING SINCE I WOKE UP , UNSURE IF IT ’ S FROM THE PUNCHES OR THE DRUGS
they gave me. Fucking amateurs. Pick a goddamn method of taking someone out, then stick to it. You
don’t drug someone and then hit them in the head. It makes no fucking sense.
Though in hindsight, the punches may have been for the broken forearm. That or they were just
cheap shots. Had they gotten one on me under normal circumstances, I probably would have bought
the guy a beer.
Instead, the fucker kicked a down man.
Soon enough, I’ll get out of here, and I won’t forget what he did.
Pretty blond motherfucker.
I shift my shoulders slightly, not enough to move the chains that keep me pinned. I don’t doubt they
are watching me, and I don’t intend to show an ounce of fucking discomfort even though my body is
screaming with tension. I have to consciously ignore the feel of the chains on my skin, holding me
down.
My eyes move around the room which looks like something out of a medieval dungeon, and I must
admit, I like it. The smell of dampness and old blood fills my senses, and honestly, it reminds me of
home. The ginger bitch probably thinks this place is fucking scary or something, but the woman has no
fucking clue. I resist chuckling when I think of what she renamed herself. What kind of fucking
redhead actually calls herself Ginger?
I know her real story, though. Fucking Russian bitch. I’ll give it to her, the accent is almost
completely gone, and if I didn’t know her story, I’d have no fucking clue. As it stands, she’s probably
one of the most wanted women in the world, under both her alias and her real name.
I feel the corner of my mouth turn up, but there is no humor in it, only the low thrumming
anticipation over the bloodshed to come.
Bitch has no fucking idea the mistake she made bringing me here.
CHAPTER 4
GINGER

P HYSICALLY POWERFUL MEN SEEM TO BELIEVE THE ENDURANCE OF PAIN IS A MEASURE OF ONE' S WORTH.
While I absolutely have respect for those who can take pain—hell, I’d demand the same after what
I’ve been through—they don’t realize where true power is held.
And every man has a limit on how much pain he can take, even if he hasn’t found it yet.
My mind continues to wander back to the scars on Sin’s back, the familiarity of them.
I’ve known men who put cigarettes out on their own skin before. Especially back home. It wasn’t
the most uncommon thing, and I even knew a few men with thickened scars from years of putting them
out in the same spot. Some kind of macho bullshit I never understood.
But it wouldn't be possible to reach your shoulder and create the scars I saw there. Someone else
did that. My hand brushes over the multiple circular burns on my own arm, and I wonder how
someone was able to overpower a man like Sin to give him the same scars.
I haven’t put my finger on exactly what it is yet, but there is something about Sin....
It’s clear he can withstand pain, but I’ve known many men who can do that. He’s bigger than most
men I’ve known; he has got to be at least 6’5 and a good few hundred pounds of muscle. He’s also
more scarred and horrifying than most TV monsters. The pocked and knotted skin would be terrifying
to most.
But it isn’t any of those things.
It’s something else entirely, and I don’t think I’ll be able to stop thinking about it until I know
what.
The systems we have in place here mean we can track almost anyone on the planet and find out
who they are, where they live, and basically anything else. The rarity of finding someone PDC can’t
track down is something special in itself.
Kris wasn’t kidding about his curiosity comment earlier. He knows me well enough to know how
much trouble I’ve gotten myself in to because I couldn’t let something unknown go. Curiosity could
very well be the death of me one day, but that’s not likely to stop me.
And now? Now I have to know Sin’s story.
There’s a knock on the door before Kris strides into the room. I scowl at the interruption.
“What’s the point of knocking if you’re just going to walk in?” I snap at him. Kris’s eyes fall to my
hand, absently touching my scars, before he looks up to meet my gaze. He knows what they mean,
what they are. His sleeves are rolled up to reveal clear skin on his arms, but I happen to know his
scars aren’t visible to the naked eye like mine.
The first son received a different kind of abuse than the hated daughter, but Father left his mark on
both of us.
“How did it go? What did you learn?” he asks even though we both know he could pull up the
security for himself.
“He didn’t give me much, but that’s no surprise,” I answer, and Kris grunts, pulling up a chair
opposite my desk.
“I didn’t ask if he said anything, I asked how it went and what you learned.”
It bothers me how well he knows me. He’s been trying to pry more lately into the business, into
my mind. I don’t appreciate it.
He knows I’ve always been a closed person. It hasn’t been until recently that he’s been asking
more questions and generally being a fucking nuisance, about my personal life as well as the business.
If I didn’t absolutely need him, if he wasn’t my brother….
“You seemed a bit off when you walked out,” he continues, and I force myself to not shift in my
seat.
“He called me a cunt, twice,” I reply, knowing it’ll get him off my case. Kris chuckles in
understanding.
“So he’s figured out one of your buttons already. Nice job, Ging.”
I nod at his arm. “What happened with your arm anyway? Someone get the jump on you?” I bite
back and am immediately rewarded with his glare. Ah, yes. We do know how to push each other's
buttons, that is certain.
“Minor miscalculation,” he grits out. “Now, enough about this fucker. We have a date for the
shipment. Meeting’s already arranged for the other stuff. Two weeks from today for 622.”
I sit up straighter in my seat.
“So soon?”
He shrugs. “Apparently, time is a factor. They can’t delay any longer, or we’ll miss the window
and the account.”
I nod thoughtfully before pulling the key from my pocket to unlock my desk drawer. Starting to
rifle through it, I feel rather than see Kris’s eyes on me.
“Galina,” he says, his accent thick over my given name as he continues in Russian, “We’ve
always avoided politics. We should refuse this time, too. Keep doing what we do best. Why change a
good thing?”
I frown at hearing our mother tongue, responding in English.
“You know as well as I do that if we refuse this, the Dutch government is going to shut us down.
This is our Hail Mary.”
“Then we move. We’ve done it before and survived it all. We should stay out of this nonsense.”
I pull out the small notebook from my desk drawer then lock it back up before standing.
“When we did this, we both decided that I would run the business side,” I tell him, my voice sure
and even. “I’ve done right by us thus far, huh? So fuck off, and trust me, okay?”
Our eyes clash, and I see his eye twitch before he nods curtly.
“Fine. And the one in the dungeon?”
Sin.
“Leave him for the day. Tomorrow, I’ll see if he’s ready to talk and try a few different
techniques.”
Kris nods again then walks off. I doubt I’ve heard the last of it, but I know he won’t go against me.
He knows as well as I do that we don’t have a choice this time. This job… Well, it isn’t our usual
business, but it's a lucrative one. One that could change the shape of the company completely.
If we can pull this off, we’ll have all the government support we need. Off paper, at least, which
is all that really matters.
 Sighing, I shove the notebook in my bag and page Hannah.
“Set up a meeting with Paul right away, then meet me upstairs.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
The intercom clicks off, and I grab my cell before I make my way upstairs. By the time I enter the
hallway, Kris is already gone, and no one is visible. Despite its broken-down appearance, this place
is a variable fortress. Between the security cameras, heavy stone walls, and strategically placed men
around the building, no one could hope to get in, or out, without us knowing about it.
Kris and I bought this place almost twelve years ago now, a decrepit fortress forgotten about in
Poland after the second world war. Using threats, bribery, and all the money we possessed, we
purchased it then transitioned CASH-ULTY out of North America to the relative safety of Eastern
Europe. The misinformation provided about our location is one of the many ways we remain hidden.
One thing I will give him is Kris has always been in charge of security, and he’s never steered us
wrong. I understand what he’s trying to do by stopping the order, keeping us safe, that is, but it's not
necessary this time. Really, we have no choice.
With the Dutch government and Anti-Slavery International cracking down on us, we needed to
make these deals. Order 622 is their price, and I intend to pay it.
Krystof and Galina have been through a lot, but it's Kris and Ginger who run CASH-ULTY. It
wouldn’t take much for it to come crumbling down, regardless of how well placed and structured it
is. And I’ve worked too long and hard to see it fail now.
Ever the good assistant, Hannah is at the top of the stairs waiting for me with a mug in hand. I
pause to take it and inhale the steamy beverage, immediately noting the hint of liquor. I raise a
knowing eyebrow and she shrugs with a smile.
Hannah is a cutthroat bitch Kris helped me hire after my last assistant had a breakdown. She
knows how to handle my affairs well, and we hold a mutual respect for one another. Plus, she makes a
mean Irish coffee. That’s as good as it gets in my line of work.
I sip the drink gratefully then continue down toward the conference rooms.
“Anything this morning?” I ask as we walk. From a step behind me, I hear Hannah pull out her
phone and tap away.
“Total count at seventy-three as of this morning,” she replies. “One died last night, but there were
no bids yet, and the acquisition cost was low.”
“How's that?” I ask, not used to hearing about low acquisition cost. Our targets tended to be
costly but not always. Hannah hesitates only a moment before responding.
“It was Henry,” she replies, and I pause to look at her.
“And the rest of his family?” I ask.
“All fine. They were separated from him, so they had no idea. The son has a few bids already.
We’ll make the cost of storage back and then some.”
“Plus, Henry’s salary,” I think out loud. At least that clusterfuck will put me in the positive, even
though I would’ve rather not have had to deal with it at all.
Our eyes meet, and I nod, turning on my heel and walking into the empty conference room. Behind
me, Hannah comes in and pulls open a briefcase before she starts pulling out papers and setting up the
projector.
I take a large sip of my coffee, grateful again for the extra kick in it.
It’s going to be a long day.
IT ISN ’ T until the end of the day that I finally make my way down the winding stone staircase and into
the dungeon. We have one wing for acquisitions, and another for.… other activities.
I push open the double doors that enter the west wing when the sound of screams greets me from
down the corridor. My pace doesn’t slow as I move toward the sound, stopping outside the closed
door. I reach forward and knock.
There’s a muffled crash and a loud smack followed by some whimpers before the door opens and
a heavyset man in a leather apron pops his head out. His expression transforms immediately on seeing
me, a large grin growing over his face. An oversized mustache moves with his face and he laughs,
opening the door to allow me entry.
“Mistress, what a pleasant surprise!” Moe says as he moves back toward the man strapped to a
metal chair in the center of the room. “I wasn’t expecting you today. I’m just in the middle of—”
I wave a hand dismissively. “No rush, feel free to finish.”
He gives me a nod and a small bow before turning back to the man, whose eyes are so bugged out
they look like they’re going to pop any moment. His hands and feet are strapped to a chair along with
a band along his head. The ground beneath is concrete with a metal grate just to the side, a handy
placement for cleaning the fluids that tend to congregate here.
I walk over to the side of the room and his desk where a stool waits, sitting and crossing my legs
while I watch the infamous CASH-ULTY Butcher at work.
“Normally, I don’t use the ball gag,” Moe explains as he walks over to the desk and looks down
at his selection of devices. “But I’ll keep it on for now to help with the noise.”
I shake my head. “Don’t change your methods on my account,” I tell him, “I relish the opportunity
to watch a Master in his element.”
The slight flush I see to the chubby man's cheeks causes me to chuckle, but the compliment isn’t
untrue either.
Kris and I found Moe a number of years ago as an acquisition. He had been terrorizing a small
town for years before someone caught on and hired us. Once we found out that Moe was an ex-
surgeon and self-taught butcher with a penchant for pain, we had to hire him ourselves. The man who
put the hit on Moe was his first victim as the CASH-ULTY Butcher and since then, his methods have
become infamous in certain circles.
Following my encouragement, Moe takes off the red ball gag. The bound man sputters and coughs,
spittle flying from his mouth.
“Please! You have to help me!” He says to me, pulling his body in the chair as far as the straps
will allow. I resist the urge to laugh at the man's pleading. Standing, I slowly move and stop when I’m
only two feet in front of him. Cocking my head to the side, I smile.
“Darling, who do you think put you here?”
The man's eyes grow comically wide, and his mouth opens to scream before Moe’s hand flies out,
dazing the man.
“Sorry, Mistress. These assholes don’t get it,” Moe shakes his head.
“I understand,” I tell him. The man’s screams start up again and I roll my eyes. Moe curses and
goes back to his desk, fumbling around until he comes back with a syringe in hand. He quickly injects
it into the man who goes limp in seconds.
“Much better,” he says, “I could use a break anyway. So, Mistress, what brings you down to my
humble abode today?”
I let out a light laugh. “Humble, is it? Well, I might actually have a new victim for you tomorrow. I
wanted to give you a heads up, make sure you had the space.”
Moe nods. “For you, Mistress, I’d make the space.”
My smile grows, slow and catlike.
“Good. I have someone who is dying to meet you.”
CHAPTER 5
SIN

I HAVE TO GIVE IT TO THE CUNT , LEAVING THE FLUORESCENT LIGHTS ON ALL DAY AND NIGHT WAS A NICE
touch. The chains really are expertly placed, leaving almost no slack or movement, making any kind
of comfortable positioning impossible. I allowed myself to doze into my chest for a short while, but
I’ve stayed awake for longer in more uncomfortable places.
By my mental clock, my twenty-four hours is more than up, and the ginger-bitch hasn’t made an
appearance yet. Not like I’d expect a woman to keep her word, though her reputation makes me
believe otherwise. Men describe her as a ruthless, coldhearted bitch. Savvy, though. She managed to
steal, improve, and keep one of the largest underground human trafficking networks in the world.
She’ll be one to watch for, but nothing I can’t handle.
After all, she’s still just a woman. And no one, man or woman, has ever bested me.
I stick to my code: trust no one but myself.
From down the hall, the faint sound of clicking heels has the corner of my mouth turning up. A few
hours off, but not bad.
When the door opens, I don’t bother hiding my face, instead, keeping a steady eye on the door.
Sure enough, the ginger bitch walks through while pretty boy stands outside the door.
She says nothing, a hand on her hip as she looks at me questioningly.
I take in her posture and face closely. If not for the hint of makeup under the bright lights, I may not
have noticed the darker bags under her eyes. I resist the urge to smirk at the thought she’s already
losing sleep.
When I don’t respond to the look she’s giving me, she sighs.
“Do we really need to do it this way?” she asks as though torturing me for my name will be some
big chore.
I shrug as much as my chains will allow.
“You could just tell me your name? Save yourself a lot of grief,” she suggests, like she’s doing me
a favor to be telling me this.
“I have no other name to give,” I reply. Her eyes meet mine, and if I didn’t know better, I’d say
she recognized the honesty in that statement. Any other name I’ve had is long gone. I am no one but
Sin now.
“Where are you from?”
“Why don’t you ask your men who picked me up?”
“I didn’t ask where we got you, I asked where you are from.”
“And what if I told you I’m a man with no history, no name?”
She pauses for a second, assessing me. “Then I’d call bullshit. Everyone has a history.”
“Then I guess we’re at an impasse.”
 She doesn’t say anything for a moment, watching me levelly.
“You’d really rather go through this than give me your name?”
I don’t say anything. I don’t like repeating myself. After a moment, she turns to the blond boy and
whispers something. He frowns at whatever she says, clearly not liking it. She gives him a pointed
look, and his jaw tightens before he nods and walks off.
“Your bitch didn’t like whatever you told him,” I state loudly, hoping he hears it. Her lips tighten
and turn up a touch as though amused, but she doesn’t say anything. Instead, she brings up a hand to
look at her nails.
They look sharp, a brilliant, blood red color, and I can’t help but imagine her digging those claws
into my back while I fuck the sass right out of her. I smirk as my dick twitches, obvious through the
thin pants I’m wearing. Savage cunt or not, I’ll admit she’s fucking fine.
Pale skin normally doesn’t do it for me, but on her with that glowing hair and fierce expression,
it’s stunning. The awful business clothes, the suited jackets and skirts, don’t fit her, though. She’d be
better suited as a fucking Viking goddess. Certainly doesn’t look like any Russian girl I’ve ever
known with that skin and hair, but I’m confident in her background. The youngest child and only
daughter of Vasily Pushkin.
“You going to play with me now?” I mock, and she looks at me. This time, the amusement is clear
on her face. Most women look at me with revulsion, but she hasn’t flinched once. With the burns,
scars and scowls, even whores took some convincing.
She takes a step forward until she’s only a foot away. If I didn’t already know the chains would
stop me, I’d think she’s close enough I could reach out and grab her neck. A feminine smell fills my
nostrils along with the hint of some kind of liquor on her breath. Interesting.
“Oh, sweetheart, we’re definitely going to play,” she coos with a smile, leaning closer to my ear.
“And you are definitely going to be telling me who you are. But I better give someone else a turn first.
Wouldn’t be fair for me to have all the fun.”
A low, rumbling laugh builds in my chest, and I turn my head so our faces are only inches apart.
“I can’t wait, milaya.”
Her eyes widen, and I grin. She knows I know who she is.
Just then, the blond walks in with a few other men behind him. She pulls back, her startled
expression disappearing before she turns to them.
“I changed my mind,” she tells them. “Take him to my office. You know the spot?”
The blond’s frown deepens, and something passes between them. There’s something there … the
combination of respect and animosity between them. Something I am sure I can exploit if need be. I’ll
need to find out more.
He shoots a glare at me before nodding to her. She steps back to allow them to come around me.
My eyes narrow, and I let a vicious rumble grow in my chest as I stare at each of them, saving their
faces to my memory.
I turn my head to try to watch the blond as he walks behind me. This time, the blackness following
the prick is almost instant, and I can’t help but wonder what they changed this time to make it work so
fast.

WHEN I WAKE UP AGAIN , it’s obvious I’m still restrained, but I’m surprised to see I’m in a much
bigger, less dungeon-like room. The stone walls of the entire place have a gothic feel, but it’s clear
this is some kind of office. I almost chuckle at the fact there are chain links on the floor in someone’s
office, but somehow it suits the old fortress-style building.
My eyes are grateful for the dimmer light, and even though it was because of drugs, I feel better
after the rest. My body aches, but that’s not even close to the forefront of my mind. The chains
wrapped around me, however….
“Good nap?” A feminine voice asks, and I have to strain my neck to try to see where her voice is
coming from.
“Fantastic,” I manage, letting my head drop rather than try to strain it needlessly. I move enough to
know how much slack I have now … a touch more than the cell I was in before.
“Your reputation didn’t lead me to believe that your interrogations would include a room
upgrade,” I mock her, eager to get on with it. So far, everything is going mostly as planned. I hadn’t
expected to be this close to her so soon, but ahead of schedule is not a bad thing. Even still,
unexpected is unexpected. And I’m not fool enough to believe I have all the time in the world. If the
job isn’t done in a reasonable time, someone else will be hired to do it.
And I, Sin, do not accept failure.
Her light laugh floats across the room as she steps into my view. Her steps are silent, the
ridiculous heels muffled by the thick rugs on the floor. She’s still wearing the same thing I last saw
her in, so I assume I’ve only been out a few hours. I’m usually good at keeping track of time in my
head, but whatever they gave me to knock me out this time was potent stuff.
“As interesting as you are, and as much as I’d love to know how you learned Russian, you aren’t
really my priority right now, Sin,” she tells me with a smile. “But I think I’ll keep you close in the
meantime.”
Her eyes meet mine, and she nods at the chains.
“How do you like them?” she asks, the smile never leaving her face. Not expecting a reply, she
continues. “You know, originally I had planned to send you to my butcher. He’s not really a butcher, of
course, but he did go to medical school. Perhaps ‘surgeon’ would be a better word for him. But I
digress. I had thought of sending you to him to teach you some manners, but by the looks of you, that
wouldn’t bother you much, would it?”
I keep my face impassive as I listen. I’ve heard of the infamous CASH-ULTY Butcher and had
expected to have met him by now. But she doesn’t need to know that.
It occurs to me I may have given too much away already. I couldn’t resist the Russian endearment
even though it made her suspicious of me. At least it got me this close. However, if she finds out I
know who the Butcher is, she may find out who hired me.
“No,” she answers her own question, a thoughtful expression on her face. “I don’t think it would.
But then I thought, hmmm, what would the Butcher do that I can’t do right here? I suppose I’d resist
anything too bloody, don’t want to muss my nice carpets and all, but it got me thinking…. What would
bother a man with those types of scars more? Pain or something else?”
The knowing smile on her lips strikes a bolt of ice in to me. My veins feel like they’re bubbling,
the weight of the chains on my neck and arms suddenly seeming to drag me down. It’s been a long
time since anyone overpowered me, but there was a time of darkness and chains.
Does she know? How could she if she doesn’t know about my past? I’ve taken incredible pains to
ensure no one knows that Sin has any kind of weakness. I can withstand a lot for a long time, being
confined, in chains. I’ve hardened myself enough for that, but even I have a breaking point. And a
strong man knows his weakest point.
 I need to change tactics.
“You want to keep me close, huh, Red?”
“Red? Really? Come on now. A bit cliché, don’t you think?” she scoffs at the nickname, and I
smirk.
“Fair enough.”
“And what is fair, Sin?” she asks, making her way over to a chair in front of her desk, swiveling it
so she’s facing me. Still wearing the tight business outfit, she looks out of place in the dungeonesque
office.
“Fair means in accordance with the rules,” I respond easily.
She laughs, turning to a drawer in her desk, pulling a small decanter out to pour herself a drink.
From where I’m chained, the smell of strong whiskey floats over. “Somehow, I don’t think a man like
you puts much value in rules.”
“I suppose that depends on your moral definition of right and what rules you follow. I’m
comfortable with my own moral code and the lines I will cross. I set my rules and stand by them.”
She gives me an impressed look then tips her glass.
“Touché.”
It’s a conscious will of effort to keep my mind off the chains or the thought she’s figured out my
weakness. At least she’s distracting to look at. I watch her throat as she swallows and imagine biting
down on it, wrapping my hands around the pale length of it.
“If you want me in your bed, you can just say so,” I tell her, and she chokes slightly, putting the
glass down. Her fair skin reddens almost instantly, and my dick gets hard at the sight of her pink
cheeks. Such a small thing to throw her off? I’m going to enjoy playing with her.
“Hardly,” she rasps, standing and making her way over to a side room I assume is a bathroom
when the sound of running water follows. When she comes out, she looks pale yet composed once
more. She walks over to me and crouches a few feet in front of me. Her gaze is hard and steely.
Apparently, she doesn’t like being thrown off like that. I wonder if it was the sexual innuendo that did
it, and if so, how I can use that to my advantage.
“Don’t fuck with me,” she warns.
I feel the mirth dancing in my eyes as I reply. “Princess, you have no fucking idea.”
I’m expecting more banter, but instead, she smiles, and fuck me if I don’t get even harder at the
sight of her vicious grin, even though it can’t mean anything good for me. Women by nature aren’t as
ruthless as men, but this woman certainly gives the illusion. I let the heat and hunger burn through my
gaze as I stare at her. That is until she pulls out a fucking hood and drops it over my head.
The darkness is absolute, and I feel myself start to sweat. My breathing picks up, but I say nothing,
listening to the sound of her receding steps.
CHAPTER 6
GINGER

“GALINA , LOOK AT WHAT I GOT !” DMITRI EXCLAIMS IN A WHISPER . I BLINK A FEW TIMES , MY EYES
adjusting to the darkness before they widen.
“Where did you get it?” I ask as he tears off a piece of the fresh bread and hands it to me. My
mouth is already salivating before I’ve even put the first piece in my mouth. It’s been months since
I’ve eaten something so fresh.
“Ohmygod, this is so good,” I moan around the first bite, and I see Dmitri’s teeth flash in the
darkness. “Where did you get it, though?”
“Father had me run to the neighbour’s, and the woman there gave it to me. She started to ask
me some questions about the family, but her husband gave her a funny look and shook his head, so
she stopped, gave me some milk and the bread.”
I nod as I chew, wondering what the woman would have said. I’ve never seen anyone else
outside the family up close before. Just Father and my brothers and my Father’s new wife, Anya. I
wish I knew my mama, but she died right after I was born. Maxim says that was my fault, but if
Krystof is around, he always tells him to be quiet.
No one but Dmirtri, and sometimes Krystof, ever gives me any bread or anything nice. Father
says treats and nice things spoil children and turn them in to shits. I don’t know why some of my
brothers get things and the others don’t, though. I never get anything.
“Thanks for saving me some,” I say as I lick the last remnants of crumbs from my fingertips.
“I’ve got to take care of my baby sister,” he replies, and I lean forward to hug him. I know our
lives aren’t like other peoples’, but as long as I have my brothers around me, nothing else matters.

I WAKE with a start to the sound of buzzing, my body coated in a sheen of sweat and my chest heaving.
Bzzzzzzzz
“Fuck right off,” I mutter, shaking my head as I lean over to click the intercom. “What?”
“It’s H wing, ma’am. We need you down here.”
I curse to myself as I swing my legs over the bed The under twenty-year-old acquisitions are in
the H wing right now. Not what I want to be woken up to deal with, much less after a dream like that.
I move on autopilot as I dress quickly, ever prepared for situations just like this. Before I leave, I
look in the mirror, but only for a moment. Dark bags are visible under my eyes. Exhaling deeply, I
grab my phone and head down to the basement.
S OBS AND SCREAMS greet me when I pass through the first set of iron doors. Unfortunately, they’re not
drowned out by the frantic barking of the dogs. It doesn’t take me long to push the sounds to the back
of my mind, but the first few minutes are always the hardest.
I know the value in keeping these trained beasts here, but that doesn’t mean they don’t remind me
of Dmitri every time I hear these barks.
I keep my eyes forward, having no interest in looking into each small cell to see the poor fuckers
inside them. It’s not because I care but rather because I care so little. Pleas for me to release them
follow me, as none of them realize it was ultimately me who put them there.
At the end of the hall are Kris and a few men from E team. My teeth clench together, but I show no
other sign of unease as I approach. The look on Kris’s face and the man at his side holding three of
our best guard dogs, two of which have bloody muzzles, tells me a lot of what I need to know. I eye
the dogs with distaste then quickly pull away to look at Kris.
He doesn’t say anything, so I slow slightly, stopping in front of him. His eyes meet mine with a
short nod before he steps aside from the doorway. He knows how much I hate being around the dogs
but can see I’m handling it. I adjust my body, and as soon as I turn to the door, the cloying smell of
coppery blood fills my senses.
“Jesus Christ,” I mutter as I take a step into the room, mindful of the blood splatter covering much
of the floor. “What happened?”
“The mother tried to escape, save the kid.” Kris explains.
My nostrils flare as I take in the scene, trying to make sense of the pieces in front of me. As used
to blood as I am, the smell of people’s insides still brings bile to my throat. They didn’t get far before
the dogs got them. My eyes fall to a piece of blond hair, almost pink with blood. A small hand
remains unscathed in the wreckage, fingers reaching toward the door.

“L ET ME GO !” I shriek, struggling against the tight arms holding me.

“Let him go,” Krystof curses in my ear as he holds me to him. “There’s nothing you can do.”
“Run, boy,” Father yells, laughing as he pulls the bottle to his mouth. “Run if you want to
live!”
A sob tears from my throat, and I turn my head to Krystof ’s chest, hiding my eyes. I wish I
could block my ears, the dogs crying and barking, eager to be let out for the chase. Under the
smell of hot rocks, I imagine I can already smell blood in the air.
I crack my eyes open a moment to see a flash of Dmitri’s blond hair in the distance followed by
the swift moving beasts.

“ARE YOU OKAY?” Kris asks, I think for the second time, in Russian. The dogs are still barking
frantically, the cacophony shooting daggers into my skull. How long did I just stand there for?
“Shut those things up,” I snap. “And get this cleaned up. Fake the auction bids so we don’t have to
have it show up as a cancellation. I’m going back to bed.”
I don’t wait to see if my instructions are followed before I turn on my heel and leave, the sounds
of children screaming and dogs barking following long after.
I don’t remember the last time I broke down like this, the walk to my hidden office a complete
blur. It isn’t until I walk in that I freeze, seeing Sin still chained up, hood over his head. The hood
turns in my direction, but I’m not wearing my usual heels, so it's unlikely he knows it’s me.
I say nothing, making my way across the room as my heart thumps in my chest. I try to slow my
breathing, feeling grateful I put the hood on him earlier. I couldn’t handle someone looking at me right
now. As good as I am at showing nothing and not reacting to pain or trauma, that doesn’t mean a girl
doesn’t need a moment once in a while.
I don’t hesitate to go to my desk, to the liquor stashed within. It isn’t until the desk drawer closes
and I sit down that Sin finally speaks.
“Tell me, is it the visions of the horrors you’ve committed against people that keeps you awake at
night?”
I actually let out a laugh, glad my voice doesn’t shake when I reply. “Somehow, I doubt you’re the
type of person to speak of horrors committed against others.”
I can’t see him smile, but I can hear it in his response. “That’s true.”
I pour my glass almost to the brim then lift it to take a long sip before sighing. Feeling calmer, I
take a seat. Neither of us say anything as I finish my glass then refill it in short order. Somehow
having someone in the room who isn’t talking, who can’t see me, is strangely comforting.
The room is dim with only one security light along the upper wall, barely illuminating the room,
leaving the corners in shadow. The bulk of Sin’s form creates its own darkness, and with the liquor
swimming in my blood, the blackness seems to dance around him.
“So if it's not guilt then what is it? What is it that keeps a woman like you awake at night? I’m
curious,” he finally asks.
I consider the question a moment, spinning liquid around in the glass but keeping it from sloshing
over the edges.
“The past,” I admit in a voice so quiet I don’t know if he can hear me. The small huff, almost a
laugh, tells me he did.
“You and me both,” he returns in an equally quiet voice.
My hand finds the small burns on my arm without thinking, rubbing at them absently. I fill the glass
once more then bring my eyes back up to his still form. Even with only shadows visible, the tension in
his body is obvious. When I brought him up here, put that hood on him, I’d figured it would be worse
than any form of torture I could do to a man like him. Pain means nothing, but freedom? Well, freedom
means everything.
My head swims a bit with the vodka, and I take another sip before standing decisively. In a few
big steps, I’m in front of Sin. His hood moves in my direction, but he says nothing. I reach a hand out,
pulling it back when I see it’s shaking. Frowning, I put my hand out again, forcing it to stay steady as I
pull the hood back.
Sin squints as his face is revealed, blinking a few times, thigh muscles clenching, before his gaze
lands on me. I don’t let myself look away.
“Just for now,” I say, and he gives a short nod.
Satisfied, although unsure why, I go back to my desk and grab my drink once I’m seated.
We sit in silence for several minutes, and though I can feel his eyes on me, I don’t mind, which is
unusual. Maybe it’s because he’s in chains I can feel so comfortable? I can’t say why, all I know is
that the presence of someone else is comforting right now. The silence is too much, though. Silence
reminds me of dark places.
“Tell me something about you,” I eventually say, sitting forward in my seat. A low, rumbling
chuckle comes from his chest, but I cut him off before he can reply. “Anything, just something small.”
I don’t think he’s going to answer at all when he finally speaks.
 “The vodka I smell on you reminds me of when I was young.” I watch his face closely, the way he
crinkles his nose in disgust. His face transforms with his expressions, the scars making it more
dynamic. It’s not ugly, at least not to me. They’re terribly interesting. I want to know how he got those
scars.
“I hate drinking the shit, but that smell is home,” he finishes.
My head cocks to the side, eyes narrowing a touch as I watch him. I let the corner of my mouth
turn up and hold up my glass.
“Mine as well, but I suppose you probably know that already. Still love to drink the stuff, though.”
I watch him closely for a reaction, but his face is impassive. Just the thought of my childhood, of
Russia, brings on unbidden fury, and rage rises inside me. I feel it surging as I slam my hand down,
and the glass shatters, shards and liquor flying everywhere. I hold in a hiss from the sting as the vodka
finds its way into the cut on my palm, but I can’t stop my chest from heaving as memories overwhelm
me.
“Run, boy!”
Water roars in my ears, but the dogs are still louder.
“Let him go….”
“Are you alright?”
I blink at the voice and look up to see Sin, chained across from me in my office. A small drip
brings my attention back to my hand, bleeding slowly onto the desk. What the fuck just happened?
“Are you alright?” he repeats, and I wonder if it's only the second time. Or why he cares.
“Fine,” I reply, glad at least my voice doesn’t shake.
I need to get back to bed. Now.
Exhaling deeply, I stand and grab the hood from the desk. His eyes follow me the entire way,
imploring me not to do it. Empathy is literally seeping out of my hand, but I don’t hesitate to put it on.
He’s good at hiding his emotions, but I’m sure this is working. It won’t take long with the hood on
before he starts to crack.
He saw me crack, something few have seen. Well, few living people anyway.
I’ll get his story quickly enough.
I grab another bottle of vodka and a first aid kit on my way upstairs then send a text to the kitchen
to send me some snacks.
I know I’m not getting any more sleep tonight.
CHAPTER 7
SIN

I’ M NOT REALLY SURE HOW LONG I’ VE SLEPT WHEN THE INCREASINGLY FAMILIAR SOUND OF HIGH HEELS
jerks me awake. This isn’t the first time in my life I’ve been grateful for the fortitude I’ve developed
over the years. Even now, after days of almost no sleep or water, my body is still strong. Since being
in this office, they’ve taken me to the bathroom and given me just one small glass of water twice a
day, that’s it. The discomfort of hunger and lack of sleep are ones I’ve long since learned to ignore.
What I can’t ignore is the feeling of confinement.
I knew they’d keep me locked up when I planned this mission, but I hadn’t anticipated the ginger-
bitch would read me so quickly or easily. Had she left me like I was downstairs, I probably wouldn’t
have batted an eye for days. Tied like I am now with the hood, though.…
I’m a man who will own his shit, I have no problem admitting when I’m wrong, so I’ll own that I
underestimated her. Hadn’t believed a woman could be as ruthless or as smart as the stories I’d
heard, but my convictions are changing rapidly.
The clicking heels stop outside the door followed by the sound of the lock turning. I can tell when
the lights are turned on by the change of the shadows falling across the hood, a hint of light at the
bottom showing through.
Click, click, click across the floor.
Sound of a chair being moved back on the stone floor.
A mug or cup of some kind being placed on a desk.
A drawer being opened then closed.
A whirring computer fan turning on.
Without sight, I let the sounds take over, telling me what’s happening.
I wonder how she looks today?
Watching her last night was incredible. The rage that came from nowhere was hotter than anything
I’ve ever seen. Even now, my dick gets hard thinking about the rise and fall of that milky white chest,
heaving with the pain of whatever haunts her.
I don’t break down like that anymore, but there was a time.
And I can’t wait to find out what it is that made this woman crack. Then use it to break her past
the point of repair.
“Hannah, bring up today’s files,” her voice says before I hear the click of a button. Minutes pass,
and I listen as she types on her computer, rifles through papers, and sips her drink. Is it vodka again?
A knock at the door.
“Come in.”
The rapid tap of heels.
“Here you go, ma’am. And this arrived for you this morning as well.”
 “Thanks.” Ginger’s voice doesn’t sound pleased at what she received.
A whisper, too quiet to hear.
“Oh, him. Ignore it,” Ginger tells her.
Another whisper.
“I said ignore it,” Ginger repeats, this time with a sharp edge to her voice.
“Okay,” the other voice replies, hesitancy still evident. “These are the ones you asked for. For
order 622.”
“That’ll be all,” Ginger replies.
The other woman mutters something.
Quick taps out of the room, the door shuts.
Ginger sighs.
“What the fuck,” she mutters, so quiet I almost didn’t hear it.
The rifling of papers.
The punctuated sound of something being dropped on a hard surface. A book, maybe?
The sounds continue, and I wait, listening.
Hours pass as I listen, but without anyone speaking or my sight, there’s little to be learned. The
impatience and boredom are almost as bad as the chains themselves. Not quite, though.
My mind wanders, able to drift with the sound of steady typing. Eventually, I hear the sound of a
chair being pushed back and those stupid fucking shoes before they hit carpet. I resist the urge to tilt
my head up to try to peer out the bottom of the bag.
“I’m going to untie you, but you cannot take the bag off of your head,” her voice states from
somewhere right in front of me. “I don’t want you to piss on my carpet, but if you piss me off or try
anything, then I will shoot you and then let you fucking soil yourself, you got me? You smell bad
enough already, let's not add to it.”
I nod curtly, a bit taken aback. Not wanting to smell piss is an excuse, sure, but why doesn’t she
have the others who previously tended to this task handle it? She’s working here, near me, because
she wants to. She’s taking me piss because she wants to be close.
Apparently, my nod was enough because she takes off the heavy manacles then places a dainty
hand on my wrist. Through the bottom of the bag, I can see a hint of our skin, hers fair and flawless,
mine scarred and thick.
Without a word, she leads me by the wrist across the room. It’s disorienting with the bag on my
head, but I’m not stupid enough to try anything now. The whole mission may revolve around her, but
taking her out isn’t the only objective.
“Here, just to your right,” she says. “I’m not holding your dick for you.”
She guides my hand forward until I feel a hard surface, some kind of porcelain counter. When I
don’t hear her walk away, I smile to myself and don’t hesitate to pull out my dick, facing the direction
I assume I should. I hear the sound of her clothing shifting and grin at the thought of making her
uncomfortable.
Well, don’t watch, bitch.
I hold in a sigh as I release a small stream. Presumably due to the minimal amount of water I’ve
been given. I estimate I can go another few weeks of them feeding and hydrating me like this before
the really negative effects kick in, but something tells me I won’t have to wait that long.
I finish then turn back in her direction, wishing I could see her face. It takes everything in me not
to rip this stupid fucking bag off my head, but that would only set me back in the long run.
“Hold out your hands,” she commands. I hesitate but do oblige. She squirts something into my
hand.
“It's sanitizer, rub it in,” she instructs, and I actually let out a small laugh.
“You’ve got me fucking chained in an office dungeon, yet you want my hands clean?” I ask as I let
the liquid drip off my hands. I hear the smirk in her voice when she replies, “I like things clean.”
Her hand touches my wrist once more, then she leads me across the room. When I hear the sound
of chains jangling, I freeze.
Gritting my teeth, I let her chain me up, aware that my breathing is more ragged than I’d like. Once
I’m back in place, I hear the sound of her steps receding.
“Sweet dreams, asshole.”
The light clicks off and the door closes, the sound of fading heeled steps the last thing I hear.
CHAPTER 8
GINGER

IT TOOK A REAL FORCE OF WILL TO WORK THROUGH THE MORNING , ESPECIALLY WITH THAT ASSHOLE IN
my office. I stand by my theory of breaking him, but I seriously regret my choice of placement. I can
hardly tell Kris to move him now, though. He’d just bring up all the bullshit about getting rid of him
again. I don’t know what passed between those two, and the twisted part of me wonders what the
outcome would be if I tossed them in a ring together with no rules.
Doubtful either would come out, but I bet it’d be a fucking amazing fight.
My mind wanders back to Sin’s comment about living by his rules. Coming from anyone else, that
would’ve sounded cheesy as fuck, but coming from a monster like him, I believe it. A man who sets
his own moral code and actually sticks to it? Sounds like a useful kind of person, to be honest. I
wonder if I can figure him out? If I can use him somehow?
I perk up a bit at that before I realize I’m, again, ignoring the task at hand. Apparently, even
moving to a different office isn’t going to help. I sigh and lean back in my chair, rubbing my eyes.
I don’t know why I untied him earlier. It was a stupid decision, even with the pistol I’d kept at my
side the entire time. I won’t deny wanting a sneak peak of what was inside his pants either. I wasn’t
disappointed.
I may not have a ton of sexual experience, but I have enough to dream of that magnificent snake
pounding me into oblivion.
Shaking my head, I try to dispel the thought, my thighs clenching together with need.
I need to get my head back in the game and stop letting him distract me, especially now.
Grabbing my phone, I hit the speed dial for Kris.
“Wondered when I’d hear from you,” he answers.
“Come to conference C, now.”
He ends the call without responding, and a few minutes later, strides into the room.
“You look like shit,” is the first thing he says.
“What happened last night?” I ask without preamble, in no mood for his bullshit. Kris watches my
face as he takes a seat opposite me. It pisses me off how unfazed he looks, how he looks to me for
signs of weakness. He was there that day with the dogs the same as me, but somehow, it didn’t leave
scars like mine. I suppose because what happened that day was my fault in the first place, but you’d
think he’d have some kind of feelings about the loss of his youngest brother. Even if it was a long time
ago.
“We got it cleaned up. The son’s auction finishes in two days, put a high bid on the mom, and no
one will outbid for that ugly old bitch, so I think we’re good.”
“Has the team finished clearing Henry’s house?”
He nods. “Nothing else was found. Looks like whatever he was trying to do, he didn’t get to
finish, and he didn’t take anything from here.”
“One bit of good news, at least,” I mutter. “Alright, keep me in the loop. I want this shit cleaned
up and off my fucking plate, got it?”
“You do realize security is supposed to be my job, right?”
My eyes narrow at him. “Then do your job better.”
His jaw clenches as we glare at one another. I know how much he hates taking orders from his
little sister, but he can suck up that macho bullshit right now. Henry never should have been able to
get even half as far as he did. I don’t know why the fuck Kris is off his game lately, but he is. Security
is lacking, he’s prying into things that aren’t his business. He’s getting sloppy. My eyes fall to his arm,
still in a cast.
Between the shit with Henry and then whatever happened with Sin, the cast is a clear reminder
that I have no clue what’s going on in my head of security's mind right now.
Turning my attention back to the papers in front of me, I rifle through a few before looking up at
him.
“I’ll have the last of the target acquisition details for the shipment in a few days,” I change the
subject. “Will you be up for it?”
I nod at his arm, and his jaw tics as he rises.
“Send me the lists when they’re ready,” he responds through gritted teeth. I wave him off and pick
up my phone. I feel his glare on me, but after a moment, he stalks off. Well, fuck him. If he doesn’t
want me to ask if he could handle things, he should fucking show he knows how to handle them.
Family can be trusted, to a point, but only to a point. Vasily taught us to trust no one.
“Trust no one but yourself, Galina,” he would say. “The rest will rape your corpse for a ruble.
Look after yourself, no one else.”
The old bastard was a fucking psycho, but there were a few select lessons I’m grateful for. That
being one of them.
Kris may be my brother, but if he’s starting to crack, he'll get the same treatment as everyone else.
Cutting loose the weak links is the only way I’ve managed to maintain this place, and even family ties
won’t fuck that up now.
Placing my cell on the table, I lean back in my chair and close my eyes. Hannah will be here soon,
and until then, a moment of rest sounds perfect.

“HOW MANY MORE?” I ask through bleary eyes. I slept maybe three hours last night, and that was
before the incident. Dogs will forever and always get under my skin, and the sight of the mother and
son torn to pieces haunted my mind all night. Now that it's almost dinnertime, I feel myself fading
quickly.
“Seven or so,” Hannah replies, quickly counting the folders in front of her.
“Okay,” I say through a yawn. “Let’s just get this done. Pass me another.”
She hands me a folder, and I flip it open, leaning my chin against my hand as I read.

Stacey Woods
Age: 36
 Morality: innocent
Occupation: data analyst
City: Los Angeles

I LOOK THROUGH THE FILE, noting the ex-husband who put out the call for poor Stacey. Sucks to be her.
If she had money, I may have contacted her with a counteroffer and grabbed her ex instead. As it
stands, the hundred thousand dollars for her is not a sum any single-mom, data analyst would be able
to come up with.
I don’t hesitate to stamp Approved on the file then toss it along with the others for Kris and his
team to acquire.
“Are you okay?” Hannah asks. I blink before looking up at her, my eyes burning with fatigue.
“What do you mean?”
“You seem a bit off today. Anything I can do?”
I give her a small but grateful smile. “Just exhausted after last night,” I tell her, and she nods,
turning back to her pages. I watch her a moment longer before grabbing another folder.
Almost done.
Then it’s time to drug myself enough so I can actually sleep.

Name Fenty Bottega

Age 41
Morality: not innocent
Occupation: sex worker/dancer
City: Rio de Janeiro
CHAPTER 9
GINGER

“DO YOU THINK WE ’ LL EVER GET OUT OF HERE ?” I ASK, MY VOICE SHAKING AS DMITRI PREPARES THE
strips of cloth. Steam rises off the fabric, and I hiss through my teeth when he places them on my
back.
“Sshh, hold still,” he scolds, ignoring my question completely. I do as I’m told and keep still,
even though my back stings where he places the bands. At least these are welts and not cuts. The
cuts take much longer to heal, though the welts tend to hurt for just as long anyway.
He places the last one then sits back to survey his handiwork.
“Much better,” he says with a small smile. Despite the situation, I find myself giving him a
small smile in return.

MY EYES OPEN , but otherwise, I remain unmoving, staring at the darkened ceiling. Dmitri’s smile
hovers at the front of my mind. There was a specific smile he always wore whenever he fixed
something, whether it was one of us or a squeaky door or an appliance ... He was always in his
element when he was fixing things.
I don’t particularly like how much I’ve been dreaming about my childhood lately and wonder
what’s triggered it. It’s not like this job hasn’t always been stressful, though I suppose the past few
months have been more trying than usual. The contracts and governments hanging over my head are
never far from my thoughts, but I push them from my mind as I bring a hand over to the side table and
grab my phone, quickly pulling up my calendar.
“Shit,” I mutter as my eyes scan the day. I quickly dial Hannah, still laying in bed.
“Morning, ma’am,” she answers on the first ring.
“Have my breakfast sent up to my room. I’ll be eating up here today.”
“Done,” she replies only a second later. “Should I come get you before your meetings?”
“No, you keep working on getting me the rest of those names for the acquisition team. I’ll come to
you once I’ve finished.”
“Anything else I can do?”
I think about it for a second and realize I’m going to have to have someone tend to Sin today, too,
if I want to keep him locked up without him becoming a corpse. A slightly insane idea occurs to me,
and the corner of my mouth turns up.
“Actually, yes. I’d like you to move the meeting room.”
“To?”
“The other office.”
 I can almost feel the hesitation rolling off her, and I smirk to myself.
“No need to do much prep, a few extra chairs, and switch it on the schedule.”
“Done,” she replies after another beat. “Anything else?”
“No, that’s all for now.”
I end the call and sigh, putting the phone back. Meetings with clients all morning … one of my
absolute least favorite parts of this job. At least with the board members, I can, to a degree, be
myself. But the ruthless and savage people who make up our clientele is another story completely.
They do not fear me, not like they should. I get begrudging respect from some, but many of them
despise me as much as I do them. I hate having to suck up, fucking having to sell CASH-ULTY as
though we aren’t the best of the fucking best in the market.
You want a body, in pretty much any shape or condition, you come to us. Simple.
For many years, we managed to keep my identity a secret, or rather, my gender. A way to get us
off the ground better without the sexism involved. It worked, too, until a leak several years ago
revealed that a small, red-haired woman was head of the largest international human trafficking
organization.
You’d think running this place as well as I do would demand some respect, but it's a constant
uphill battle.
The board is behind me one hundred percent. At least, these days. They see how well I take care
of business, and their bank accounts reflect it fairly. Those who work close to me are paid and paid
well, never given a reason to look elsewhere for a paycheque.
Though we are the best, that doesn’t mean we don’t have competition. And today’s meetings will
determine several large contracts that I would be delighted to hold. The only problem is the people I
generally need to meet to be able to get those contracts and how I will convince them that we are the
best way to go.
The corner of my mouth turns up at the thought of how my ‘office guest’ will be received by the
clients. Obviously, I’m hoping that keeping him in there will benefit me. After all, I can’t torture
prospective clients in order to gain fear and respect, but I can show them the ills of those who do
wrong me.
Already in a better mood than when I woke up, I swing my legs over the side of the bed and head
to my bathroom for a shower.
CHAPTER 10
SIN

ANOTHER TWELVE HOURS OR SO GO BY. OR THAT ’ S WHAT MY MENTAL CLOCK IS TELLING ME. AFTER A
few hours, I was able to calm myself enough to doze off, so at least I’ve had some sleep. Still, my
body is starting to feel the effects. Luckily, my mind is as sharp as always.
I hear footsteps down the hall, but not the trademark sound of heels. When the door opens a
moment later, there’s a pause before several individuals enter and start moving around the room.
Furniture is moved, something dragged or pushed in. The smell of food, some kind of cheese and
something sweet. Coffee. My mouth salivates, but I don’t move.
Breakfast for the bitch, perhaps?
I guess it’s about twenty minutes before the click of her shoes tells me she’s arrived. More
movement around me, the sounds of people leaving, then finally, the door shutting.
I hear her get closer until I’m sure she’s right in front of me. I feel the bag begin to slip off my
head then squint my eyes against the light. With narrowed vision, I look up at her. She’s wearing a
fitted suit, and her makeup is darker and heavier than usual. There are several chairs in front of her
desk that weren’t there yesterday.
“I have several meetings today,” she tells me without saying anything else first. “They will be
held in here. If you keep your mouth shut, I will reward you after. Do you understand?”
I bare my teeth at her. She crosses her arms and says nothing.
“What am I, a fucking dog?” I grit out, turning my head to spit.
A smile curves her lips, and she bends down so she’s crouching at eye level with me.
“No, you’re a prisoner. My prisoner. And if you listen, do as I say, then I will give you something
you want. Food, perhaps? A few hours without this?” She holds up the bag, her smile growing as I try
not to show the longing I feel for both of those things. “I thought so.”
A knock sounds at the door, and she stands back up, turning to the door before looking back at me.
The threat in her eyes has lightened, and she almost seems to hesitate before reaching forward to put
the bag back on me. I hear her voice close to my ear and imagine I can feel her breath through the
burlap sack.
“Just stay quiet, please,” she whispers. I hear her heels against the floor, making me think she’s
back at her desk.
“Come in,” she calls out loudly. The door opens a moment later followed by the sound of several
people entering the room.
“Welcome, gentlemen. Please, take a seat,” Ginger greets from my left.
The low murmur of several male voices has me tensing, one of the voices vaguely familiar.
“Mr. Huntske would like to know what this is about,” someone says with a thick German accent.
Unfortunately, it doesn’t belong to the voice with the voice I recognized.
 “Mr. Huntske, I assure you this is an unrelated matter that you need not concern yourself with,”
Ginger responds. The German voice repeats her words in German.
“Stupid woman, risks her own security to show off,” a voice I do recognize replies in German.
Huntske? That name doesn’t ring a bell, but aliases are common in our world. I happen to know
Ginger speaks German, along with a good half-dozen other languages, yet she says nothing.
The German man starts barking in his language.
The other man clears his throat then translates. “Mr. Huntske requests you remove the covering
and take your … this person, elsewhere during our discussions. Otherwise, he will not be able to
proceed.”
I smirk, wishing I could see the look on the ginger-bitch’s face right now. I wonder why she
thought doing this in front of me was a good idea, but considering the entertainment value of simply
listening, I’m hardly going to complain.
What’s the woman is playing at, keeping me here? Her reputation and what I’ve seen would lead
me to believe she’s smarter than that.
For a moment, no one speaks, and I imagine her squirming in her seat.
“Meister Huntske,” she begins, her voice pleasant sounding. “You reached out to us because we
are the best. My security the best in the world, my methods unbeatable. If you care to question either
my methods or my in-house security, then you’re free to walk out.”
Beneath the bag on my head I smile at that and resist the urge to chuckle as the other man, who
obviously is a translator, repeats what Ginger said in German.
“There have been rumors of difficulties handling some of your clients,” a new voice says.
“Does this look like I’m having difficulty?” she replies, and I imagine her pointing in my
direction.
“This is highly irregular. Mr. Huntske requests at least this person's identity be revealed,
considering it is his business being discussed here as well.”
I don’t realize I’m holding my breath until she replies.
“Fair enough.”
A moment later, the bag is ripped from my face, the lights somehow even brighter than before. My
eyes water as I force them to stay open, looking at the men I’ve been listening to. There are four of
them, all well dressed, but one in particular stands out. My eyes fall on him. He looks familiar, but I
can’t recall where from. His eyes widen when he sees my face, and I know he recognizes me.
I narrow my eyes. Who is this man who knows me? Is his the voice I recognized?
“Now that I have catered to your whims, gentleman, can we get down to business?” Her voice has
a hard edge to it.
For a moment, I think the man who recognizes me is going to say something else, but he turns his
attention back to her, looking a touch paler. The others dart occasional glances my way, looking away
before turning back to Ginger.
I have to hold back from smirking when I realize what the fucking cunt has done. Whether they
know who I am or not, she’s done well, effectively showing her dominance over a man who looks
like me. Calling their bluff and telling them to walk out.
I’m not positive who these men are, but I can only imagine they are clients of some kind. My mind
races to recall who the one German is, where we may have met, but I come up blank. I keep my head
down, my eyes downcast, and I don’t move. This is a time for listening and for silence.
CHAPTER 11
GINGER

I HAVE TO KEEP MY JAW FROM CLENCHING AS I WAIT FOR THEIR REPLY, NOTING MR. HUNTSKE' S
reaction to Sin. If not for needing these contracts, I’d probably be calling Kris in to tie the old
German fuck down and torture information from him on Sin and his history. As it stands, I need to
focus on what’s happening.
If they try to walk out on this deal….
Mr. Huntske meets my eyes but has trouble keeping my gaze. I watch his pudgy face, the weak chin
just another indicator of his overall deficiencies. These rich men think they are so fucking powerful
yet can hardly meet a woman’s eye. I give him a questioning look, and he clears his throat, turning to
his translator.
I suppose I could tell him I do know German, but where is the fun in that?
People have been underestimating me since the start. You’d think with the stories about me that
they’d learn, but alas, no one believes someone who looks like me could actually be smart, much less
ruthless.
I see the translator and the other squirrely man he’s with darting glances at Sin who has been
suspiciously quiet this whole time. Looking out of the corner of my eye, I take in his posture, so
different from what I’ve become used to from him. Rather than the tension and confidence that’s
usually exuding off the beast, he looks more like a whipped puppy right now with his shoulders turned
in and his head bowed.
I bring my attention back to the men in front of me.
“Mr. Huntske has a list of names he requests be reviewed.” The skinny man hands over a thin
Manila folder which I take without looking at it, placing it on the desk in front of me.
“Reviewed for…?”
The translator repeats my question, then the German frowns.
“What does she mean? What kind of place is this that doesn’t even look over the targets before
agreeing to a contract!?”
The corner of my mouth turns up, and I look at Huntske.
“The kind of place that knows it can handle any target, for the right price, of course,” I say to him
in perfect German. The man's eyes widen, and I stand.
“Mr. Huntske, you came to me because I am the best, yet you’ve insulted me, more than once,
during this conversation.” This time, I speak in English, looking at the translator pointedly so he
knows to translate for me. The man flushes then begins repeating my words. I don’t wait for him to
finish before I continue.
“We are already aware of your requested targets and will take the job, however, the price will
now be double.”
 Huntske rises before the translator repeats this, and I smile as I was already aware the man
understood English. Idiots.
“That is outrageous! I won’t pay it.”
I shrug and gesture a hand toward the door. “Then I think this conversation is over.”
The fat man's face turns slightly purple, his eyes bulging and teeth clenched. To his credit, he does
meet my eyes this time, though it’s clear that its anger giving him the strength to do so. When he
doesn’t move from his spot, I smile, sitting back down.
“That’s what I thought. Now let's take a look at the contract, shall we?”

HANNAH LEADS them out a few hours later, and it isn’t until the door closes behind them that I drop the
face I’ve been forcing. Sighing, I walk back over to the desk and look at the time. Damn, it got late
fast.
Four meetings, starting with Huntske, but I got every fucking one of the contracts.
Calls for a drink, right?
Leaning over, I start to pull out a bottle of vodka before pausing, my eyes finding their way to the
man chained across the room from me. He is looking directly at me, making no effort to hide the fact. I
can see his finger twitch against his thigh in a nervous tick, the hunch of his shoulders betraying the
desperation I’m sure he’s feeling.
Sitting back in my chair, I take him in. The words catch in my throat, but I manage to say, “Thank
you for not making that harder on me.”
The corner of his eyebrow twitches, but otherwise, his expression doesn’t change.
I chuckle, bringing my hands to my face before rubbing.
“Fuck me,” I laugh, shaking the bottle in my hand. “I need a better drink.”
I stand up before kicking off my heels and padding across the room in my stockings to the small
liquor cabinet. I bend over and rifle through the bottles until I come up with a bottle of bourbon.
Parker Heritage, one of my favorites. Vasily used to criticize the stuff, but I’ve always had an affinity
for it. I start to pour a glass before pausing and grabbing a second.
I down my own and refill it before taking the second glass and walking over to Sin, stopping a
few feet in front of him. He doesn’t seem to take his eyes off me the entire time. I hold up the glass.
“A small token of thanks,” I tell him, hesitating only a second before stepping up to him. Even
chained and seated, I’m only at his eye level. Heat seems to radiate from his body, and I smell a hint
of sweat and something vaguely metallic.
Our eyes meet, and I see hate and lust shining through. I raise the glass, never letting my eyes
leave his. After a moment, he tilts his head back, mouth open.
With care, I pour a mouthful of the amber liquid, marvelling at the contractions of his neck. I’ve
never been so close to a man so large. His muscles seem to have muscles, and even though his body is
scarred and flawed, to me it’s somehow infinitely more attractive than the cliché, smooth male body.
Giving him a moment to swallow, I find my other hand coming up behind his head to support it
while I repeat the action. He tenses at my first touch but relaxes into my palm, finishing the last of the
whiskey. His hair feels coarse in my hand, and I resist the urge to grab it, pull it back, and use my
mouth to give him his earned reward.
His head lowers to look at me, and we’re close enough I feel the hint of his breath on my face, the
scent of whiskey still floating in the air. He gives the tiniest nod, almost imperceptible.
“You’re welcome.” My voice is quieter, more breathless than I’d like, so I clear my throat.
Turning, I put the glass down then grab my own while I get my bearings, my body still tingling from
just the proximity of him.
You’d think large, scary men would be the last thing I’d want given my past, but go figure. It’s the
pretty ones who hurt me the most. Men with charming smiles who know how to pretend and to lie.
The monsters you don’t see coming.
I may not know Sin’s story, but enough of it shows on his skin and on his face. He’s a man to be
feared and a man who knows pain. Anyone with eyes can see that.
I think back on the day and the varying reactions of the clients who came and went. I left Sin’s
hood off after Huntske. Although it was probably unwise to let Sin see the clients’ faces, I don’t
expect to let him go to make use of the information. And I will admit that it was useful to have him
here. Every man who walked in here took one look at the giant chained up in the corner then at little
old me in my Dolce & Gabbana suit and smarted right up.
“You used me,” his rough voice says from behind me, interrupting my thoughts. I turn around
slowly, leaning back against the bar.
“I did.”
He nods as though appreciative of the acknowledgement.
“Will you do it again?”
At this I hesitate.
“I don’t know,” I reply honestly, not having gotten that far. He nods again as I take another sip of
bourbon.
“Did it bother you? You could have made that a lot harder on me,” I acknowledge, and I swear I
see the corner of his mouth turn up for a split second.
“How? Curse and call you a cu—”
The look on my face gives the warning not to use that word again, and his eyes twinkle with mirth
as he looks down at the chains.
“These ones aren’t electric,” he says. “And that doesn’t count as calling you a cunt. All I said was
that I could have done that, but I didn’t.”
I sigh, putting my head in my hand. I really don’t like that word.
“Why didn’t you then?” I ask through my hand, already exhausted by this conversation.
“It wouldn’t have helped,” he replies. “It wouldn’t have made anything harder for you. Those men
were all pissing themselves at the thought of being the one chained up in your office. If I’d gone off on
you, it wouldn’t have changed that.”
“And?”
He shifts, jangling the chains, but he doesn’t respond. I note his posture, the tension in his
shoulders and neck no less than before.
“Maybe something to do with this?” I ask lightly, nodding at the bag. I watch his face closely,
noting the tiniest micro-expressions, including the ones he tries to hide. Moving across the room, I
grab a chair then pull it until it’s placed a few feet in front of Sin, sitting down and putting my elbows
on my knees with my drink still in hand.
“One of those men knew you,” I say, a statement not a question. His nostrils flare. I look down at
the glass, swirling the liquid inside.
“Will you tell me who you are?”
“I have given you the only name I have.”
 I sit back in the chair, crossing my legs.
“I could toss you back in the dungeon, keep the bag on your head and let you rot for a few months
and then ask, you know.”
His jaw clenches, and I smirk, taking another sip of my drink.
“I’m still considering it,” I warn him. “But I acknowledge that you helped me today.”
His eyes are on mine, but still, he says nothing. It's hard to imagine fear in a man like this, but the
threat I made isn’t an idle one. I know that one thing that will break even the strongest of people is
enough time alone in the dark.
Sighing, I walk back to my desk and grab my cell phone, dialing the security number as opposed
to Kris directly. I don’t need his bullshit right now.
“I want four of your best men brought up now.” I click the phone shut before typing off a quick
message to Hannah. I don’t look up as I type.
“I will give you one hour to eat and use the bathroom, free of chains. Under guard, of course.
Don’t fuck it up, and I’ll consider not letting you rot in the dark,” I warn. His eyes burn with hate, but
he nods sharply.
“Good.”
CHAPTER 12
SIN

I’ M NOT ENTIRELY SURE WHAT TO THINK ABOUT TODAY AND WHAT I LEARNED . THE THOUGHT OF
something to eat and time without the chain … I’m ashamed at how excited I am.
Fucking hell, I am turning in to a fucking dog.
I shift my shoulders to relieve some of the tension while I wait. It could all be a ruse, too. For all
I know, I’ll sit here and wait, and no one will show. Would be a nice and sadistic thing to do. The
kind of thing I’d do.
A part of me doesn’t doubt that she’ll toss me in the dungeon if she doesn’t find out who I am, but
for some reason, I don’t think she will. I see the way she stares at me, the curiosity and intrigue. She
isn’t going to let me out of her grasp. I just need to figure out how to use that. I’m close, but not close
enough for what needs to be done.
The sound of heavy footsteps approaching has me looking to the door. Four men walk in followed
by a blonde woman carrying a tray. The woman looks vaguely familiar, and I wonder if I’m just
cracking up. I’m usually so much better with faces. She doesn’t even look at me, just brings the tray in
and puts it on a side table nearby before turning to the four men.
“Let me know when it's done,” is all she says before walking out. I watch her leave, her tiny ass
not nearly as fun to watch as Ginger’s. When she’s gone, my eyes dart back to the men.
Everything in me screams to take them down and get the fuck out of here, but I’ll fail my real
mission if I do. And that is not an option.
Considering how today went, this may be the best way to stay close and get my opportunity to do
what needs to be done. The thought of even pretending to be a fucking slave or prisoner is sickening,
but Sin does not fail.
Breathing heavily through my nose, I resolve to let the men go unharmed.
A meal will strengthen me, and tomorrow is a new day.
CHAPTER 13
GINGER

MY EYES LOOK OVER THE NUMBERS FOR THE MILLIONTH TIME, CONFIRMING I HAVE IT ALL RIGHT . THE
names run through my mind, occupations and ages and guilt. So many names.
I have one day’s grace from meetings before I'm back to it. I wish to fuck there was someone else
I could send in my stead, but I don’t trust anyone. Kris wouldn’t dream of even filling in for me, he’s
far from a diplomat and knows it. He is the muscle, the suspicious mind who watches our backs and
rains violent vengeance down on those who step the wrong way. And me… Well, we all play to our
strengths, and apparently, selling souls for cash is mine.
If the job coming up goes well, I won’t have to deal with the sleazy fucks who comprise our
clients ever again. The entire company will change shape.
Happy with the numbers, I grab my things and leave the meeting room to start heading down to the
office. It isn’t until I’m halfway there that I realize I’m heading for the office Sin is being kept in, and
more importantly, that I want to. I slow my steps as I consider this.
I have no real reason to go there, beyond perhaps morbid curiosity.
I assume his ‘treat’ went well last night, otherwise, I would have heard about it.
If nothing else, I need to stop by to put the bag back on him. Perhaps he’s earned his right not to be
shipped off to a deep, dark dungeon yet, but I am far from done. Until these jobs are done, he needs to
fuck off and stay out of my head and my space for another few weeks.
The bag keeps him quiet, alone in the dark with his memories and fears. It’ll make him break if I
give it enough time. I’m sure I’m right about his triggers. Another thing I’m rather good at.
I also need to make sure his file isn’t in the auction pile. It wouldn’t do for some insane rich
keener to decide they want to play with the big boy before I’m through.
Pleased with my decision and justification, I set off at a faster pace.
I click on the lights to, of course, see him staring directly at me as I enter.
As always, I’m amazed by the sheer size of him. He must have washed his face last night because
the dirt and grime are less, only serving to highlight the scarring there. The one scar down his face is
quite deep and looks old, almost silver in the light.
I raise my chin a touch then make my way over to my desk, putting my hand on the burlap bag.
“I have a proposition for you.” The gravelly sound of his voice gives me the slightest shiver that I
hide before turning slowly, not letting my surprise show. I cross my arms as I sit on the edge of the
desk.
“I saw what you did yesterday. It was smart, actually.” The surprise in his voice is evident, and I
have to resist the urge to bristle. He straightens up, looking into my eyes.
“I have no other name to give you, and even if I did, I wouldn’t. You know this. You know you
can’t break me. But you don’t want to get rid of me either.”
 I look down my nose at him. “I know no such thing, actually,” I reply, pushing off the desk and
strolling toward him. “I think you underestimate me.”
The corner of his lip twitches. “And you underestimate me.”
I shrug, turning back to my desk. Fuck it. Dungeon it is.
“A challenge has never deterred me. As a matter of fact—”
“Let me help you instead.” He interrupts.
I pause, placing my hands on the desk with my back to him when he interrupts me.
“How can you help me?” I ask, my voice steady.
Some people may have laughed at such a thing. A man in chains, offering to help as though he was
in a position to do so. That’s how so many make mistakes, though. Sin was wrong about one thing: I
underestimate nothing. I look for opportunities anywhere and will hear out the craziest plan, because
sometimes, that's what needs to happen. I also know that every man has his limit, even a hard and
scarred man with a name like Sin.
That doesn’t mean I won’t listen then still I toss him in the dark to break him.
“The man yesterday, the German one,” he says. I do turn around this time, my eyes narrowing.
“What about him?”
Sin shifts, causing the chains to clang lightly. “I wasn’t sure at first, but I don’t forget faces. He’s
with the American government, and if I’m not mistaken, the Department of Home and Human
Services.”
I look into his eyes, seeing no lie in them. My teeth clench.
“How could you know that?”
“I’ve seen him before.”
My jaw tics as I consider my options, my mind racing. I pull out my cell phone and dial Kris.
“I need you to put eyes on Huntske immediately. Yes, the client. Keep it subtle. I’ll be calling back
for a pickup soon.”
I click end then type out a fast message to Hannah telling her to pull up PCD, but this time to use
reverse image tracking instead of Huntske’s name. If he’s part of an organization like the HHS, there’s
sure to be something.
I don’t say anything, not looking up from my phone while I wait. A few minutes later, it buzzes,
and Hannah confirms it.
“Fuck.” I mutter, quickly forwarding it to Kris. My phone rings a moment later.
“Pick him up?”
“Yes,” I reply. “Get it done quickly and quietly.”
I click end again and put my phone down, barely able to keep my hand from shaking.
The entire time, Sin says nothing.
Our eyes meet and I can’t read what I see in his. Turning on my heel, I walk out.
CHAPTER 14
GINGER

I WASN ’ T TERRIBLY SURPRISED WHEN IT TOOK NEXT TO NOTHING TO BREAK HUNTSKE. OR I SUPPOSE I
should say Jansen. Lying fuck. Just the threat of pain was enough to have him sobbing like a child and
spilling all he knew. Pathetic.
I got in my piece before I left him with Kris, certain he’ll get the rest of the information we need
and take care of it accordingly. Kris’s eyes question how I found out, how such a contract could have
been subverted by HHS, but I’m not ready to share with him just yet. With a nod, I leave him to it.
Later, I’ll have to finish dealing with that, but not now.
I crinkle my nose when I see the spatter of blood on my tights, certain I’ll never get the stains out.
I liked these ones, too. Usually, on days I may have to do something like this, I’d prepare a bit better. I
may love dressing in my business attire, but I also know that heels, tights, and pencil skirts make
awful kill outfits.
Sighing, I start making my way to my room to change as I consider what the fuck I’m going to do
with Sin now. I’ve let him get too close, and even though he just probably saved my ass, that only
makes this worse. Maybe I’m getting soft. The old me would take that information and stuff it up his
ass before using it then tossing him to the Butcher anyway.
Really, all it's done is make me that much more curious about his past.
He’s clearly a part of this life, this world, otherwise, how would he have recognized Huntske? He
knows me, even knows my background if the Russian he spoke to me was any indication.
Yet he helped.
He could have said nothing about Huntske. In reality, if I hadn’t found out, it could have ultimately
meant his freedom if HHS got the information.
I suppose he must have decided that helping me was the better option, gaining my favor, which
also says a lot about who he is. Normal people don’t side with the black-market organizations. So
who the fuck is Sin? And now an equally important question occurs to me. What is he? An
informant? A hitman?
I’m halfway to my room when I turn, making my way back to the office.
Throwing open the door, the first thing I realize is that I forgot to put the bag back on his head.
Sin’s dark eyes bore into me from across the room. Slamming the door behind me, I walk up to him.
As I approach, the corner of his mouth curls up, shifting the scar on his pocked yet chiseled face.
Beneath the scar, high cheekbones and the hint of what would have once been unmarked and pure.
“I take it you’re here to thank me,” he sniggers. Despite the leer, I see the tension across his brow.
Stopping in front of him, I look down at him, my eyes wandering his face, his body. I want to run my
hands down those arms, feel the muscles and scars. I turn to grab a chair, pulling it up so I’m in front
of him and we’re basically eye level.
 “Why?” I ask, and he raises a brow.
“Not how?” he questions, and it's my turn to give him a smug look.
“Shouldn’t you be happy I’m not asking how? Either you're an idiot, or you have a death wish.
Tell me why.”
His jaw tightens, and he shrugs, jangling the chains. “Death doesn’t scare me, neither does pain.”
My smile softens but doesn’t disappear, though my voice drops as I sit forward.
“Chains do, though.”
I can tell he’s trying not to react, but the muscles in his thick neck betray him. I sit back in my
chair and cross my legs.
“Tell me why,” I repeat. His eyes don’t leave mine, and I feel a flutter run through my belly. I once
thought his eyes were just black, but in the true light, the deepest of blues shows through. I find myself
lost in his gaze but see the moment he decides.
“I won’t tell you what you want to know, and you won’t let me go. Better to be a dog off a leash
than on one. I’d rather work for you than be in chains.”
My eyes narrow on him, my senses alone telling me that there isn’t a submissive bone in this
man's massive body. Telling me about Huntske certainly benefited me, and the logic may be that
pleasing me will benefit him, but I’m not buying it.
Could be fun to play along, a playful inner voice whispers.
His eyes measure me closely, waiting for my reaction.
I let my mouth turn up.
“A dog, is it?”
His jaw tightens more, and his eyes narrow, but he doesn’t respond. I shoot him a wink before
pulling out my phone, typing a rapid message to Hannah. The woman must already be used to my
strange requests because within twenty seconds she’s responded, saying she’ll have the items I asked
for down shortly.
“Excellent,” I say to myself as I click the phone off and toss it on the desk behind me. “Now while
we wait, why don’t you tell me why I shouldn’t give you to the Butcher now that you’ve helped me?”
His expression changes to a humored one, no surprise or fear that the help he gave could equal
torture.
“Because you won’t,” he tells me.
I’m going to give myself wrinkles soon if my eyebrows keep going up so often. And he really has
to learn not to push me. Time to step up my game.
Keeping the smile on my face, I sit back and wait. It’s less than five minutes before I hear a knock
at the door. Without opening it completely, I take the items from Hannah then quickly shut it behind
her.
Keeping my back to Sin, I look over them and smile to myself. Perfect.
I turn back around and saunter over to him, relishing the look of wariness on his face.
“You want what exactly?” I begin, pacing in front of him. “You say you don’t care if I kill you, you
don’t care if I torture you. You know I won’t let you go. So what is it you want? To work for me? I’ve
seen stranger methods of attempting to gain my favor, but not many. So, Sin. Why should I do anything
but toss a bag over your head and leave you to rot? The simple answer is I shouldn’t. So, here’s what
we’re going to do.”
His eyes widen as I pull out the collar and wave the piece of leather in front of him.
“You will let me put this on you. You do that, and you pass your first test.”
Sin’s jaw tics as his eyes dart to the leather then back to my face, growling as he leans as far back
as his chains will allow.
“Fuck you,” he hisses.
I laugh. “That’s what I thought.”
Before he can react or say anything further, I turn and grab the burlap bag and shove it roughly
over his head. For once, he struggles against his chains. I take an involuntary step back as his entire
torso flexes with effort, doing everything to shake the bag free.
“Fucking cunt! I’ll fucking kill you!”
I was looking forward to putting this collar on him, but with him thrashing about, it’ll have to
wait. I could call guards to help, but then another idea occurs to me.
Before I leave, I walk over to the sound system. I’ve used metal music and headphones before.
Forcing someone to listen to loud and annoying music is a fabulous form of mental torture. Something
tells me that the usual thrash metal and scream soundtracks won’t work on Sin, though.
I scroll through one of my playlists until my eyes land on one, and I snort, pressing play and
turning up the volume as loud as it will go.
A good torturess knows that pain has many forms.
“Sweet dreams, asshole.”
As I leave, the first line starts, playing loud enough to drown out Sin’s screams. I let out a light
laugh, flipping him the bird even though he can’t see it.
“Baby shark, do do, do do do do—”
CHAPTER 15
SIN

IT ’ S RARE FOR ME TO LOSE MY CALM. IN MY YOUTH, I WAS TAUGHT TO BE CALM AND TO SHOW NO FEAR.
The training I’ve done for years has helped, so it's a rare moment when I go off. I don’t like that the
ginger-bitch is getting under my skin, but I can’t deny it’s happening.
There is nothing I can do about it now, but I never should have taken this fucking contract. In
hindsight, I can now see pride got in the way of my usually excellent decision making. The contract
was thought to be impossible, take down both CASH-ULTY and its CEO, Ginger Russell.
And I’m the man they contact when there’s no one else.
A tiny handful of people in the entire world know how to get a hold of me, and it's through them
that others have bought my services. I’m the best, the unseen, the one who gets things done despite any
fucking odds.
And this is the first fucking time in my fifteen years of doing this that I’ve doubted myself.
The more time I spend around the ginger-bitch, the more I realize that the stories about her aren’t
embellished. She is one ruthless bitch, but so far it isn’t directed at me as much as I’d figured. I get
the sense something is going on in her world, something causing her sleepless nights, but not enough
for me to use. The people who hired me did it now for a reason, and I don’t doubt there’s outside
pressure.
I need to be closer.
But I won’t be a fucking pet either.
The sound of the ridiculous fucking music overwhelms my logic and makes it hard to think. I’ve
heard of varying kinds of musical torture but this is a fucking first. I’ll admit, effective.
If I had a gun, I’d shoot myself before listening about daddy fucking shark one more time.
Beneath all of this, my blood boils at the thought of the fucking leather collar she thought she’d put
on me. She must have known what my reaction would be. Didn’t take her for someone who needed an
excuse to torture someone, but it seems to me like she’s putting it off in my case. I’ve been kept
captive in chains and barely fed, but this is all so far below what I expected.
Maybe I’m getting under her skin too.
The anger rolling through me helps keep the panic at bay, the automatic response to the bag and
chains, to the music that makes me want to murder more than usual. I let it flow through me, imagining
wrapping my hands around the skinny, pale neck until her eyes glaze over. I doubt I’d be able to resist
a taste at the same time, and my cock twitches at the thought.
I need to be closer to her.
She did listen when I told her about Huntske. She listened when I offered my help, didn’t ignore
it. It was a gamble to do so, but at the same time, I couldn’t have him running off to HSS either.
The bitch is open to help. She has to be.
 I consider how much she knows of me and how badly she wants to. If she knew my true story….
I don’t hide my grin as I realize I know exactly how I can gain her trust. Shifting my shoulders, I
do what I can to relax my body and settle in to wait.
Once she comes back, and I know she will, I’ll make her an offer she can’t refuse.
CHAPTER 16
GINGER

I’ VE BECOME QUITE USED TO INSANELY LONG DAYS , LACK OF SLEEP , AND BEING HARASSED DAY AND
night. It’s part of the job.
And Murphy's law dictates that, of course, the moment I step into my steaming bath, my phone
rings. Closing my eyes, I exhale slowly before reaching over to grab the offensive device.
“What?” I snap at Kris.
“We’ve got another problem.”
“What the fuck now?”
“It’s Huntske. I mean, Jansen, he’s—”
“I thought you had that asshole sorted?” I interrupt. I hear Kris sigh on the other end.
“Apparently, he isn’t our only problem. I’m sending you a link now.”
I click the phone shut and open my messages, the link opening immediately to a video of some
kind of press conference. A pretty, middle-aged brunette stands at a podium with a large banner for
the Department of Home and Human Services behind her. My brow furrows together as I fast forward
a few minutes into her speech.

“AND WE HERE AT the Department of Home and Human Services are committed to working
alongside relevant government agencies and fellow non-profits to prevent and cease the trafficking
of human beings throughout the Netherlands and other parts of Europe. Though my husband is
missing, I have no doubts….”

MY MIND WANDERS as the woman continues to speak. Another man steps up to the podium as applause
rains down.

“T HANK YOU , Andrea Jansen, for taking the time to speak with us today….”

I CLOSE the video and put my phone down on the table, my eyes fixed on the bath bubbles slowly
melting in front of me. Despite my racing mind, my heart is still beating slow and steady. It’s not fear
that I’m gripped by so much as a need to be decisive.
 Grabbing my phone once more, I rapid fire a message to Hannah telling her to find out more about
this Andrea woman, who I can only assume is the wife of the meat bag downstairs. I close my eyes
and lean back to the tub while I wait.
Despite the hour, Hannah doesn’t disappoint, and within minutes, PDC links with Andrea’s full
background are in front of me. My frown deepens as I read until I dial Kris again.
“How the fuck did this happen?” I ask him.
He doesn’t reply immediately, and I feel anger rise within me.
My supposed head of security somehow let one of the heads of the largest international anti-
trafficking organization inside my fucking walls. What’s worse, his wife is still out there.
“Meet me at seven in my office,” I command before I close the phone and throw it across the
room so it lands in a pile of linens. Leaning forward, I pull the stopper on the tub and sigh.
No rest for the wicked.

IT ’ S 7:05 AM when Kris strides into my office. His face is severe, the angles of his cheeks more
pronounced than usual. He looks like he hasn’t slept, with dark bags under his eyes. I feel no empathy
as I narrow my eyes at him.
He looks over to where Sin is chained, the bag still over his head from yesterday. I haven’t said a
word to my prisoner since I arrived, though I see how he shifts his head as Kris closes the door.
“How the fuck did this happen?” I ask Kris again, sitting back in my chair. A muscle twitches in
his jaw as he glances at Sin, but I shake my head. I don’t give a shit about him being here, I need
fucking answers.
“He was a referral,” Kris replies with a tight voice. “Henry had been on PDC duty.”
My teeth grind together at his words as I fight to keep my calm demeanor.
“So not only did you let Henry almost get away with vital information, but you also didn’t pay
enough attention to realize that some of the biggest contracts of the year were vetted by the same man.
And you did no follow up.”
Kris says nothing, standing in front of my desk with his legs spread and arms clasped behind his
back.
“What the fuck do you do here again?”
His eyes narrow. “Watch it, Galina,” he retorts in Russian.
I dart a short glance to Sin.
“He speaks Russian,” I tell Kris in Cantonese, shaking his head.
“Why do you keep him here? Why haven’t you gotten rid of him? You think it’s smart to let him
hear our business?” he replies in the same language.
“He’s never leaving this compound, so that’s not a concern,” I say in English as I stand. Ignoring
the second question. “Huntske, on the other hand. And Henry….”
I make my way around the desk until I’m standing in front of my brother. He doesn’t flinch,
looking down at me with a straight face.
“You need to let this one go. You speak of risk then let a man like him this close to the business,”
he accuses, back to Cantonese. I point a finger up at him, and his nostrils flare, hating when I do that.
“I haven’t fucked up, not like that, not once. So why don’t you stop worrying about what I do, eh?”
“Haven’t fucked up? What about the Fatso? Smokie?”
 My teeth grind together as I lift my chin to level him with a stare. He should know better than to
use that time in my life against me. I was no more than a fucking child at sixteen when those pieces of
shit took me. One of the few mistakes I’ve ever made.
It took Kris more than a year to save me from that place, and this is the first time he’s tried to use
it against me.
In the last few months, ever since we started the process of changing the direction of CASH-
ULTY, he’s been acting strange. Since Sin’s arrival, even more so.
That he’s bringing up our history, using it against me like that, says volumes about his state of
mind.
His eyes flash with anger, but he doesn’t respond, letting me know he realizes his stupidity in
bringing that up. I purse my lips before making my way back around my desk and sitting.
“Krystof, we are about to make the biggest deal in CASH-ULTY history, so what the fuck is going
on? You never make mistakes, yet you’ve now made two in the last few weeks. I can’t have this.”
He watches me closely but says nothing. I notice how tight his shoulders are at hearing his real
name.
“Now why don’t you tell me exactly how we’re going to make sure this shit doesn’t happen
again.”

IT ’ S another two hours before I finally get Kris the fuck out of my office. I can tell he’s pissed, but
fuck him, he screwed up. I have to resist the immediate urge to grab a bottle out of my desk. Instead, I
pull out a cigarette, a rare vice of mine. Putting my feet on the desk, I light it and inhale, letting smoke
lazily drift out of my mouth.
I’m anything but calm, hoping the nicotine helps my mind slow so it can match up with my body.
Only eight more days.
If I can pull it off, all this bullshit will get easier.
Hopefully.
“Don’t suppose you want to give me one?” a ragged voice interrupts my thoughts. I look over
toward Sin, his bag facing toward me. I look down at the cigarette in my hand then back toward him.
“No,” I reply succinctly, closing my eyes and bringing it back to my mouth.
“What if I told you I could help you get to Jansen’s wife?”
I freeze with my hand in midair, my eyes shooting open and looking toward him. My eyes narrow,
and I bring my feet down to the floor, putting the smoke out in my empty coffee. My pulse quickens as
I walk across the room, yanking the bag from his head. His eyes squint, watering almost instantly at
the light.
“What the fuck game are you playing?” I practically snarl at him. “You tell me this now?”
Despite his leaking eyes, he smiles up at me, and I can’t help but let out a built-up shout of
frustration. A low, rumbling chuckle comes from his chest, and I feel something inside me snap.
I let a sneer cross my face.
I think it’s time to get some real answers from Sin.
“It’s time to play my way.”
CHAPTER 17
SIN

TWISTED AS IT MAY BE, WHEN SHE TURNS TO ME WITH THAT DEVILISH FUCKING LOOK AND SAYS SHE
wants to play, I instantly get rock hard. I don’t know how my dick think’s it’s going to get any action,
but fuck if he doesn’t want to play with her, too.
I watch as she makes her way over to the desk, an evil, little smile playing on her face while she
reaches into a drawer. My interest piques when she pulls out a knife, large and old. Some kind of
hunting knife. She looks at it almost lovingly, running a finger along the edge.
“I was taught a lot of hard lessons by hard men at a young age,” she begins, pausing her caress as
she releases a small laugh. “I didn’t appreciate most of them, still don’t. But there’s one thing I
learned that remains true.”
Her eyes look up to mine, and I feel a flicker of something. Not fear but anticipation.
I want to push her. Want her to try to break me.
My cock strains to break free, clearly loving the image of a woman with a knife.
“Do you know what the one thing is that will break pretty much any man?” she asks, strolling up to
me slowly. Once she’s in front of me, she gets to her knees and grins before reaching toward my
pants. I feel my heart rate pick up as I realize what she intends, mind racing.
I may enjoy some knife play, but something tells me I don’t want this bitch anywhere near my junk
with anything that sharp.
“You that interested in my dick, kotonyok?”
She tilts her head, her eyes on mine as I feel the tip of the blade meet my pants. My eyes narrow
on her as she drags it down, tearing through the thin fabric easily. Her eyes drop as my dick comes
free, reaching toward her. I’m about to make another comment, anything to keep her eyes on it rather
than her knife, when I notice her mouth part just a touch. The tiny expressions on her face that she
can’t hide well enough tell me exactly what I need to do.
Before she can do anything else, I push forward and claim her mouth with my own, a distraction
as my tongue forces its way into her mouth. For a moment, she seems to simultaneously freeze and
melt into it, the knife in her hand clanging to the floor beside me. I’m struck at how fucking soft she is
before she pulls back, winding up to slap me across the face.
Her nostrils flare, her tongue darting out to probe her swollen lips. I chuckle at the equal panic
and lust I see written on her face. Pressing my hips and my exposed erection toward her, I grin.
“I thought you wanted it, kuvra?” I taunt.
She practically scrambles up from her perch and all but darts from the room. Hmm.… Not quite
the reaction I’d expected. I lick my own lips, savoring the bittersweet taste of her still on me. At least
my dick is still intact.
My eyes dart down to the forgotten knife, and I smile.
Looks like it’s time to change the plan.
CHAPTER 18
GINGER

“T HESE LIPS ARE ONLY FOR ME , KUVRA . M EN WILL PAY ME WELL FOR THE PLEASURE OF YOUR VIRGIN
pussy, but these are mine.”
His lips touch mine, and I have to bite back the gag from the smell of his breath, but I don’t
move. I know the punishment for moving would be much worse than the repulsive kiss.
When he’s finished with me, I start boiling as many buckets of water as I can, eager to erase
his touch from my skin. I hiss when the water touches me, scalding hot, just short of boiling.
“Galina!” Dmitri rushes in, pulling my arms toward him to inspect the damage. His light touch
hovers over the burns before his eyes dart up to my face, taking in my bitten lip, and the bruise
forming on my cheek. His eyebrows pull down, then he ushers me to the bucket, grabbing a cloth
and dipping it in the water before bringing it up to clean my face. As soon as the first tear drops,
his hand comes up and wipes it away.
“None of that,” he tells me matter of fact, “And no burning yourself either. Come on, I’ll help
you get cleaned up.”
I sniff and nod, letting him take care of me.
“He said he was going to sell my pussy,” I whisper after a few moments. Dmitri freezes but
doesn’t say anything. After a moment, he continues his ministrations.
I think he’s going to say something, reassure me it won’t happen, but he never does.
Vasily always gets what he wants, so if he wants my lips for himself and my pussy on the
auction block, then that’s what will happen….

F ATHER’ S VOICE and Dmitri’s runs through my head, overpowering the logic and reason I try to
summon. My lips burn from Sin’s on mine, tingling at the memory. The man is rugged and unreformed.
More edges on him than most of my blades. But his lips were so soft …
One hand absently scratches the burns on my arm as I all but jog down the hallway to my room,
only stopping once the door locks behind me. Pressing my back to it, I let out the breath I didn’t
realize I was holding as I try to calm my racing heart.
That’s the second time I’ve had to basically run from Sin, and I don’t like it. I’m giving too much
of myself away, showing too much weakness. In this business, I haven’t had to worry about people
trying to kiss me. Getting laid is easy enough, but I’ve never willingly let a man put his lips on mine.
When I’ve had an itch, I’ve managed to find men easily, but it doesn’t happen often, especially these
last few years. And none of them get my lips, my kisses. Not since….
“YOU KNOW THE PUNISHMENT .” His face is solemn, set. My eyes widen.
“Please, Papa, it wasn’t his fault!” I beg him. It was only one kiss. A small token of thanks to
the butcher’s boy for the extra bread. Father barks out a laugh and points a finger at me.
“I know that, whore. It’s yours. Sold yourself for the first cock that came around, just like your
mother. That’s why you’ll pay the price for it.”

IT a long time and about half a bottle of vodka for my heart to slow. Dmitri. Vasily. Sin.
TAKES
Their faces run through my mind on a loop.
My head swims with foggy memories. I repeatedly bring the bottle up to my lips until everything
blurs from my mind completely.

I DON ’ T REMEMBER MAKING my way to bed or undressing, but when I wake it’s with a shiver over my
bare skin. The room is dark with only a small light in the far corner, and I’m still quite drunk, but I’m
aware enough to feel the prickle of eyes on me.
I scan the room as my hand drifts under my pillow toward the pistol I keep there. I hear the
faintest noise from behind me the split second before I feel the barrel against my temple. From this
angle it will be hard to disarm anyone, so I know I need to shift my body. The barrel presses harder.
“I wouldn’t move, malysha,” Sin’s voice says as the safety clicks. I push my temple into it as I
turn my head to see only the glint of his eyes and a flash of chrome in the dim light.
“You going to shoot me?” I ask sarcastically, turning just my head. “Fucking do it.”
This is not the first time I’ve had a gun pointed at my head, so if he thinks this will scare me, he’s
got another thing coming.
He chuckles, a low sound, then clicks the safety off. “No.”
With gritted teeth, I rip myself around, rolling toward him heedless of my nakedness. I grapple in
the darkness, but he’s so much more powerful than me, so the element of surprise isn’t enough. It's
quickly apparent that I won’t easily be able to get the gun from him. His laughter booms louder as he
manages to twist me around with my arm across my body, my back held tight to his chest. On my
knees, I don’t have the leverage I need to bring up a leg, and his grip on my wrist and the iron bar that
is his arm keeps my torso from moving despite my efforts.
“No security in this room, is there?” he whispers in my ear. My legs are still kicking, but he lifts
me so I’m suspended, only held up by him. I try to pull back, but his tongue darts out and runs up my
cheek.
“You’re going to die painfully for this. Regardless of what you do to me, you won’t be able to get
out of here,” I warn him, my voice more of a hiss than anything. I feel him smile against my face
before he tosses the gun to the bed and reaches behind him. I struggle against his grip and contemplate
screaming, but I doubt anyone would hear me through the stone walls.
“Who said I was trying to get out of here?”
My blade, the one I now realize I must’ve stupidly left within his reach, comes up in his other
hand, shining in the light, moving slowly in front of my face until it trails down my cheek, temporarily
stopping my struggles. I turn my head and press my skin against the sharp edge, just barely, not hard
enough to break the skin.
“Do it,” I hiss, a small smirk on my lips. He turns so we’re mere inches apart, the blade still
pressed to my face. I feel my heart speed up at the proximity of our lips and swallow deeply. As the
knife trails down my neck and chest, I couldn’t stop my heavy breathing if I tried. My entire body
feels too hot and too cold, the feeling of the blade against me setting my body alight. I can’t help but
notice the firmness of the bare chest I’m against or the hard length beneath the thin pants pressing
against my bare ass. Rage and lust course through me simultaneously. As he tenderly caresses my
nipple with the sharp edge, I can’t hold back a small moan. He chuckles.
“More afraid of my kisses than my knives?” he murmurs as he pushes harder into my breast. I gasp
as the blade cuts through, a thin line of blood trailing down between my cleavage. The air seems to
crackle between us.
I press my ass back, digging into his erection as he uses the edge of the knife to rub the line of
blood into my skin. His hips press forward, and the knife moves just a fraction away from my body.
It’s enough.
Using the tiny distraction, I wrench my wrist free from his grasp and drop my weight, twisting
away from his body. Cursing, the knife drops as he turns his own body around and grabs both my
wrists. I let out a shriek and pull back, but he only grips tighter, bringing me toward him so my wrists
are held above my head. He’s so damn strong. If I pull too hard, my wrists will break. His face leans
into mine, and I growl.
He laughs again, the moonlight shining on the burns of his face, the scar down his cheek. Not for
the first time, I notice how blue his eyes are as the light reflects off them. “Feisty. I like that.”
Stepping forward, he pushes our bodies back until my knees hit the bed. His eyes drag down my
body, and I resist the urge to twist away from his gaze. I feel blood trickle down my chest, and his
eyes seem to darken.
“Like what you see?” I taunt.
He leans forward so our cheeks are touching, his mouth beside my ear when he whispers, “Not as
much as you’ll like what I’m going to give you.”
CHAPTER 19
SIN

BEFORE SHE CAN GIVE ME ANY MORE FUCKING LIP , I RELEASE HER HANDS LONG ENOUGH TO TWIST HER
around, shoving her face down to the bed with a knee between her legs and a hand on her neck. She
once again struggles in earnest against me, and I feel my dick twitch. Bringing my head down, I bite
her neck.
Her earlier reaction told me all I needed to know about how to subdue and get close to her. I grin
at the cliché, the assassin seducing its prey, but fuck it. Lucky for me, she’s a stunning bitch, and
fucking her in to submission is no hardship.
“Don’t pretend you don’t want this, kotonyok,” I press my straining cock against the crease of her
ass. “I’m going to cut you again and make you come so hard you forget your own fucking name much
less worry about mine,” I promise her as I lean over to pick up the knife, bringing it up to the faint
light to admire it.
I’m about to lean down to trail the edge over her back when the light catches silvery scars. With
her face pressed to the bed, she can’t reach me, and her complaints are muffled as I put the knife
down.
When my finger touches the edge of the first scar she stops struggling, her breath becoming more
ragged as I trace the long lines that mar her otherwise flawless skin.
Something between us changes as I continue to trace the dozens of lash marks until they stop at a
larger, raised one on her hip. My fingers lightly touch the knotted mess.
“It was a brand,” she manages to get out. “I cut it off myself when I was nineteen.”
I pull my fingers back but don’t release her, staring at the mess so like my own.
Her marks aren’t on her face or hands. These are scars she can hide if she chooses. Not like me.
But her back shows a story I know all too well.
She hides her marks, her monster, better than me. But we are both scarred beasts in our own right.
Leaning forward, I press my hardness into her once more.
“Please don’t,” she whispers, her voice cracking and sounding small for the first time. Leaning
forward, I bring my mouth to her ear.
“By the time I’m through with you, you’ll be adding stop to the end of that sentence,” I whisper.
She doesn’t have time to respond before my hand trails up the back of her thigh. I feel her tense and
try to pull her legs together, but my knee keeps them apart. Her skin feels so smooth against the
roughness of my own. I bring my hand up to my mouth and wet two fingers before bringing them back
down, coating her with wetness.
Her body tightens as my fingers lightly move around her pussy, exploring the folds until I find the
small hardness at the top, and I press down firmly, rubbing in small circles. I have to hold back a
laugh at how she tries to bring her legs together even while her ass presses back, searching for the
gratification my fingers bring.
Continuing the motion with my thumb, I sneak a finger inside, and she lets out a muffled moan that
makes my cock jump. I managed to find a pair of pants on my way here to replace the ones she cut off
me, but now I wish I hadn’t bothered. Throbbing, my dick strains to get free.
“Not so hard to subdue, are you?” I tease, nipping at her ear as I continue my motions with one
hand.
“Fuck you,” she snaps, but the breathless quality belies the tough words.
“Thought you’d never ask,” I reply. She gasps when I pull my fingers away and struggles beneath
me, but it's weak and half-hearted. I know she fucking wants this. I’d know even if her pussy juice
wasn’t already coating my fingers, the moans she tries to hide filling my senses.
It’s a bit difficult with one hand, but I manage to rip down the new pants, my length popping free.
Using my free hand, I pump my cock a few times, squeezing to relieve some of the strain.
In the faint light, her pussy glistens in front of me as I line up to her.
In one hard thrust, I’m inside her to the hilt, causing her to cry out. I stay like that for a moment,
reveling in how tight she feels around my dick.
Still holding her neck, I start fucking her.
It doesn’t take terribly long for her cries to become moans as I shift to hit the spots I know will
make her fucking crazy. Closing my eyes, I lose myself in her sweet fucking pussy until I feel her start
to shift beneath me.
She twists around, and I keep my hand on her neck, pinning her down but letting her turn to face
me. Her hands come up to my wrists, digging into the tendons though she doesn’t really try to pull it
away. I grin when fire and lust stare back at, the tight skin of my cheek rising.
I don’t stop, don’t think I could if I wanted to.
I can feel it coming, harder than ever before. Satisfied she isn’t struggling any longer, I bring my
hand from her neck and grip her hips as I pound her hard, my fingers digging into her skin. My eyes
shut for only a moment as I lose myself to the sensation. She shifts, and by the time I open my eyes, the
blade is in her hand and against my torso. I gift her with a beaming smile and keep my grip on her,
pressing myself deep inside. I feel her twitch around me as the knife presses harder against me.
Keeping my eyes on her, I bring my hand across to hers and wrap it around, pressing it down until
I feel the blade pierce my break the skin. Warm blood trails down my side, and her eyes widen.
Letting go, I lean forward, smiling even wider as I see her confidence waiver.
Her eyes are fixed on mine, so she doesn’t see my finger drag through the blood until I bring it up
to her face, painting it around her perfect, O-shaped mouth. Her eyes get even bigger, and she starts to
pull back, seeming to forget about the knife in her hand. Her tongue darts out, catching a hint of the
blood, and my dick feels like it gets even harder.
My face moves a fraction closer, and I whisper, “You can take my blood and pain any day.”
My lips smash down onto hers, and this time, she meets them with equal fervor. The knife drops to
the bed once more, then her pointed nails find my shoulders, digging in deeply as her legs wrap
around me.
As I slide into her waiting depths, I feel my balls begin to tighten. My hand wraps around her hair
and pulls tight, but her moans only get louder.
“Harder!” she cries out, and I oblige, slamming into her with renewed vigor. Her skin is flushed,
her breaths heavy in my ear. Pulling her closer, my hips piston into her until I feel her begin to twitch
around my cock.
“Don’t stop,” she warns as I feel myself start to explode. Keeping my grip on her, I bring one hand
down between us to her clit and pinch lightly. Ginger screams her release, dragging mine out as her
sweet pussy milks me for all its worth.
We stay entwined, panting, my heart beating a mile a minute in my chest. It isn’t until our eyes
meet that the predator in both of us rises to the surface. Entangled, we both dive for the fallen knife. In
most cases, I’d have no problem overpowering her, but when we both get mixed up in the sheet and
thump heavily to the floor my breath rushes out of me as her bony ass falls on my chest.
We scramble for another moment until my hand falls on the hilt. I turn to her at the same moment
she finds her pistol. Still naked with her legs still wrapped around me, she points the gun at my
forehead. A smile curves my lips as my hand flexes over the blade, the test in her eyes more than
enough encouragement.
“Do it,” I tell her, repeating her words from earlier.
Her arm is steady as is her gaze. My eyes fall to her swollen lips, a touch of red on one side. She
stays still except her tongue which darts out to catch the bead of red. I feel my dick twitch against her
leg, and much to my amusement, her face reddens, though otherwise, she remains impassive.
“Why did you come here?” she asks, the pistol still on my forehead. “You could have tried to get
out, but you came to my fucking room. Why?”
“Maybe I just wanted to fuck,” I reply crassly, and she squints at me before dropping the pistol.
“I’m sure,” she replies dryly, standing up with an elegance I don’t know how she possess after
that fuck. If she’s still walking, I didn’t do good enough. I wonder if I can subdue her long enough for
round two….
Her body is long and pale in the moonlight as she rises, the pistol still in hand at her side. My
eyes roam her form appreciatively, but I don’t move from my spot as she makes her way across the
room to the small bar there.
She comes back and hands me a drink before sitting in a lounge chair opposite me, crossing her
legs with her own cup. The pistol rests easily across her lap, a less prominent but still very real
threat.
“How’d you get out anyway?” she asks as she takes a sip. When I hold up the knife she left behind
and wave it lightly, she actually smirks.
“I must be losing it,” she shakes her head, making me chuckle.
“If it makes you feel better, I could have gotten out even if you hadn’t left this,” I tell her,
immediately regretting my words when her eyes narrow on me. I wait for her to ask why I didn’t
sooner, but perhaps I did fuck the smarts right out of her because she only shrugs and takes another sip
of her drink.
I take a sip of my own drink to distract me, savoring the warmth as the whiskey rushes down my
throat.
It’s during the second sip when I notice the faint, bitter taste on my tongue. Something other than
the whiskey.
“You cunt,” I manage before everything goes black.
CHAPTER 20
GINGER

HIS MASSIVE FRAME HITS THE GROUND WITH A THUD . I DON ’ T MOVE TOWARD HIM FOR SEVERAL
minutes while I finish my own, non-drugged whiskey. I’ll give credit to Sin for his break-in and for
managing what he did, but he’s still your typical male idiot. Distracting him with my body for mere
moments was all it took to drug him.
My brain whirls while I sit here, deciding my next steps. The unfamiliar ache between my legs is
a constant reminder of what just happened. My tongue touches the side of my mouth, the tang of
copper and light swelling another reminder.
“These lips are only for me, kuvra.”
“Shut the fuck up,” I tell the unwelcome voice before sighing, looking back at Sin’s prostate form.
“What the fuck am I going to do with you,” I mutter, tossing my glass to the table beside me.
I consider my options.
The fact that Sin was able to get out of his chains, out of my office, and actually found my room
speaks volumes about him. He’s an idiot for not trying to escape, but the fact that he was skilled
enough to do what he did tells me he probably isn’t a complete imbecile. Not completely anyway.
Whatever the case, yet another major security oversight has happened in a world where even one
is too many. Krystof is fucking up when I need him on his game the most.
Family or not, I’ll cut ties if I have to.
And then there’s Sin.
I can’t decide if I want to use him or kill him.
I’d use him without hesitation if there was any possible way I could trust him, elicit loyalty, but
without his story, I have nothing. It’s in our past that cards are held, truths are told.
I need to find out Sin’s story once and for all.

IT TAKESme almost two hours to get Sin downstairs.

Fortunately, I run an organization that specializes in the transportation of people, yet not all of my
staff are large, strapping men equipped to do the job. It takes some stealth and maneuvering, but I
manage on my own with numerous tools to assist.
My instincts have seldom led me astray, and right now they are screaming at me to find out what I
can from Sin without Kris’s interference or his men. And of course, there’s my other guest who may
be able to enlighten me that much further.
Once I have the truth, I’ll deal with Kris. Until I’m sure I can trust him and his judgement, I do this
alone.
I wipe sweat from my brow and look down at my handiwork, the two men trussed up and chained.
Huntske is in a fucking state, but there’s a chance I can still get something out of him.
Sin stirs slightly in his sleep, a light groan telling me I don’t have much longer to wait.
“Wake up,” I kick Huntske’s foot. “It’s almost time.”
The man’s head lolls to the side, but other than that, he doesn’t move. I frown, crossing my arms.
Sin starts to moan again, but the sound is cut off, a slight jangle of his chain telling me he’s awake
even though his body stills. Ignoring him, I look back to Huntske, who looks nothing like he did a few
days ago. His skin would be white if not for the blossom of bruises and blood covering it. Along with
his fingernails, it looks like several teeth are missing, and the faint smell coming off him tells me
something on him is beginning to rot. My nose crinkles. Usually, we would not let someone get this far
gone. I don’t doubt Huntske has spilled what he knew to Kris already, so why is he even still alive?
I may be a torture artist, but I only torture when I need to. I’m not a sadist; I get no joy in others’
pain. However, the rush of power in having someone under me is something I won’t deny.
Turning back to the small medical bag I brought, I rifle through the glass vials.
“The fucking whiskey,” Sin’s voice mutters behind me. I snigger but don’t turn around.
“You should know better,” I admonish. “Ahh, here!”
I turn around with the vial and a syringe and give Sin a small smile. His eyes land on the vial and
there’s a sound of warning in his throat. I give him a wink.
“Don’t worry, this one isn’t for you. You’d like that way too much,” I inform him, moving over to
Huntske. I get the syringe ready before injecting it into the passed-out man.
“What is it?” Sin asks.
“I’m actually quite proud of this one,” I tell him while I put away the supplies. Huntske groans
and I raise my voice. “It’s a special compound I helped create that will help, how do you say, restore
people.”
Sin darts a glance at Huntske who is chained up, too, though clearly less than himself. Where
Huntske has bars over his ankles and hands, Sin is strapped down from neck to toe. Without me, he
isn’t getting out. Unless he actually is fucking Houdini or something.
“I’m not too worried about him getting out,” I wave, and Sin actually looks amused at that, though
with his neck chained to the chair as it is, he can’t move his head.
I sit back and watch as Huntske begins to wake up.
“It’s like giving someone a huge line of speed or meth or something,” I explain to Sin. “Enough to
get them going for a while, but just a while. Ain’t no drug that can fix this mess. But it does allow for
certain things, and time is all I need right now. Time and information.”
I turn back to Sin, walking up to him slowly with my eyes on his. Once in front of him, I bend so
we’re at eye level.
“I will find out your story,” I tell him, my voice sure and calm. I nod toward Huntske. “He knows
you, so I’ll find out what I can from him. He’ll be easier to break than you. But even still, I can’t trust
rumors, and that’s all he’ll give.”
“Wo bin ich.” The corners of my lips turn up when Huntske starts moaning in German, yet I don’t
turn to him.
“And whatever you may think, I can break you,” I continue to tell Sin. “That would take time,
though, and that’s one thing I don’t have. Or rather, I’m an impatient bitch. I like instant gratification.
So, Sin, will you tell me your story?”
“Let me go,” Huntske sobs behind me in English, and I roll my eyes.
 “Shut up,” I boom as I turn and backhand him in the same motion. His head bobs, and his sobs
continue, but he stops talking.
“Wait your turn,” I continue, pointing a finger at him. Huntske’s eyes dart to Sin then at me, wisely
shutting up. I look back to Sin. His eyes are dark, burning into mine, and mine burn back, imploring
him.
“I’ll make you a deal,” he finally says through gritted teeth.
“I hardly think you’re in any position to make a deal.”
“No chains,” he says.
“Why the fuck would I agree to that when I can get your story anyway?”
His head pulls forward a fraction of an inch, as much slack as the bar on his neck will allow. His
eyes sear into mine.
“You and CASH-ULTY are about to be fucked on all sides, and you fucking know it, you feel it
coming. Your security fucking sucks, and you need me. Beyond that, I know you fucking want me,
too.”
CHAPTER 21
SIN

IT WAS A RISK.
Getting close to her, gaining her trust, means revealing more about myself than I ever wanted. I
should have expected it, though. At the end of this all, she was always going to find out who I really
am. This just means I have to reveal a bit more a bit earlier to keep the whole truth from her. Give her
a little to avoid giving her a lot.
“Ask him who I am,” I nod toward Huntske. Ginger’s sharp gaze turns to him, and the coward
fucking pisses himself. The sting of urine hits my nose, but I don’t react. He’s only serving to help my
story.
Huntske looks between Ginger and me, and though I’m chained up, I still see fear in his eyes when
he looks into mine.
“Tell her!”
Huntske whimpers and looks to me once more before looking up at Ginger.
“I don’t know his name, but I’ve heard of the man so covered in scars he looks more beast than
human. They say … they say he’s the best hitman in the world because no one knows his name or what
he really looks like.” My nose turns up in disgust as tears leak from the man's face.
Ginger, looking unimpressed, turns back to me.
“Really? That’s it?”
My lips thin, and she sighs, turning back to Huntske. She leans over, looking into the man's face.
“What else do you know?”
The man starts sobbing, saliva and snot running down his face. Ginger steps back slightly with a
grimace on her face.
“Fucking pathetic,” she yawns. Turning back to me, she waves in the broken man’s direction.
“That tells me nothing,” she says. “You’ll have to do a whole lot better than that.”
My nostrils flare as I watch her, considering my next words. I need to be careful, give something
without giving too much. I also need her to think it’s her threats getting me to talk. If she realizes she’s
falling in to my plan, it’s all over.
I swallow visibly and watch her face out of the corner of my eye as I speak.
“I was in a bad accident when I was seventeen,” I begin. “A lot of my scars were formed that day,
though I don’t know exactly how or what happened because I hit my head. I remember the accident but
nothing before. When I woke up, I had no memory of my name or prior life.”
So far, the truth.
Ginger watches me critically, moving slowly toward the extra chair between Huntske and me. The
other man whimpers from his spot, and I can see him fidgeting out of the corner of my eye, but
otherwise, he stays quiet.
 “A man found me,” I tell her, my voice quieting. “He … wasn’t a good man, but he was a man of
his word. When he found me, he told me he would teach me to be a real man and to get vengeance on
those who’d wronged me. I barely made it through his teaching, but by the time I was healed, he had
done what he promised, and I was a man no one would cross. He’s the one who gave me the name Sin
when I began to heal. Said my survival, my existence, was clearly a slight against God, but that he had
already made the promise to help me grow and would stick to it.”
My mind takes me back briefly to that hut, the days spent in the cold while training. The aching
scars that covered my body as they healed. The scar on my face feels tight as I continue.
“I killed my mentor because he was also my captor.” My eyes meet hers, and I wait for the
judgement, surprised when I see none. “That was my first solo kill. The rest … this asshole has told
you enough. I work for a select few, and few know my name or who I am. I am Sin and no more.”
My eyes watch her closely as I wait to see if she accepts my story. There’s enough truth in my
words that even someone good at recognizing deceit should be fooled. I don’t doubt she’s looked in to
me, tried to find me. She won’t, though. I’ve had the best of the best to make sure that I am
untraceable, especially for people like her.
The wheels in her head are turning as she watches me, and I wait to see what she’ll do. It feels
like a long time but really is probably only minutes before she stands up then walks over to the
medical bag, pulling out a gun and a blade. She steps up to me and looks me up and down before
bringing the gun up and pointing it at my forehead.
“If you try to fuck me over, you’ll wish it was as easy as a bullet to the head,” she says, her tone
matter of fact. I try not to show my surprise. Instead, I give a terse nod, or as much of one as I can
with the bar across my neck. My eyes widen as she pulls a key from a chain on her neck, tugging it off
and releasing one of my hands before placing the key in my hand and taking a step back, the gun
pointed at me the whole time.
My eyes don’t leave hers as I use the key to unlock my neck then my other hand before my feet.
The tension across my body loosens as the last manacle falls, my chest instantly feeling lighter.
I stand to full height and crack my neck, looking down at the tiny woman in front of me. I’m at
least a foot taller than her and weigh probably three times as much. Still, the 1911 in her hand would
take me down if she used it, and she has the space, and I wouldn’t doubt, the skill. But that won’t get
me what I want.
Crossing my arms, I wait to see what she says.
A slow smile curves her lips as her eyes roam my massive frame. A whimper from Huntske has
my eyes looking over to him briefly before looking back at Ginger to see a sinister gleam in hers.
She tosses the knife at my feet before nodding to Huntske.
“You want to work for me? Start by taking care of this one.”
I lean down and grab the blade in my hand, flexing my fingers around the hilt. It feels familiar in
my hand, a welcome weight. My eyes meet Ginger’s, and she gives a short nod, stepping back.
That’s the confirmation I needed.
My body thrums with the thought of impending bloodshed, making my dick harden. With no
clothes, he juts out in front of me proudly, shame something I’ve long since grown out of.
I turn to Huntske who somehow manages to pale even more, his eyes scanning the grin on my face,
my rock-hard dick, and the blade in my hand. My scar stretches as my smile widens, and I take a step
toward him.
I don’t say anything as I get to work, the only sounds his shrill screams and the steady dripping of
blood.
 Using the edge of the blade, I start by peeling away the skin on his face. Using the hunting skills I
learned as a child, I do it carefully, separating the membranes around the edges. I remember when one
of my older brothers taught me so many years ago. The knife she’s given me isn’t the zipper or
skinning knife I’m used to, but it’s sharp enough that I manage to make it work.
Once I’ve gotten the edges sliced, I carve around his eyes then peel them back, using the small
point of the blade to separate the remaining threads clinging to the skin.
The entire process only takes minutes until I manage to get the majority of the skin off his face and
stand back to survey my work.
Huntske’s screams roll over my skin, a background symphony of pain. The ragged breaths, the
cascade of blood rushing down his chest, all show me that he’s weakened but not done.
“Impressive,” Ginger comments from behind me. “What next?”
I turn to her. “Want to see something fucking cool?”
She looks a bit surprised but nods.
She nods toward the piece of skin in my hand, and I shrug, tossing it to the floor with a loud splat.
“I don’t have my usual tools for this, so bear with me.”
I ignore Huntske’s pleas as I move around him, deciding how best to begin. After some
deliberation, I decide to keep him sitting. Stepping up to him, I bring the blade down on the skin of his
chest, pushing enough to separate the skin from neck to belly. His screams pierce my ears, but I don’t
stop, keeping the pressure steady.
It’s here I’m in my element.
Using my hand as leverage, I use the knife to saw up through his breastbone, careful not to
puncture his heart, lungs, or anything else. Can’t have it over too fast.
It’s an art, pressing in just the right amount.
“Most people don’t realize that our ribs actually want to point outward. The only reason they
don’t is because of this.” I tap the bone in my chest. “Our breastplate keeps it all together.”
The knife is good quality, but it’s not the bone saw I need, so by the time I’m getting to the end,
I’m sweating from the exertion. Only a small piece of breastbone keeps the man's ribs together when I
turn to Ginger with a devilish grin.
“Watch this,” I tell her, slamming the knife up in a hard motion. The plates part, and his ribs
explode outward. I let out a laugh as the man’s insides are exposed, blood and bits of skin flying out.
His screams rise to a fever pitch, and he throws up on himself, the offending substance oozing down
his exposed chest. The screams get louder as the acidic bile touches his insides, and I turn back to
Ginger.
As I expected, she looks more impressed than disgusted and waves a hand at me.
“Too fucking loud, take care of it,” she tells me, practically yelling over Huntske’s screams. I nod,
immediately jamming the blade into his open chest.
CHAPTER 22
GINGER

I DO MY BEST NOT TO SHOW ANYTHING ON MY FACE BUT CAN ’ T DENY HOW TURNED ON I AM RIGHT
now. You are one fucked up bitch, I think to myself.
It isn’t the blood that gets me going, but seeing Sin in his element like this, the passion and power
he commanded while tearing Huntske to pieces … fucking artwork.
I’m not stupid enough to believe he’s told me his whole story, but there was enough truth in his
words to satisfy me. They do say keep your enemies close, and while I’m not sure if Sin is friend or
foe yet, I know I can’t do anything but keep him close.
Watching him standing there, blood splattered and naked with a dick as hard as steel, I have to
remind myself why I’m here. Now that I can see him standing at full height, I realize his body is even
more scarred than I’d realized.
My eyes scan the array of marks, everything from burns and thick knotted scars, several that look
like some kind of bites. There aren’t more than a few inches anywhere I can see that aren’t marred.
While he’s insanely muscular, he doesn’t have that model physique, that pretty boy look to him.
There’s fat and muscle and scars and burns, and fuck me if I don’t want to run my tongue over all of it.
“Unless you’re gonna do something with this, can I have some pants?” He nods to his still hard
cock, and I feel my cheeks redden as I force my face to remain impassive. The gun is still steady in
my hand, though with how skilled he was with that knife, I don’t doubt he could kill me just as quickly
with that even if I shot him. Maybe I’m a fucking idiot, but I don’t think he will. At least not right now.
I nod my head toward a chest at the side of the room we keep rags in.
“Grab something from there for now.”
I get a quick nod before he stalks across the room, and I can’t help but tilt my head to the side
when he bends over to open the chest.
He must do squats.
My legs press together in an attempt to circumvent some of the pressure building. I feel my clit
twitching along with my heartbeat and exhale deeply through my nose.
He turns back to me with pants on, the outline of his dick still obvious. I keep my eyes on his and
motion toward the knife he’s picked back up.
“You know how to use that,” I admit.
“I do.”
I look at him with obvious appraisal.
“Why do you want to work for me?”
“I told you, better a dog off a leash than on one,” he answers quickly, and I narrow my eyes before
something occurs to me. My lips tilt up as I put a hand on my hip.
“So you want to see your new leash then?” I ask, and he shifts on the spot, probably remembering
the leather collar I tried to put on him before.
While humiliation is a strong tool, this time I have a better idea, and I think a demonstration is in
order.

I MAKE him give me the knife before we left Huntske to the cleanup crew, but I now know he wouldn’t
need it to put me down anyway. One of his hands could probably quickly squeeze the life out of me.
Fuck, I wish he’d try.
“In here.” I lead him through the building, ignoring the guards we pass. We get more than a few
looks, but no one in here would dare question me. Except Kris, but I happen to know he’s occupied
elsewhere.
We make our way to the labs, a place I only visit occasionally when there are new toys for me to
play with. I like toys. Whether it's experimental drugs and compounds, unique equipment for captives,
or simply higher technology security, the men I have working these areas are some of the best in the
world.
I’ve managed to employ and keep loyal some of the top people in varying fields, but it's no fluke
and due to more than just money, although that’s part of it. There are two main things I’ve had to
maintain since gaining power and starting CASH-ULTY, both of which were early life lessons.
The first is that a well-paid man who is treated well will seldom, if ever, look elsewhere. My
men are paid well and want for nothing. Those who work within the fortress that is CASH-ULTY
have well-kept apartments, cars, and anything else they could need.
The second thing I learned is where you can rule by respect and loyalty, do so, but if you can’t,
fear is a perfectly acceptable substitute. Eliciting fear as a small redhead hasn’t been an easy feat, but
one I’ve managed.
I doubt there is a sum I could offer that could buy Sin’s loyalty, and no one gains genuine respect
without time and earning it.
So that leaves me with one thing.
“I grew up without much,” I tell Sin as we walk. “I didn’t even see a television for the first time
until I was almost a teenager. Since then, I’ve been fascinated by technology and its possibilities. Ah,
here we are.”
I stop at one of the doors and push it open, moving aside to let Sin in. He steps in, his eyes
roaming over the large expanse of the room.
While most of the building maintains the facade of the old fortress, these rooms are top of the line.
Crisp, clean, white surfaces are everywhere, and though there’s no one working right now, there are a
few desks in a side room with various projects laid out. I make a mental note to come visit later in the
week to see if there are any updates on the new transportation units.
I move into the middle of the room and stop, turning to look into Sin’s face.
“Will you do what I say?”
When he hesitates, I plant a hand on my hip.
“That’s how this works,” I tell him. “You work for me means I’m trusting you. So I ask you again,
will you listen and do what I say?” After a minute, I get a concise nod in return. I smile and turn to the
desk behind me, reaching in to grab one of my most prized items. I pull it out, lightly caressing the
small device.
“Do you know what this is?” I ask Sin and see him shake his head out of the corner of my eye. I
open the small, plastic container attached to the bottom and pull out the small device, holding it
between two fingers. To the eye, it looks like a tiny computer chip, but when I see Sin’s eyes narrow,
I know he has some idea what it is.
I take the chip and place it into the device, clicking it in.
“Turn around,” I tell Sin. He hesitates again but complies a moment later. I step up to him and
flush as I realize he’s too tall for me to reach.
“Ummm, kneel,” I tell him, and he chuckles as he gets down on his knee. The muscles across his
back are tight with tension when I place a hand on his shoulder, readying the device against the back
of his neck.
“This will sting,” I tell him as I pull the trigger. He doesn’t react, not even a small hiss, though I
know it didn’t tickle. I run my hand over the small implant, smiling before I step away. Pulling out my
cell phone, I open the app that is keyed to me alone and activate the small mechanism now implanted
into Sin’s skin.
Sin’s hand comes up to touch the spot.
“Fucking tracking device.” he scoffs. “This is your leash?”
The mockery in his tone doesn’t bother me.
“Something like that,” I reply, not letting my pleasure bleed through my tone. “Come on, we have
one more thing to do.”
I stalk out of the room without waiting for him to follow.
When we enter the security room for the acquisitions, the two men sitting watching the monitors
straighten.
“Good evening, ma’am,” one of them says. I look over them both, neither man I know well, and
nod approvingly at their show of respect. I despise being called ma’am, but at the end of the day,
these men are showing me both the things I desire from my subordinates: respect and fear.
I feel rather than see Sin step up behind me. One of the men’s eyes widen before he quickly looks
back to me.
“Gentleman, I need a subject,” I tell them without delay. “What do you have for me?”
They look at each other then start talking in hushed voices before one clears his throat, looking at
me.
“Umm, ma’am, I, uhh, I mean, we—”
“What is your name?” I interrupt.
“Uhh, Michael,” he answers, flushing slightly.
“Michael, I require someone who has tracking with a low acquisition cost and no bids.”
Michael straightens up with a nod, turning to a tablet beside him. He scrolls down the list of
prisoners before his finger lands on one.
“Two seventeen,” he tells me. “Would you like us to get him?”
“I’d like you to take him from his room and let him out door nine,” I tell Michael who looks at his
counterpart then back at me.
“Ma’am?”
“Are you questioning me?”
“No ma’am,” he replies quickly, scrambling to his feet. I watch as he grabs his keys then heads
down the stairs into the dungeon. I gesture Sin to the now empty seat who ignores me and crosses his
arms, standing behind it to stare at the screens.
We watch as Michael makes his way down the rows of cells until he gets to the one in question. I
grab the list and look quickly at the name and stats of the man he recommended. Perfect.
 I turn my attention to Sin rather than the screen, watching his reaction as the prisoner is taken from
his cell in chains then led down through the dungeons. They go offscreen and Sin turns to me.
“What is this?” A frown crosses his brow.
“Just watch over here,” I point to another screen showing outside of door nine.
“Pull up the tracking app,” I tell the other guard who immediately complies. A moment later, a 3D
image of the building pops up with small dots littering the screen.
“Narrow to two-seventeen,” I instruct, and the man does it, leaving only one little dot on the
monitor as Michael and the prisoner step back into view.
I see them talking as Michael removes his chains. I resist the urge to laugh at the prisoner who
looks like a scared rabbit, wanting to maintain a façade for this demonstration. Michael motions to the
prisoner again after he opens the large steel door.
“Watch,” I tell Sin as the prisoner hesitates once more before darting through the open door.
Michael has wisely taken a step back. The prisoner isn’t two steps outside the compound before the
explosion hits, and he falls to the ground, his head all but evaporated by the strong bomb placed on
his neck.
I nod my approval. I’ve always loved how those work. So efficient.
“Come on,” I tell Sin, walking out and heading back toward my office, his footsteps close behind.
“If it leaves the compound, it detonates,” I tell him over my shoulder. “If metal touches it or if it is
tampered with in any way, it will detonate. I will know where you are at all times. If you piss me off,
I can detonate this with a press of a button.”
I turn to look at him, surprised to see that even upon hearing this, his face remains impassive.
Shrugging, I continue on until we get to the east wing, stopping in front of one of the doors.
“You can stay here,” I tell him, gesturing to the door. “I don’t need to tell you again what happens
if you try to leave.”
Sin looks at me before stepping up, so I have to look up to see him. Despite my urge to step back,
I don’t. The corner of his mouth turns up.
“Maybe you should come tuck me in.” He leans down, and I fight to suppress a shiver at the
feeling of his breath on my ear. “I swear, I’ll be a good boy.”
My thighs clench, but I manage to let out a scoff, pushing his chest yet getting no movement from
the immovable stack of muscles.
“Down, boy,” I tell him, though my body is screaming at me to give in to him as I step away.
He grins and gives a mock bow.
“As the lady wishes.”
I don’t move until he goes into the room, closing the door behind him.
The tension in my own body releases as soon as he does.
I’m not sure if I just made an incredibly smart or stupid decision, but there’s no more denying that
Sin calls to me. Something about him pulls me in, and while I won’t be sucked in by any fucking man,
gaining a loyal lapdog with skills like he has is something I can get onboard with. I could use more
fucking like that, too, I think wryly.
CHAPTER 23
SIN

THE ROOM SHE GAVE ME IS THE NICEST I’ VE HAD IN YEARS , AND IT MAKES ME FUCKING
uncomfortable. I almost wish she had put me back in the dungeon. Without the chains that is.
I’ve spent so much of my life on the run in shitty dive hotels or hiding out while on jobs that this is
so outside my element.
The shit I’ll do for a fucking job.
My hand comes up to my neck, and my nostrils flare.
I wasn’t expecting the implant, but it’s fine. Once Ginger is taken out, I can remove this easily
enough. I don’t know the exact date, but I imagine it’s only a few weeks until the big job they’re
working on happens, and once it does, I can take the next steps.
Until then, I’ll be her fucking dog.
CHAPTER 24
GINGER

P ULLING OUT MY CELL PHONE, I BRING UP THE TRACKING APP AND FILTER IT TO A FEW SELECT PINS
within the compound. There are many pins, but these are ones only I have control over.
In the room I assigned to Sin, I see the small dot moving back and forth. I imagine him pacing the
room, eager to get out, and it pleases me. Zooming out, I watch another dot as it moves down the hall
toward me before there’s a knock at the door.
Predictably, he doesn’t wait, entering before I reply. I don’t comment, flicking off the app and
putting my phone to silent.
Kris closes the door behind him before sitting across from me.
“You’re back,” he says, holding a steaming mug in hand. “You finally get rid of the liability?”
“No, I employed him. He’s got a room down the hall,” I reply smartly, chuckling to myself when
he sputters into his cup. His eyes narrow on me, and he slams the cup down.
“What the fuck are you getting at, Galina?”
“I know enough of his story to satisfy me, performed my own tests. He’s got his tracking chip in,
he isn’t going anywhere. May as well use him,” I explain, unsure why I’m even doing so. I’m aware
that keeping Sin at all is dangerous without knowing why he’s here, who he really is, and I wonder if
I’m justifying it to Kris or myself.
I mentally shrug. No regrets, I silently remind myself.
Kris brings two fingers up to the bridge of his nose and squeezes.
“You know, if I’m supposed to be security, to keep you safe, I can’t really fucking do that if you
ignore every bit of advice I give.”
“I don’t know what you mean, brother dearest. I always listen to your advice,” I tease, and he
glares at me.
“Get rid of him.”
“No.”
Our eyes meet, a battle of wills between us, but Krystof knows that I get what I want. In the past,
he’s never felt the need to step out of place so why he is now is beyond me. It’s been a long time since
anyone has been able to take any decision from me, family or not. I want Sin, and I’ll fucking have
him, consequences be damned.
“If security is still your concern, you can look in to him further for me. I’ll forward you the
information I do have. I wouldn’t mind more information.”
“My job is to keep you safe.”
“And to do that, I need information.”
His jaw is still tight as he replies. “And if it turns up nothing?”
I shrug. “Then I keep him close anyway. What’s that shitty saying about enemies?”
 “You’re too stubborn for your own good,” he grumbles, and I smile, knowing that's as close to
acceptance as I’ll get from him.
“Enough about that asshole,” he continues. “What’s the update on order 622?”
I nod, pulling out some papers from my desk.
“Hannah and I finished everything, it’s all set to go. Names, places, times, all of it.”
Kris nods, leaning across to grab the papers before he starts looking through them.
“Anything noteworthy I should be looking at?” he asks.
“Just make sure you familiarize yourself with the new coolers they’re requesting we use so there
aren’t any fuck ups on the day. Apparently, they’re better for storage or some shit like that.”
Kris’s head bobs absently as he closes the folder, looking at me directly.
“What else?”
My brows knit together. “What do you mean, what else? That’s it.”
He sits back in his chair, the folder held loosely in one hand as he watches me.
“I know you, Galina,” he says, the name once again making me bristle, “Something’s been going
on with you. What is it?”
My jaw clenches shut, and he sighs, reaching his hand across the desk toward me.
“We’re family, trust me.”
“Since when did family count for anything?” I ask bitterly.
“Since we’ve been through all we have.” His voice is softer than I’ve heard in a long time and for
just a moment, I remember who he was when we were children.
Despite myself, I feel a small crack inside my black heart. I bring my hand out to his, clasping
tightly.
“I don’t know,” I finally admit, my head dropping. “Maybe it’s just dealing with all these clients
lately, but I keep thinking about … things.”
“What things?” he presses. I shift in my seat, unused to having this type of conversation with
anyone, even Krystof.
Shrugging, I reply, “Vasily, Dmitri, when we were apart after that. Just ... all of it.”
Kris nods as though that makes perfect sense.
“They’re all long dead,” he states the obvious, not knowing that after all these years, I still feel
that scarred heartache where Dmitri held my love.
“You think he’d approve of what we’re doing? Where CASH-ULTY is headed?”
Kris gives me a strange look, squeezing my hand before releasing it and pulling back to lean in his
chair. “Since when do you care about what others would think about this? You know I don’t judge
you, right?”
I give him a wry smile. “It was only ever him.”
I don’t fail to see the hurt on his face before there is a knock at the door. Kris shoots me a look
before going to the door, opening it.
The change in his posture immediately gives away who is on the other side, tension forming
across Kris’s body.
“Get the fuck out of here,” he demands, and I have to resist laughing.
“Let him in, Kris,” I order from across the room. He stands there a moment, straightening his
spine before he throws the door open and Sin steps in. He barely glances at Kris which I’m sure only
infuriates him further, instead walking right up to my desk.
For the first time, I’m seeing him in somewhat normal clothes, jeans and a black CASH-ULTY
shirt we left out for him. Somehow it looks stranger than the expanse of scars I’ve gotten used to
seeing. Sin smirks as he takes in my inspection.
“Like what you see?” he goads, and I roll my eyes, turning my attention back to Kris.
“I’ll catch up with you tomorrow.”
His features darken before he turns, walking out with the door slamming behind him. Sin’s smirk
grows as he points a thumb toward the door.
“Don’t think he likes me much.”
I snort a small laugh. “Sit down, asshole.”
To my surprise, Sin listens without any more talking back, leaning forward on his knees in the
chair Kris just occupied.
“So, boss, what’s on the docket?”
I give him a questioning look at that. “Boss?”
He shrugs, a light smile playing on his lips.
“Well, subordinate, I have some things to do. And honestly, I don’t know what to do with you yet.
So for now, just shut up.”
He chuckles, giving me a small salute.
“Got it.”
I roll my eyes, turning my attention back to the documents in front of me.

DESPITE THE FACT I should be reviewing these numbers for the board meeting tomorrow, my mind
can’t help but wander. What the fuck should I do with the unknown and dangerous man sitting across
from me?
I wonder if Kris will be able to find out any more about him. When the man is motivated, he can
return amazing results. I don’t doubt it’ll be the same with this. And when I do find out who Sin really
is, who raised him and where he came from, then what? Will my interest be gone with the mystery?
I shrug internally. Doesn’t really matter. If I get bored, I’ll do what I’ve always done and either
sell him or give him to the butcher.
My eyes wander over to him, frowning as I take in the look on his face.
“What the fuck are you smiling at?” I snap, and his grin grows.
“You were just thinking about me.”
I feel my cheeks heat up but ignore it, narrowing my eyes at him.
“Can you shut the fuck up for even five minutes?”
He stifles the laugh and tries to straighten his mouth, nodding with as serious of an expression as
he appears to be able to muster. I groan and turn my attention back to the reports, my cheeks still on
fire.
“You know,” he interrupts only seconds later. “I’m not a moron. I could maybe help you with what
you’re working on.”
I give him a wry look. “And how do you have any idea what I’m working on?”
He shrugs. “I know there’s some big contract you’re working on.”
My eyes narrow on him, but he continues. “I’m not a fucking idiot. Oh, and you did keep me in
your fucking office.”
CHAPTER 25
SIN

“YOU COULD TELL ME MORE ABOUT IT ,” I SUGGEST , DOING MY BEST TO KEEP MY TONE LIGHT . NOT
easy for a man like me whose voice while at its best described as gravely and rugged, at worst coarse
and unrefined.
She gives me a glance, considering it.
“Not like I’m going anywhere,” I point out, and I swear, I see a twinkle in her eye. Twisted bitch.
She sighs, sitting back and putting her hands behind her head. I can’t help but admire the long curve of
her body. I want another taste.
I push the thought from my mind and watch as the decision crosses her face.
“You know what we do here?” she asks. I don’t hesitate before I respond.
“Human trafficking.” The simple answer.
Her head bobs in confirmation. She looks at me for a moment, and I can see the wheels turning
behind her eyes.
“We offer many services, but that’s it in a nutshell. Do you know who our highest priced
acquisitions are?”
“Acquisitions,” I snort and she glares at me.
“You think there’s a better term?”
“How about human beings?”
She ignores me. “The more innocent, the higher the price tag. Not that immoral bastards like
yourself don’t go for a pretty penny, but the way we make the most money here is with innocents.”
“Does it bother you?” I ask, curious.
She shrugs. “I can’t afford to feel bad for them, and it’s been a long time since empathy was in my
repertoire of emotion. They were all stupid enough to get caught, and this is life. They pay the price.”
“Savage.”
Her jaw tightens. “I was stupid enough once, too.”
I think back to what I know of her childhood, of the years following her sixteenth birthday when
she disappeared completely before resurfacing years later as Ginger Russell instead of Galina
Pashkina. Maybe I was wrong about my assumptions of where she spent those years. From that
comment, I can’t help but wonder if she had her own stint with traffickers. Not that it makes a
difference, but interesting if true.
“What does this have to do with the contract?”
“I’m just getting to that. What do you know about organ transplants? More specifically, the need
for them in countries around the world?” she asks.
I sit forward, putting my elbows on my knees.
“Not much, but a bit,” I tell her. “I’ve done enough black-market jobs for organs before. Always
tight timelines and schedules, obviously. Not my usual bag, but I’ve been around that block a few
times. What about it?”
She nods. “Okay. And what if there was more than one organ? What if there were dozens, needing
to be collected on a specific schedule and timeline, all at once from different people? Not only that,
but specific people, organs, blood types … you get the picture.”
I sit back in the chair, considering my response. “Then that would be a bigger job than I’ve done.”
She nods again, and it's then I notice the thrum of anticipation coursing under her skin. The glow
to her face as she speaks about her contract, her job. Something she actually cares about, I muse.
“It’s a bigger job than anyone’s done,” she admits. “And it’s a job I’ve signed on for. If we can
pull it off….”
She trails off. I wave a hand to encourage her to continue.
“If we can pull it off, it’ll mean the start of a transition to organs, instead of live donors and
humans purchased purely for slaughter. They’ll be used to save others, if nothing else. Not just
innocents. There are some … political angles, too. If we do it, it’ll mean an opportunity for
legitimacy. Some higher up people willing to give us a real shot if we can prove ourselves here. We
still wouldn’t be, on paper, a legitimate agency, but we would be supplying large amounts of organs
to people who can protect us. A way into the grey, at least.”
“We?” I inquire, and she turns to me, holding her hands up.
“All of it,” she answers. “CASH-ULTY, me, Kris. It’s all the same.”
I nod thoughtfully, processing this before speaking.
“And pretty boy? What is he to you?”
Mirth sparkles in her eyes. “Jealous, Sin? I didn’t think you were the type, not that you have any
rights.”
I fold my arms over my chest before demanding, “Who is he to you?”
She looks at me a beat, presumably noting the seriousness on my face, at the question. I may be
her fucking lapdog for now, but that doesn’t happen without a measure of trust. I need to know who
I’m working with. Even though I know his past, I need to hear it from her. To know she trusts me.
“My brother,” she finally admits. “We built this thing together. I run it, he is in charge of security.”
At least she admitted it.
“And you think he’s doing a good job?” I can’t resist, and her lips tighten.
“Enough of this,” she says sharply, sitting up tall and straightening the papers in front of her.
“Whatever I decide to get you to do around here, it won’t be this shit. So, kindly fuck off.”
My mouth curves up, but I don’t say anything else, leaning back in my chair. The expression on my
face, my posture, it all shows a man who is laid back, content with riling the woman in front of him.
Inside, though the wheels are turning rapidly.
Organ transplants? That’s what this big thing they want me to stop is?
I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised. The black market for organs is bigger than most people realize
and only getting bigger. I have a strong feeling that this job came to me because Ginger is about to
step on some much bigger toes. Human trafficking is one thing, but someone else is trying to corner
the organ market and doesn’t like how far she’s getting.
I can’t help but admire the bitch for what she’s trying to do. The payout is incredibly more
lucrative for organs. After all, you can get multiple from one healthy adult, each selling for tens of
thousands. Beyond that, having some kind of legitimacy or government backing, even if it's on the
back end of things, is a huge step for someone like her.
Not that it matters or changes anything.
 After what she fucking did, there will be no mercy.
My skin begins to itch, the thought of all the bullshit politics making me uneasy as it so often does.
If not for the personal aspect behind this job, I probably would have avoided it purely to stay away
from the fucking drama. As it stands, this is the drama I need to jump in to head first.
I’m not subtle as I watch her work. Her hair isn’t pulled back today, and the red strands fall into
her face as she pours over whatever boring reports she’s looking at. The crease in her brow is the
exact same as when she was a girl….
I stand abruptly, pushing the chair away from me.
“You don’t need me?”
She frowns but shakes her head. “No.”
I turn and am almost at the door when she says, “Don’t forget, I’m watching.”
I turn to see her holding up her cell phone, shaking it lightly. I give her a curt nod before leaving.
My footsteps sound heavy from the boots she gave me as I make my way through the stone
corridors to the room she also gave me. I wish I had anywhere else to go, but right now I just need to
be away from fucking her. She’s fucking with my head. Again.
It seems that it doesn't matter how much time has passed, Galina Pashkin still gets under my skin
in every way.
I slam the door to my room behind me.
“Fuck!”
CHAPTER 26
GINGER

I WAKE UP TO THE FEELING OF A HARD BODY PRESSED UP AGAINST MY BACK. I DON ’ T FEEL ANY WEAPON ,
just the hard length pressed against the crease of my ass. In my half-asleep state, I let out a small moan
and press back.
I’m barely conscious, but my body is aware enough to gyrate against the pressure behind me,
eager for the release it will bring. I am only wearing panties, and rough hands pull them down. I
shimmy as best as I can to help, but with the hard body pressed against my back, I can barely move.
Somehow, in the darkness of the night, the forbidden touch is so much sweeter. It’s easier to forget
the world around me, to let go and give in to the temptations offered by such masculine flesh. In the
daytime, it would be too hard to give in to these desires. But here, now?
I know that sinning couldn’t feel better.
Two wet fingers thrust into me, and I gasp at the rudeness of it, though they glide in easily. The
gasp turns to a moan quickly as they expertly move inside me, pressing the perfect places.
Without warning he pulls them away, and I have only a second between him lining up his cock and
him thrusting into me deeply. I cry out as it touches deep places in me, my fingers digging into the
sheets. I try to turn my head, but a hand comes down on my neck, holding me in place as he furiously
fucks me from behind.
I feel a slow build inside me, that faint tingling of an orgasm to come.
“Harder,” I moan, pushing my ass back to get him as deep as possible. His hand leaves my neck
and grips my hips as he obliges, picking up his pace and hitting the deepest angles in me.
It’s not quite enough, though, so I’m trying to shift to get a better angle when a sharp smack on my
ass stops me. I hiss and the hand finds my neck again, pressing my face into the mattress. I scream into
the fabric as he slams into me.
There’s no finesse or love, this is fucking.
I can feel the slow build inside of me but know he won’t last long enough for me, so I snake a
hand down between my legs. As soon as my fingers find my clit, I feel my orgasm twitch inside me. I
moan as they work faster along with the dick pounding into me, and it doesn’t take long for me to cry
out as my core tightens.
My orgasm goes on as he keeps me pressed down, continuing the relentless fucking until a few
moments later when I feel his muscles tighten as he pushes in deeply, releasing inside me.
He breathes heavily but says nothing. Leaning down, he nips my neck before getting off me and
silently walking out. Laying on my stomach, I catch my breath, ignoring the sticky cum sliding down
my thighs.
I hear the door click shut and feel a strange sense of loss. Bringing my hand over, I grab my phone
and squint against the backlit screen as I pull up the tracking app. I tell myself I want to make sure he
actually goes back to his room, but a small part of me wants to just hold on to him longer. My eyes
narrow on the screen as I find Sin’s tracker, frowning as I see it’s in his room already.
I quickly pan out and scan around, my eyes widening as I watch Kris’s dot walk down the hall
away from my room.
CHAPTER 27
GINGER

I’ LL NEED TO PUT A DEADBOLT ON MY DOOR BEFORE I EVEN CONSIDER TRYING TO SLEEP .

My mind and body war with one another. I won’t deny I felt pleasure, but the feeling of violation,
of broken trust, is strong. Though the stickiness on my thighs is unwelcome, I make no move to clean
myself, lost in thought.
So many small things about Krystof are clicking together in my mind, but I can’t quite make sense
of the entire picture. The sense of unease follows me into sleep but when I dream, it’s of Dmitri, not
my oldest brother, Krystof.

M Y EYES WIDEN IN UNDERSTANDING , a flush of unwanted heat rising to my core as I realize what
Dmitri is suggesting.
“You’re my….”
“It doesn’t matter,” he whispers against my lips. “Wouldn’t you rather give it to me than have
it ripped away by him? Your birthday is only days away.”
His eyes bore into mine as he says this, and in them shines back the love he’s always given me.
Where Maxim would say I wasn’t even his sister at all because we don’t share the same father,
that’s never mattered to Dmitri. He’s always taken care of me, loved me, even though it caused him
grief with his brothers and Father because of it.
And now he’d risk his own life to save my innocence. To at least give me some semblance of
choice, at least this once.
“Don’t you…” His voice cracks, disclosing the boy beneath the man’s body. “Don’t you love
me, too?”

MY EYES open and stare up at the ceiling as the dream, the memory of that day and the consequences
of it, waltz through my mind.
If Dmitri hadn’t taken my virginity so Father wouldn’t sell it, he wouldn’t have been killed, and
maybe, just maybe, it would be a different brother standing beside me today. Or maybe I would have
been sold to a Russian husband, or as a whore like my Father always planned.
I do my best to push the past out of my mind.
Krystof and his unwelcome intrusion will have to be dealt with, but I can’t for the life of me force
myself out of bed to deal with anything, much less that.
How long has he wanted me like that? Was this just spurred by some kind of strange jealousy
because of the attention I’ve been giving Sin? Does he know Sin visited me in the night in a similar
fashion?
I frown as the years flutter through my mind like a movie. It was Krystof who ultimately saved me
from Father, after Dmitri was ripped apart by dogs due to my actions. If not for him, my fate would
have been even worse than that.
Though when you turned Krystof down and left him after everyone was dead, it was only a day
later you got picked up by those traffickers, a voice in my head reminds me. My chest heaves as my
breathing picks up.
It’s been so long now, and I rarely think about that time in my life anymore. I was taken by two
men when I was only sixteen, days after I set out on my own. I never questioned it before, but the way
I was taken just doesn’t add up, now that I know how that all works. My eyes close as I think back to
that day.

“T HEY ’ RE ALL DEAD , GALINA ,” Krystof says as he stands over me. The hot sun beats down on my
back, one of the few hot days of the year here. I look over toward the bushes where Dmitri was
attacked. The dogs already ran off, so I start to rise, but a hand on my shoulder stops me.
“You don’t need to see him,” he urges with a frown. “It’ll only make it hurt more.”
My jaw clenches, pain shooting to my temple. Thanks to Krystof and Dmitri, I didn’t get killed
or sold, but I’m not walking away unscathed either.
“Come on,” he implores, his voice soft as he tries to pull me into his arms. “I’ll keep you safe,
Galya. I’ll take care of you.”
My arms remain tight at my sides, even as my brother pets my hair and tries to hush me. My
entire body shakes with emotion.
Father. Dmitri. Anya. Maxim.
All dead.
“No!” I shout, suddenly pushing away from him. “I won’t go with you.”

I DID my research over the years and know my business. I also know that there weren’t any large
human trafficking setups around Shakhty, where we grew up. Lots of drugs, lots of illicit gambling,
and more than a little prostitution, but the kind of trafficking that I fell in to? Well … those type of
people don’t come from nowhere. They don’t just randomly start picking up young girls. Besides, at
sixteen, I was already on the old end for trafficked youth. More liability than would usually be
considered worthy. Most girls are picked up younger then broken, bred, or trained in to the life.
My eyes shoot open.
Did Krystof give me to those traffickers? Or at least set it up so I’d get picked up?
My fists clench together, my nails leaving crescent moons and drawing blood.
I spent over a year with those men who found me. Fatso and Smokie are what I called them in my
mind, pretty obvious traits for each, but they made me call them master.
Anger surges through me when I think of those assholes and what they put me through at only
sixteen.
I was so young, so stupid and angry after Dmitri died. When I chose not to leave with Krystof,
was that really enough for him to do something so drastic? And what changed to make him save me
the next year? I was so fucking grateful when he came and saved me, I never questioned any of it.
How I was caught, where I was, and why. How Krystof found me. Any of it.
Over the years, I always assumed that his possessiveness was brotherly, that he cared for me.
After that visit, I question all of it.
Were the traffickers a punishment for choosing Dmitri? For walking away from Krystof?
I know he’s a ruthless bastard, I’ve known that since he killed our stepmother when he was no
more than twenty simply because she was in the way. Still, the possibility of him being involved in
my abduction was something I never suspected.

A PANG of regret fills me at the thought that I never even got to see Dmitri’s grave. Krystof dealt with
all the bodies that day, I was in too much pain and too numb to do any of it.
I wonder if I could still find it myself.
Before last night, I would have just asked Krystof. He might have questioned why I wanted to see
my long dead brother's grave after so long, but he wouldn’t have denied me that right. At least, that’s
what I’d thought he would do.
After last night, I find myself doubting a great many things.
My phone alarm goes off, and I reach over and flick it off, confirming the date.
I exhale deeply, calming myself and pushing the rest from my mind.
Whatever the fuck is going on with Krystof has been simmering for years without me noticing, and
though I will get to the bottom of it, there are things to do first.
Two days before the big day. Today, I have a board meeting to announce the final plans and get
them on board with Project 622.
You are a bad bitch, and you can do this.
I run the words through my mind like a mantra.
It doesn’t work.
CHAPTER 28
SIN

I’ M BARELY OUT OF THE SHOWER, ONLY A TOWEL WRAPPED AROUND ME, WHEN THERE’ S A KNOCK AT MY
door. The corner of my mouth turns up, an action that seems to be happening more and more lately,
surprised when I open the door to see Ginger’s little assistant rather than her.
“Hello,” she greets nervously. “I’ve been instructed to—”
I hold out my hand for the paper she’s clutching to her chest, and her eyes widen before she thrusts
her hand out to me. I take the paper and glance over it a moment before turning back to her.
“What’s your name?” I ask, vaguely recognizing her. I recall the other day, when I first saw her….
I’d thought I knew her then, too. But for some reason, the name isn’t coming to me.
“Hannah,” she answers, a bit too quickly. “I have to go.”
She’s off before I can ask anything else. My eyes trail after her, and I wonder if Ginger realizes
that Huntske isn’t the only person she needs to be suspicious of.
When I took this job, I’d assumed the security would be better than it’s been. While it’s still a
fortress, the math, the number of mistakes is off. Too many mistakes for a woman like her. Or is he
responsible for the mistakes?
I shut the door and lock it before looking down at the paper again. I scrub a hand along my chin as
I read it, some kind of instructions from Ginger.

S IN,

I HAVE board meetings today and won’t be around. There’s a training area downstairs that you may
use as you see fit. In the meantime, I’ll have someone come take you there at 9 AM.

Ginger

I TURN my neck to crack it. Looks like it’s time to explore.

I DRESS QUICKLY, don’t waiting for someone to come get me before heading into the fortress that is
CASH-ULTY. There are a few guards who wander around who eye me suspiciously, I assume
because in the past I’ve wandered these halls unseen. Or in chains.
Other than that, I see a few other people around, doing various things like cleaning the floors, then
find myself following the smell of cooking food.
It doesn’t take me long to find the large and well-equipped kitchen. There are at least a dozen
people moving around, stirring pots and doing whatever the fuck else people do in kitchens like this.
There’s a row of maids to one side picking up trays of some kind of porridge or stew then heading
down a back staircase.
With no one paying attention, I follow behind the last one.
I’m only part way down the stairs before I realize this is the way to the dungeons, and I feel stupid
for not realizing what’s happening.
They’re feeding the prisoners.
I stay back as I get to the bottom of the stone stairs and watch as trays of food are pushed into each
cell. At the end of the room, I see empty plates pushed out, apparently the first round.
The servers continue to ignore me as I make my way down the hall, peering into the rooms as I
pass. There’s a kennel of some kind at one end of the hall that I ignore. Some of the rooms have
several people in them, usually timid looking women. Others have only one person, and there’s one
room at the end that looks to be the youth room based on the ages of those inside.
It’s clear to me that the chains and solo room I received were very special treatment.
When I look into the youth room, my eyes land on a young boy who looks to be no more than ten
or so. He has blond hair and no tears in his eyes as he looks back at me.
Gentle and loud sobs punctuate the air as I lose myself for a moment in the young boy's eyes. I see
no imploring, no request for help in his gaze. Just resignation. Acceptance.
My reverie is broken by a sound that sends chills up my spine. Though you’d never be able to tell
by looking at me, cold fear washes over me. I don’t hear footsteps over the barking dogs, but I see a
shadow before someone turns the corner.
“Shut those fucking things up!” A voice says, barely louder than the frantic animals. I steady
myself before I turn to see Krystof walking down the hall toward me, a severe look on his face.
“What the fuck are you doing down here?” he spits at me. “Get the fuck out!”
“I believe I work here now, same as you,” I tell him, and he narrows his eyes. Too fucking easy to
rile. Apparently, the years have only made him less calm.
He crosses his arms, and is about to open his mouth when his phone rings. He doesn’t take his
eyes off me as he pulls it to his ear to answer.
“Yes? Why?”
I watch as surprise and anger cross his face.
“Fine.” He shuts the phone, looking away from me.
“Get the fuck out of here. Ginger wants you in her office.”
I debate for a moment about giving him more shit and hanging around longer, but I won’t fucking
deny that I want to see her. It took everything I had not to go visit her last night.
I know I have weeks, if not days, before everything here comes to a head, and despite fucking
everything, I look forward to spending the bit of time I can with the ruthless bitch. Shaking my head, I
head up the stairs.
Fucking puppy.
CHAPTER 29
GINGER

I WALK DOWN TO THE BOARD MEETING IN MY FAVORITE OUTFIT , A FITTED , RED VALENTINO DRESS THAT
clashes with my hair and makes my skin look like it's glowing. There’s some stupid bullshit about
how redheads aren’t supposed to wear red, but I’ve always loved it. I suppose I’m a bit of a
contrarian in some ways.
With my heels clicking down the hall, my chin high, and the mantra running through my mind, I feel
slightly better. I called Hannah early and had memos sent to everyone on what I wanted them to do
today. I’m crossing my fingers that at least Kris listens. I need him out of my way, at least for today.
The disgust and unease I feel at the thought of Krystof hasn’t left me, but I’m not ready to face him.
I need to review everything with the board members and get this ball rolling.
Just two more days.
Exhaling deeply, I step into the boardroom.
“Gentlemen,” I begin, closing the door heavily behind me and making my way around the large,
chestnut table. “It’s time I made you aware of all the details of Project 622.”
There’s a buzz around the room at my statement that settles quickly. Leicester, my biggest pain in
the ass on the board, clears his throat.
“What do you mean, all the details?”
I give him a sardonic smile and continue. “I mean all the details.”
At that moment, Hannah walks in and rushes around the desk. She has a strange look on her face
as she hands me the sheets and projector clicker. I give her a nod before she scurries out, and I make a
mental note to find out what made her so skittish today.
Clearing my throat, I turn back to the table and press the clicker. An image of the CASH-ULTY
brand pops up on the screen behind me.
“For years, CASH-ULTY has been considered the best of the best in human trafficking. We take
specific orders, providing spaces for those in need, transportation for others. We’re considered the
highest end in this market. But it’s time to move out of being the big fish in the tiny pond. We need an
ocean. Gentlemen, it’s time we expanded.”

BY THE TIME I leave the board meeting, I feel significantly better. While several of the members knew
that one of my new orders involved organs, none of them knew the extent of it or what would happen
if we pulled it off.
It’s been hard to keep it to myself, and perhaps ill-advised, but I knew that if I couldn’t get it set
up right, there was no point in talking about it. Only two days until pickups, and with almost
everything in place, it was time.
Fortunately, there was minimal questioning about my delay in telling them. Instead, they were
more excited over the idea of the profits involved in this new endeavor.
“Know what language to speak to a man, Galina,” Father says as I sit on his lap. My body
trembles slightly, but I can tell what he’s saying is important, so I try not to focus on his fingers
rubbing my thigh, instead listening to his words. “Some men speak sex, they are easy. Others speak
money. Not as easy, but simple. Learn what language a man speaks, and you’ll always win a
conversation.”

VASILY’ S WORDS ring in my ears as I approach my office.

Another lesson he taught me when I was young. One I’m glad I listened to.
Pulling out my phone, I pull up the tracking app. I quickly notice that Sin isn’t in the training area
but in our acquisition holding area. And Kris is standing next to him.
I look at the two dots, Sin and Krystof, and wish I could hear what’s being said.
I wonder what would happen if either of them knew of the other's midnight visits.
The thought sparks another idea.
I exhale to calm myself before calling Kris.
“What?” he answers, his tone sharp. So Sin is getting to him.
“I need you to go to the training room. Sin is there. I would like you to send him to my office.”
I can feel the rage pouring off him at being asked to be my errand boy, but I know the language of
men. Right now, sparking some extra animosity between the two men will help me, if I can play it
right.
“Why?” he asks.
“Because I fucking said so,” I snap, clicking the phone shut. I switch back to the tracking app and
watch the dots stand there another moment before Sin’s starts to walk back upstairs. I laugh to myself.
Perfect.
I move around my desk and grab a drink, taking a seat while I wait. It’s less than ten minutes
before there’s a knock at my door and Sin walks in. I resist rolling my eyes at the familiar rudeness,
something Kris does constantly.
“Yes, please come in,” I remark sarcastically, and he looks at me with a shrug.
“You said you wanted to see me.”
This time I do roll my eyes. “Sit down, asshole.”
I see the smallest curve of his mouth as he sits in the chair in front of my desk.
“I’ve decided what you can do for me,” I tell him, doing my best to keep my voice even. Got to
play this right.
“You will be part of my Acquisition Team,” I inform him. “Working under Kris, you’re first—”
“No,” he says simply, and sneer at him even though I was expecting it.
“I thought you said you’d work for me? Do as I asked?”
He nods, his body rigid. “You, not him.”
I stand, moving around the desk so I’m in front of Sin. His eyes trail down my body, the tight fitted
red dress, and he does nothing to disguise the heat in his gaze. Licking my lips, I lean back on the
desk, placing my hands down to steady myself.
 “Just me?” I tease.
Sin rises, pushing his chair back with a loud screech. Standing over me, I’m reminded just how
massive he is. I swallow deeply, though I try to hide the way he affects me as I peer up at him, doing
what I can to maintain my confident posture.
His giant hand comes out and gently grasps my neck, a thumb sneaking out to rub my jawline. I
feel my clit twitch, a hot flush covering my body.
“Just you,” he repeats, his voice softer than I’ve ever heard it. For a moment, he reminds me of….
His lips come down on mine before I can finish the thought. Unlike the possessive kiss that was
our first, this one is sweet and sultry. His tongue moves against mine, my legs feeling weak as the kiss
deepens. A wash of warmth rushes through my body and I actually let out a small gasp as he breaks
free.
A wolfish smile graces his lips as he takes in my face and swollen lips. When my tongue darts
out, his gaze darkens. He releases my jaw and takes a step back, surveying my body.
I set this up to take control, but I’m quickly losing it and can’t find it in myself to care.
Sin bites his lower lip and nods at me.
“Take it off.”
His commanding voice sends a shock to my pussy, and I feel myself get wet.
Despite never having liked being ordered around by men, I find myself reaching to my back to
unzip the tight dress. My body moves on autopilot, eyes never leaving his as I slowly pull down the
crimson outfit.
The tent in his pants only grows as he steps back to see me better. I’m wearing a lacy black thong
and bra and am grateful I thought to match today. A low growl builds in his throat as he steps up,
grabbing me by the neck once more.
He nips at my jawline as his other hand roams down my side. I gasp when he grabs my ass, his
mouth next to my ear.
“Out there, you can be the fucking boss. But in here, right now, it’s me you’ll call master.” I find
myself nodding along, a low moan in my throat as his hand cups my breast, his thumb snaking beneath
my bra to rub against my hard nipples.
I know that to claim this man, I need to speak his language, and as much as I tell myself that’s why
I’m doing this, my body knows otherwise.
“What do you say?” he whispers, licking my earlobe.
I shiver before I reply, “Yes, master.”
CHAPTER 30
SIN

I SEE THE SLIGHTLY DAZED LOOK IN HER EYES AS SHE REPLIES , AND SATISFACTION SURGES THROUGH ME.
I had a feeling that, despite the bravado she portrays in her professional world, this is a woman who
will enjoy being dominated behind closed doors.
And I can’t wait to give that to her and make her moan my name.
What if you told her your real name?
I shove the voice from my mind and focus on the beautiful woman in front of me.
“Good girl,” I tell her, rubbing her cheeks as they redden. “Now get on your knees.”
When she looks up at me, I see that sass in her eyes. My hand tightens a fraction around her throat,
and she swallows as I gently push her down to the floor and release her neck.
My cock is straining against the tight jeans, and she only glances at me once before reaching over
to remove my belt. I reach down to her hair and tug on some of the pins there so it falls down around
her face. At the same moment, my dick springs free from my pants. The sight of her perfect, milky skin
with that fiery hair framing her face is fucking stunning, and my dick bobs in approval. My eyes fall to
hint the silvery scars on her shoulders and back, but I look back to her face, giving her a small nod.
She doesn’t wait longer before wrapping her lips around me, causing me to let out a groan.
Those red fucking nails look just as good wrapped around my cock as I thought they would. She
looks up at me with big fucking doe eyes, those tiny fingers wrapped around me, and I have to grit my
teeth so I don’t blow.
“Fuck, baby,” I mutter in Russian. I feel her stiffen for a moment before resuming her
ministrations, reminding myself not to speak any more Russian around her for now.
Wouldn’t do for her to be figuring out who I am too soon.
My hips piston toward her face, and I reach down to grip her red hair as I fuck her face without
mercy. She gags, saliva and pre-cum dribbling out of the edges of her mouth, but she doesn’t push
against me. I let my head fall back and my grip on her hair loosen, letting her control the pace for the
moment.
Her warm mouth wrapped around me feels like heaven, and with my eyes closed, I easily get lost.
My grip tightens once more, and that’s all the warning I give before I explode into the back of her
throat. Her coughs and sputtering just make it that much fucking better.
Pushing her off me, I reach down and squeeze my dick, grunting at the pain.
“Bend over the fucking desk,” I command, and she looks up at me from the ground, her mouth
glistening. The corner of her mouth turns up before she brings a hand up to wipe her face.
With grace, she stands, swaying her hips slightly as she walks around me and back over to the
desk, placing each hand on the top before turning back to give me a devilish look.
I stride forward, pressing my hips into her ass hard then pulling her neck back so she’s flush
against me.
“You ready for this?” I rasp in her ear, squeezing tighter on her neck as I reach down and squeeze
my only semi soft dick. A few strokes and the sight of that perfect ass and he’s hard again. I grind my
hardness into her. She moans, pressing her ass back against me.
With a growl, I let go of her neck. Grabbing her thong string with both hands, I easily rip the
flimsy fabric, and it falls to the floor. I watch her legs clench together as the air hits her, then I bring a
hand down, dragging it through her wetness.
“So fucking wet for me, aren’t you?”
She lets out a small mewl of approval that turns to a gasp as I press two fingers inside. Pumping
them in and out a few times to wet them, I turn her back around and press her body flat to the desk.
Dragging my fingers up the crack of her ass, I stop when I find the small star. She tenses at first, but
quickly relaxes as my fingers create steady circles around her rim, pressing only slightly. Leaning
over, I spit and let it dribble down her ass without stopping the pressure.
It only takes a minute before the tip of my finger slides into her tight ass, and I chuckle as she
gasps. Wrapping my arm around her, I lean my body over hers as I very slowly move my finger in and
out, loosening her until I can fit a second.
Putting a hand on her back to remind her to stay flat, I pull my fingers out and get to my knees.
Leaning forward, I inhale her sweet scent. Her sex glistens, and I can see the faint twitch of her thighs.
Spreading her ass cheeks, I lean in for a taste.
“Oh!” Her body shoots up as my tongue hits her, and I hum, bringing a hand up to press her back
down. She complies, and her hips move back toward my mouth, gyrating against me.
I’m sure the scruff that’s begun to cover my face will make the sensitive flesh raw, but I don’t give
her any mercy. Her pussy tastes every bit as sweet as I knew it would, and I eat her like a man
starving, my tongue assaulting her clit with fervor.
“Holy shit,” her voice shakes as I hold her down. I taste a fresh burst of her, and her moans get
louder before I feel her tense as her orgasm overtakes her. I loosen my lips from their suction around
her nub but don’t stop my tongue from lazily circling it as she comes back down to earth. Smiling to
myself, I drag my tongue up to her ass, feeling her tense as I probe it.
Chuckling, I pull back and smack her ass hard enough to make a loud crack. She jumps but doesn’t
move from her sprawl across the desk. I trail a hand over her pale flesh and watch the goosebumps
rise. My fingers move down to her hand and help her rise shakily. My cock juts out at her, throbbing
with anticipation despite the attention it’s already been given.
“We aren’t done yet, princess.” My voice is low and ragged. Her eyes seem glazed yet heated as
she licks her lips, her gaze darting behind her and down to the hard length straining to reach her.
She reaches behind her to grasp for him, but rather than give her the chance, I drive my rock-hard
cock into her waiting depths. The wetness envelopes me easily, and fuck if my cock inside her doesn’t
feel like coming home.
When my hands dig into her tiny hips, I hope they leave bruises on her fair skin. I want to see her
body marked with fucking pleasure and pain.
My eyes drift down to her still wet asshole, just begging for more of me. Bringing a thumb to my
mouth I wet it before bringing it down, pressing on the tight ring. She groans and clenches.
“Don’t tense,” I warn, letting saliva dribble out of my mouth onto her ass. She tightens again but
slowly loosens as I rub my thumb in lazy circles. My cock throbs inside of her as I press the digit in
and hear her gasp. Pressing in deeply, I wiggle it around, preparing her for what’s next.
Not that the bitch deserves the preparation, but I want her screams of pleasure and pain.
 My thumb easily moves in and out of her tight hole, her groans becoming moans. I feel myself
getting close again, so I pull out, not ready for this to end. My hand goes down to my dick and
squeezes, a hiss escaping me as I look down at her sprawled form, her perfect, wet asshole and pussy
on display for me. When she darts a glance behind her, my hand shoots out and presses her neck back
into the desk.
“Keep your head down,” I tell her as I line my cock up with her perfect little ass. Her mouth parts,
and I see the quick flash of fear in her eyes. I throw my head back as I press forward and my dick
pops inside her. I grin as I push into her, reveling the look of uncertainty and pain as her nails dig for
purchase on the smooth surface.
“You can take it,” I encourage her. She grunts as I press in deeper.
“That’s a girl. I’m your master, so you’ll take it how I give it.”
I feel her clench at my words, smiling as her body grants me entry the rest of the way. With my
balls pressed up to her ass, I stop and relish the feeling of being completely inside her tight hole. She
lets out a whimper.
“Fuck,” I mutter as I grab her hips once more and begin to move.
“Not going to last long,” I rasp. Her hands reach around to my wrists, the only place she can, and
she holds on as I fuck her ass without mercy. I grasp her hands as her red nails dig into my skin,
drawing blood. I hiss but don’t stop her, the pain only enhancing the pleasure. I feel my balls tighten
quickly, my breaths becoming ragged as I pour into her.
I don’t move for a moment, letting myself twitch and soften inside her before I pull out. There’s a
wet sound as I do, but I ignore it and the mess. She crumples a bit and falls back to her knees, a dazed
but content look on her face.
When my hand comes down to rest gently on her head, she turns her head to look up at me,
displaying the softest expression I’ve seen on her face yet as she leans her head against my thigh.
“You look like you needed that,” I comment, and she actually blushes, my dick jumping at the sight
of those red cheeks.
“Yeah,” is all she says back before clearing her throat. She starts to rise but stumbles, and I catch
her elbow. Her eyes meet mine, and for a moment, I forget about the rest.
Forget about who she is, who I am. I forget about the job I was hired to do and why I’m really
here.
Those big, fucking blue eyes somehow look into my goddamn soul, and I forget to breath for a
second.
The moment is broken by a knock at the door. Ginger frowns and walks around the desk, grabbing
her phone and clicking a few times.
“It’s Hannah,” she mutters after a moment, putting the phone down. “Come in,” she calls out,
despite the fact she’s wearing only a lacy bra, my cum still in her asshole sure to drip out any moment.
My dick is still out of my pants, and though I don’t really care, I do start to put him away as the little
blonde walks in.
She freezes in the doorway.
“Shut it behind you,” Ginger scolds her, walking across the room toward the small bar,
completely unashamed of her nakedness. “What do you need?”
I look over at the other woman whose face is crimson, her eyes on the floor.
“I was just coming to see if you needed anything else tonight,” she mutters awkwardly. I look over
to Ginger who has finished pouring two glasses and is now walking over to me. After handing me
one, I hold up the glass in thanks then bring it to my nose. Whiskey. Damn good whiskey. I take a deep
sip, appreciating the fine liquor.
“I do, actually,” Ginger says after taking a sip of her own. “I just messaged you a few items I
need. You can grab them then meet me back here.”
Hannah bobs her head then practically runs out of the room. I watch after her.
“How long has that one worked for you?” I ask after she’s gone. Ginger turns to me with a
confused look.
“I don’t know, a few months, I suppose. Hard to find a good assistant in this industry,” she says as
she walks over to her discarded clothes, picking up the ripped thong with two fingers. She gives me a
look, and I shrug. She sighs, picking up the skirt and pulling it up without underwear.
“And you’ve vetted her?” I continue.
Ginger pauses, turning back to me slowly.
“Why are you asking me this?” Her voice is low, all bits of humor gone. I take another sip of my
whiskey, stirring it around in the glass.
“I wondered if it was that piece of shit brother of yours who hired her, that’s all,” I reply and
watch as her nostrils flare.
“Enough of that shit,” she hisses. I start to open my mouth but close it as I take in the snake-like
eyes watching me.
I can’t forget why I’m here.
I shrug again. “Have it your way. I’m going.”
Putting the glass down, I make my way toward the door, wondering if she’ll call after me, but she
never does. No big fucking surprise there.
Stupid girl never listened to good fucking advice, and God fucking forbid the stubborn bitch ever
asks for help. Too stupid to see what’s going on in front of her face.
Krystof Pashkin left me to die once, but he didn’t do a good enough job. His love for our sister,
the fucking obsession he thought no one else saw, is only one of the reasons he left me there to bleed
out. He’s a snake and not to be trusted.
But how the fuck do I tell that to her when I’m just as big of a snake? And why the fuck do I care?
After all, she fucking left me, too.
Didn’t even come to see what happened, if I was okay.
If not for that bastard finding me, I would have died the day those dogs attacked me. Many of the
scars on my skin are a result of that day. For years, I cursed them, treated them like a fucking
deformity. Now though? They’re a sign of my power. What I fucking went through for my own cunt of
a sister to try to save her only to be fucking left behind.
My anger renewed, a sneer graces my lips.
Only two days, and it’s all going to come crashing down.
CHAPTER 31
GINGER

I’ M SITTING AT MY DESK INSPECTING MY NAILS WHEN I HEAR THE EXPECTED KNOCK ON THE DOOR.
“Come in,” I shout, and a moment later, Hannah walks in.
She hurries over with the small bags I asked her to bring. She watches me with a knit brow when I
take the small scraper from her hands but says nothing.
“I need you to make sure this is done off the books,” I tell her as I scrape the bits of blood and
skin from beneath my nails. “I don’t want it on CASH-ULTY record. The results come directly to
me.”
“Yes, ma’am,” she replies. I give her a stern look, handing her the samples.
“I’ll be in my room, but the team leaves in eight hours, so until then, consider me off unless it's an
emergency or you get these results back sooner.”
She makes a quick note.
“Anything else?”
I shake my head.
“Go away,” I tell her, and her eyes widen a fraction before she hurries off. I sigh as the door shuts
and turn around to sit back at my desk. I feel a slight twinge as I sit and flush at the memory of what
brought that pain. I look down at my nails again.
I wonder if the samples will tell me anything?
I don’t really expect someone who is clearly as meticulous at covering his tracks as Sin is to
leave behind an obvious DNA trail, but stranger things have happened. If nothing else, if he’s in
police records anywhere but unidentified, I’ll have some idea of his previous dealings.
There’s always something to be learned if you look at it the right way.
I’m about to stand to head to my room when the door shoves open and Kris strides in.
“What the fuck?” I exclaim as I stand. Kris’s face is filled with rage I haven’t seen in years, and I
have to resist the urge to take a step back as he approaches. Tilting my chin up, I narrow my eyes at
him and move around to the front of the desk.
“What the fuck are you—”
I’m cut off as a hand closes around my throat, pulling me to him. I bring my hands up and claw at
his grip, but he only tightens it and, I feel the last bit of air flow close. I try to bring a knee up to hit
him in the balls, but his thighs stop me easily. Kris brings his face close to mine.
“What the fuck are you playing at, Galina?” he snarls. I let out a choked sound and scratch at his
hands until he grunts, loosening his grip. I almost drop to the floor but catch myself on the edge of the
desk.
“What the fuck is wrong with you?” I rasp and cough, more thrown off than angry. Despite all
we’ve been through, Kris has never fucking touched me.
 Not like that anyway, I think wryly. I wonder for a moment if he knows I’m aware it was him….
Doesn't fucking matter, I decide. I still need to figure out if he gave me up to those pieces of shit all
those years ago. His fucking obsession with Sin or me or whatever the fuck is going on with him is
hardly a priority.
Kris’s lips pull back, the muscles and veins in his neck straining.
“I’ve stood by you through a lot of things,” he starts. His voice is terse, but I can tell he’s making
an effort to keep it even. “Saved you from those fuckers all those years ago, stood by you since. And
yeah, I tell you if I think you’re being fucking dumb, but I’ve trusted you to take care of us, of CASH-
ULTY, the same way I have. Yet you jeopardize all of it!”
“What the hell are you going on about?” I sputter as I stand, resisting the urge to bring a hand up to
my throat which is still raw where he gripped it. “I’ve never—”
“You fucked a goddamn acquisition,” he snarls. I feel myself freeze up, but after a second, I
loosen my stance and narrow my eyes, forcing my mouth to stay closed.
“If it was just about getting your rocks off, I could maybe understand. But you didn’t fucking
eliminate him. You fucking hired him! Some fucking man you know nothing about. He’s probably
fucking here just to take you down, for fuck’s sake! What the fuck are you thinking?”
His voice gets more frantic as he continues, and my frown deepens. I despise every word that’s
coming out of his mouth, now that I know that it’s coming from some kind of perverse jealously, but
that doesn’t mean I don’t resent every fucking bit of it.
“Who I fuck and why are none of your goddamn business,” I hiss, pointing a finger at him. I see
him stare at my finger like contemplating breaking it, but don’t pull back. “And I’ve never fucking
steered us wrong. We pull this shit off, it’ll be a fucking walk in the park from here on out. And who
set that up?”
“And whose kept us safe all these fucking years.”
We’re practically nose to nose before I feel a flush of unease at the proximity. I scoff as though
I’m not bothered and step away, moving behind my desk. My hands absently touch some of the papers,
looking anywhere but at him.
“And whose the one whose been fucking up lately, again and again,” I deadpan, raising a brow.
Kris releases a heavy breath through his nose, never taking his eyes off me. Darkness swims within
them, and for the first time in my life, I feel a measure of fear of my brother.
“If you don’t eliminate him, I will.”
My eyes thin. “You touch him, I’ll fucking kill you.”
His eyes widen, and he takes a step back as though I struck him. He gets his bearings quickly, but I
can see the hurt in his eyes.
“You’d choose him over family, over me,” he says, a statement rather than a question. My chin
rises a touch.
“What bothers you more? That I fucked someone else, or I prefer him over fucking you?” I spit
back. I see the shock in his eyes that he tries to hide before it quickly changes to anger.
I feel the instant he breaks the tension that crackles between us. It isn’t until he’s at the door that
he speaks again.
“Watch yourself, Galina,” he says in Russian. “You don’t know how bad the world can be when
I’m not looking out for you.”
The door slams behind him.
I sit here for several minutes unmoving, letting the conversation play through my head.
Before now, there’s never been another man around long enough to be a problem. It isn’t the fact
that I had sex with Sin that bothers him, it’s that it isn’t him. It’s that I’m defending Sin over him.
And no, I’m not ready to let the mystery of Sin rest just yet.
Tonight, a deadbolt and a sleeping pill are in order.
CHAPTER 32
SIN

I’ M CALLED TO A MEETING ROOM. UPON ENTERING , IT ’ S QUICKLY APPARENT THAT CHAOS HAS ENSUED .
It’s hard to stifle my smile, especially when I walk in to the fucking tantrum CASH-ULTY’s CEO is
throwing. With rage overwhelming her now, I do see our family in her. I can actually believe she is
Galina Pashkin. Or I suppose I should say Pashkina, as a true Russian would.
I see Viktor when her eyes light up at the sight of blood. Artur when she’s talking about something
she’s passionate about. She even has Maxim’s resting bitch face.
She may only be our half-sister, but apparently, the genes of the piece of shit who impregnated our
mother were weak. She’s a Pashkin, through and through.
“What the fuck are you even talking about?” she all but screams into the cell at her ear. “Send him
over here fucking now!”
I smirk as she throws the device across the room, and the others flinch. Her little assistant—who I
don’t trust—and some slimy lawyer are here, and neither will look her, or me, in the eye.
“Something the matter?” I ask, unable to completely hide my smirk. Her eyes narrow, and she
steps up to me with bared teeth.
“Shut the fuck up with the commentary if you want to keep your balls,” she hisses. I hold my hands
up in mock surrender, and her eyes only thin more. The little blonde starts speaking behind her, but
Ginger’s eyes stay on me.
“It looks like something happened with several of the trucks,” she says, scrolling on a tablet.
“Two teams were taken out before we could even blink. I haven’t gotten updates on the last three
except—”
“Everyone out,” Ginger commands, fire in her eyes as they meet mine. I glance over and see the
look of surprise on the little one’s face. The lawyer darts out of the room without a word.
“Ma’am, I—”
“Get the fuck out!”
The high-pitched screech is apparently enough because she hustles out of the room, slamming the
door behind her. The corner of my mouth turns up more.
“I assumed you didn’t mean me.”
My tone is casual as I lean against the wall. She stands there unmoving for a moment before rage
seems to overtake her, and I watch the magnificent fury.
“What the fuck!” she shrieks, taking some kind of wooden paperweight from her desk and hurling
it across the room. There’s a loud crack as it smashes against the rock wall, falling to pieces on the
floor.
Before I can say anything else, she strides up to me. Reaching up to grab my hair, she pulls me
down to her. Our lips clash with passion and anger, our tongues dancing violently as I cup her head
and give her the kiss she clearly needs.
When we break apart , I see the heat and need in her eyes. I lean toward her ear and nip lightly
while whispering, “Take off your panties.”
She licks her lips before reaching down under her tight skirt and wiggling them down her legs. I
feel my dick twitch as I watch the thin fabric fall to the floor, and she steps out of them, taking them in
hand. I reach out and take them, shoving them in my pocket.
There’s no smile on her face, just heated passion as I switch places, putting her against the wall.
My mouth claims hers once more, hands moving down her body until I reach the hem of her skirt,
hiking it up. Using both hands, I take a firm hold of her ass and hoist her off the floor. The tight skirt is
shoved up her body as she wraps her legs around my waist.
Pressing her to the wall with my body and holding her ass with one hand, I use the other to quickly
undo the button holding back my straining length.
“Please fuck me,” she begs into my mouth. I smile against her lips as my cock springs free, then I
grip her hips once more, guiding my aching dick toward her waiting entrance.
She’s already wet for me, so I slide in easily. Her nails dig into my back as I push all the way in
and feel her clench around me.
“Hard,” she tells me, biting my shoulder. That’s all the encouragement I need as I press her
against the wall and fuck her as hard as I can. She’s so small, it’s easy to hold her up as I pound into
her, the nails digging into my skin telling me how much she fucking loves it.
Since the first fucking time, she’s always loved it. It’s always felt this right.
It doesn’t take long for me to feel my balls begin to tighten. Using the wall as leverage to hold her,
I bring one hand between us to find her sweet nub. She cries out as soon as I touch it, so I press
firmly, slowing and prolonging my thrusts.
“Oh my God,” she wails as I feel her core twitch around me. When I feel the first wave of her
orgasm, I bring my hand away and my motions pick up speed. We both cry out as her pulsating pussy
claims my orgasm, too.
We don’t move, chests heaving as we come down from the moment.
One at a time, I release her legs and make sure she can stand before getting my cock back into my
pants.
“Bit better?” I ask, and for a moment, her body shakes with laughter.
“Something like that,” she replies. “Can I have my panties back?”
When I shake my head, she rolls her eyes, walking over to her desk and pulling out several
napkins. I don’t give her the grace of modesty as she cleans up, the sight of her washing away my cum
somehow insanely sexy.
I don’t say anything while she does it then sits back up at the table, scrolling through the tablet left
behind by her assistant.
“How the fuck could this get fucked up so bad?” she mutters, ignoring me. Her small frame flops
into a chair, a hand coming up to her forehead as she opens her phone and scrolls through.
“The organ job?” I clarify, and she nods without looking at me.
“We had it all arranged, had Kris organizing all the pickups. Hannah and I went through each one
by hand to make sure it would be seamless. How the fuck could this happen?”
I can’t resist.
“Maybe someone set you up,” I comment.
I can practically see ire in her eyes as she turns her glare on me. She stomps up to me, a comical
sight in those fucking high heels, an accusing finger aimed at me.
 “You,” she hisses. “This is because of fucking you, isn’t it?”
“You give me a lot of credit for someone who's been locked up by you for, oh, how long is it
now?”
Her eyes thin to mere slits, and she begins to open her mouth, but I interrupt before she can say
anything.
“Have you considered those inside your organization?”
She groans. “Fuck off.”
I push off from the wall and take a step toward her, unsure of why I’m so bothered by her not
listening.
“Are you that fucking blind?”
Her mouth closes, and she gives me a look I can’t decipher, somewhere in the range of wary and
distrusting. I press on.
“How many things have been falling apart lately? I’m not a fucking idiot, not fucking blind either.
Your security sucks so bad that you let a fucking anti-trafficking organizer in here, yet you blame me?
Come on, princess. Open your eyes.”
I am not one to lie to myself. I know it’s fucking petty that I want her to see Krystof for the piece
of shit snake he is, but there it is. Despite my own motivations here, I want her to know I didn’t fuck
this up for her. Granted, I would have, but I didn’t need to do that.
She seems to consider my words before replying.
“Things got worse when you came,” she says.
Our eyes meet, and I see the wheels turning behind hers. Pulling away from me, she turns back to
the table and walks over, picking up her phone before dialing.
“I need the E team to meeting room four,” she says into the device. “Full restraints, please.”
She clicks it shut then looks at me, and I feel the stab of impending betrayal. She looks pale, and
her mouth is set in a severe line.
“Why?” is all I can think to say.
“You make me weak,” is all she says back.
The air between us crackles but I have no idea what to say. Our eyes meet, but we’re both silent.
It’s only a minute or two before the doors open and half a dozen men step into the room wearing
full combat gear, a set of manacles in one man’s hands. Ginger looks at me, and I see the weight of her
decision behind her eyes, but I’m not expecting the next words that come.
“I never should have let you get close,” she admits, her voice so quiet I can barely hear her. She
turns to the men. “Take him.”
CHAPTER 33
GINGER

I LEAVE BEFORE THE E TEAM DESCENDS ON S IN , UNABLE, OR AT LEAST UNWILLING , TO WATCH THE MOST
alpha man I’ve ever known be reduced to what they make of him. I may hate him, I may hate how
much I want him, but I won’t watch them break him.
I’ve let him make me weak for too long now. Made poor decisions, haven’t been focusing on
what’s really important. CASH-ULTY, family, myself.
And now look what’s happened.
I think back to last night and the hurt in Kris’s eyes.
I fucked up.
Let a man affect me in a way no one has since I was hardly more than a child.
It was easy to get caught up in the mystery that was Sin, and then there was the sex. I haven’t been
celibate over the years, but I haven’t felt a connection like that since Dmitri. I won’t deny I still want
the man, that he makes my knees weak and my pussy wet, but I can’t let that guide my decisions.
“Trust no one but yourself, Galina.”
Vasily’s voice, for once, is welcome.
I need his harsh reminders to get me through this.
The fortress is bustling with movement, but I ignore everyone as I stride down the corridors, my
resting bitch face in place.
It isn’t until I get to the solitude of my office that I drop the face. I lock the door and press my back
to it as my breath comes back, ragged and broken. I gasp with my chest heaving, a weight seeming to
be pressing on it and keeping me from breathing deeply.
When my phone dings, I look down at the screen.
Contracts officially cancelled, the message from Kris says. I feel my bottom lip quiver.
Another ding.
Where are you?
I stare down at the text and consider Sin’s earlier words.
“Have you considered those inside your organization?”
My eyes read the message from Kris again before I click my phone off without responding.
Double checking that the door’s locked, I walk over to my computer.
I don’t trust anyone anymore. Vasily was right. It’s only me.
It’s time to do some digging and find out what the fuck really happened.
CHAPTER 34
SIN

I CAN ’ T SAY I’ M SURPRISED TO BE BACK HERE. IT ’ S ALWAYS A FUCKING SHOT IN THE DARK, TRYING TO
get close to a target. I couldn’t resist the temptation, and rather than let this be an in and out job, I got
close.
We both made that mistake, I decide. We were both led easily into the temptation of one
another.
It can’t be more than a few hours later when Krystof steps in with a sneer on his face. It takes
everything I have not to snap the fucking chains and….
“This suits you, Dmitri,” he says with mock casualness in our native tongue. I try to keep my
expression as neutral as I can, but my nostrils flare, my heart beating faster at hearing the long-
forgotten name. “You’ve belonged in chains for a long time. It’s about time she put you in your place.”
I can’t hold back the growl that leaves from my throat, the chains holding my arms clanking
together as I pull forward. He laughs, kneeling in front of me. I look at him and consider if I’m close
enough to head butt him or perhaps rip his nose off with my teeth. Somehow, he seems to see my
intent, shifting a touch farther away.
“How’d you figure it out?”
Krystof shrugs. “Galina sent in some samples. I got to the results first.”
My molars grind together. So she doesn’t know yet.
“You know, brother, I honestly don’t know what to say,” Krystof concedes, surprise in his tone.
“Out of all the things I expected to find out about the dreaded Sin … that you’re nothing more than the
pissant who stole our baby sister's innocence, well, it’s frankly underwhelming. Here I thought I’d
find some big bad story, but no, you’re just a scarred piece of shit with a fucking vengeance complex.
That’s why you came back, right? Only reason I can think of. But why the fuck would you even care
after all this time?”
I keep my face as straight as I can, meeting his eyes steadily without answering.
He smirks, his eyes looking over the scars on my face.
“Dogs did quite a number on you, didn’t they? Fuck, it would be funny to feed you to the dogs here
and tell her after. Poetic, almost. But no. I think I’ll tell her about the contract you obtained to kill her,
and then maybe tell her it was her precious brother all along.”
My eyes narrow at his words. He may be bluffing, but it sounds like he actually knows. Which
means….
“It was you who fucked up her contract,” I guess, and Krystof smirks again.
“She’ll accept it soon enough. The amount of money we will be paid for staying out of the organ
market is ludicrous. Once she sees the new contracts that come in, despite this failure, she’ll move on
just fine.”
 I recall Galina’s words about changing the direction of the company. The way her eyes lit up at
the thought of having legitimacy.
“You’ve wanted her since we were children.” I phrase this as a statement rather than a question.
His shoulders square up.
“I never would have let Vasily sell her,” he tells me, his eyes looking like he’s somewhere else,
somewhere distant. “He would have seen reason. Realized why keeping her in the family would have
been to his benefit. Just like our mother. You knew she was Vasily’s sister, right? He had some of the
right puzzle pieces of a real family, but not all of them. He just needed to accept Galina, and it would
have been fine.”
His eyes pin me with a heated glare. “But you fucking ruined her.”
I suck in a deep breath as I consider all the words I want to say, wanting to point out how I
fucking saved her. But I see the look in Krystof’s eyes. The fucker has a goddamn savior complex and
always has. Since we were children, he said he had to look after us as the oldest, but really, he
looked out for himself. He’d present his actions as doing things for his siblings, but really, it was
always in his best interest.
A true narcissist who is smart enough to hide it.
No wonder Ginger never figured it out all these years. How could she possibly suspect the
brother who took care of her?
“You haven’t changed a bit, Krystof,” I tell him, and he smiles.
“Oh, I’ve changed,” he replies. “This business tends to change you, but you’d know all about that,
too, wouldn’t you, Sin?”
Thousands of words are on the tip of my tongue, but I don’t say anything. This piece of shit isn’t
worthy of my fucking answers.
He leans forward so I’m forced to meet his eyes once more.
“I know about the contract you took to take out Ginger Russell,” he tells me. “And I can’t wait to
tell her not only did Sin, the man she thought to keep close and fuck, tricked her, but that he’s also her
long dead brother.” He lets out a laugh. “Good thing I’ll be there to comfort her.”
I pull forward on the chains without thinking, the cold metal stopping me. Krystof laughs once
more, kneeling in front of me just out of reach.
“I am going to make sure you rot down here,” he says in a soft voice. “Goodbye, brother.”
When the door shuts again, I let the tension in my shoulders fall, and the chains jingle.
CASH-ULTY is crumbling, and my job is half done without trying. Apparently, those fuckers who
hired me did plenty on their own.
Clasping my hands behind my neck, I consider my next step.
Time to finish the job I was hired to do.
Sin does not accept failure.
Job one: Take down CASH-ULTY.
Job two: Take down Ginger Russell.
First step: Break out of these chains.
CHAPTER 35
GINGER

I TAKE MY LAPTOP AND GO TO MY BEDROOM, LOCKING THE DOOR BEHIND ME.

Several people knock on the door but leave once they realize I won’t answer.
And I won’t, not until I have answers.
Locking myself up for a day is something folks around here are used to. However, on a day like
today, I’m sure I’ll be looked for. Nothing I can do about the botched contracts now, though. Those
deals are lost. May as well find out what the fuck happened with them and who is fucking with me.
This cannot happen again.
If we even get another chance.
I get a voicemail from my contact within the Dutch government, an uptight bastard named Levi
who had promised me proper government contracts once I proved I could pull this off. I only listen to
a second or two of the shouting before closing my phone and turning it off.
Until I know what happened, who is responsible for this mess, I have nothing for him.
My eyes feel gritty as I read through reports, watching bits of footage as they become available.
Despite my suspicions, I can’t see anything that stands out.
Hours and hours of footage, reports, anything I can find. Some indication of how something so
well planned failed so horribly.
I doubt I’ll get another chance at this. For years, we’ve provided acquisitions for various reasons
varying from the standard trade of bodies and sex to providing victims for killers and everything in
between. I wanted so badly to make the change to organs, and though profits were a major
consideration, I can’t deny that there’s a small part that has to do with ethics.
I don’t have a problem with what we do, but that doesn’t mean I don’t wish our acquisitions
weren’t so … wasted. At least with organ transplants….
Sighing, I start the current video over, watching closely. No point in thinking about what could
have been. It helps nothing.
It’s not great quality, being from some gas station footage across the street from one of the failed
acquisitions. I look over at my list and confirm this was one Hannah and I had deemed an easy
pickup. Young schoolteacher with a rare blood type who lived alone. The gas station is the only
business around, and the street itself is quiet at the late hour.
I watch as several bodies dressed in black pile out of the nondescript CASH-ULTY van. One of
them at the front turns to the rest and says something, and I realize it’s Kris. I’m not sure if I’m grateful
or not that his van wasn’t one of the ones completely annihilated. We lost a dozen good men today.
Kris is not a good man, but he is my brother.
My brother who snuck into my room that night to touch me. My brother who I suspect let me get
taken by traffickers as a child. My brother who….
 There’s another knock at the door and I glance at it briefly but turn my attention back to the screen.
A moment later, I hear the telltale sign of the lock being picked. A shiver runs up my spine as I reach
over and pull out the pistol from my drawer, pulling back the safety and pointing it at the locked door.
It clicks, the door pushes open, and Kris walks in, shutting it behind him. He turns to me and looks
at the gun in my hand, a complete lack of concern in his expression.
“Locked doors usually mean fuck off,” I tell him, and he actually smiles at me, striding straight
into the room. I sigh and lower the weapon.
“Seriously, can you go away?” I plead, clicking the safety off and placing the gun on the desk
beside me but not taking my hand off of it. I watch the swagger of his step as Kris walks around the
desk, shifting my head and eyeing him suspiciously.
“What’s going on?”
Coming up beside me, he looks at the screen I’m watching then down to the papers and tablets
sprawled out in front of me.
“What’d you figure out?” he asks, ignoring my question. His proximity is bothersome, but I try to
push the discomfort aside.
“Should you be telling me?” I accuse, standing and moving toward the bar. I feel his eyes on me
as I move.
“We planned this thing perfectly, so what the fuck happened?” I keep my back to him as I prepare
a drink, not asking if he wants one. I bring the glass up to my mouth and inhale deeply before taking a
large sip.
“I have something to tell you.”
Gone is any hint of mockery or arrogance in his voice. I turn to Kris and take in his severe
expression.
“What?” I snap. The groove between his brows deepens as he steps forward, the look of worry on
his face making me more than a little uneasy. Grasping my elbow, he leads me over to the bed.
“Sit,” he tells me. I exhale through my nose before taking a seat. He kneels in front of me on the
floor, looking into my face.
“Before I tell you, I want you to know that I’m here for you, and we’ll get through this,” he says.
Panic rises in me at his words.
“Fucking tell me already.”
Kris’s jaw tightens and he sighs, running a hand through his blond hair so it falls into his face.
“Tell me,” I practically beg, and he sighs again, pulling some folded papers from his back pocket.
I reach to take them, but he tightens his grip, looking into my eyes.
“I’m sorry,” he murmurs as he releases the papers. I rip them open, my eyes scanning quickly
before I recognize it as some kind of blood work results. My eyes move over the page and I see the
comparison, a match.
“What is this?” I ask again, flipping over the papers. No names, only numbers to show a blood
match. Kris’s hand comes down on mine, and I look back up at him.
“I matched Sin’s blood,” he says, and I frown, looking back down at the papers. I gave Hannah
those blood tests with specific instructions. Did she give them to Kris when she couldn’t find me
today?
“Matched? Where? What do you—”
“He carries the same genes as me,” he interrupts. “And you.”
My hand begins to shake as I listen to his words.
“Sin is Dmitri Pashkin, our brother. And he was hired to take down CASH-ULTY and kill you.
Him being here was all part of his plan, Galina.”
“No,” my voice is raspy and hoarse, my heart pounding so hard I wonder if I may be having a
heart attack.
Kris’s hand tightens around mine then he rises, sitting on the bed beside me and wrapping his arm
around my shoulder. He kisses my head, rubbing my arm gently.
“You’re wrong,” my voice shakes pathetically. “He couldn’t—”
“I’m sorry, Galina,” he whispers. “I’ve got you now, though.”
“I’ve got you now,” Dmitri whispers. “Don’t worry, galya. I’ve got you, always.”
“No! Don’t fucking touch me!”
I stand with a shout, my chest heaving. His hand reaches out to me, and I swat it away, turning and
backing away from the bed. Kris’s hands clench as he stands, his body tight.
“Sin fucked up this contract,” he continues, the softness gone from his tone. “And if you hadn’t
smartened up and tossed him in the dungeon, you’d probably be dead already.”
“Dmitri is dead.”
Despite the words coming out of my mouth, my mind is racing as everything clicks in to place.
“Dmitri is alive and trying to kill you,” Kris refutes sharply. He steps forward, taking my
shoulders in hand to force me to look at him. His gaze softens as he looks at me.
“I’m sorry, Galina, I know how hard this must be for you. I know how much you loved him and
mourned him. But he’s the brother who left you to traffickers. He’s the one who didn’t tell you he was
alive. He—”
“How did you find me?” I interrupt, and he gives me a questioning look.
“What are—”
“A brother who left me to traffickers?” I interject. “So tell me, brother. How did you find me?”
“Wh—”
“Fatso and Smokie!” I practically shriek, pushing away from him. “How the fuck did you find
me?”
He gives me an incredulous look. “Why the fuck are you going on about that now?”
I don’t reply, my nails clenched tightly in my fists.
“I asked around,” he sighs, “I found out where they—”
I shake my head, backing away from him more.
“Stop lying,” I interrupt. I watch his body, the tension across his shoulders, and think back to my
earlier suspicions. “It was you, wasn’t it?” He glares at me as I continue.
“I looked in to it,” I tell him, my voice more even than I expected, “Knowing what I do now, the
chances of me being picked up by those two assholes is practically non-existent. And we weren’t
anywhere near Shakhty when you found me. So, Krystof. Tell me about a brother who leaves his sister
to traffickers.”
A dark cloud seems to descend on his face, giving me the answer I need. I take a step back,
clutching my chest as though struck.
“Why?” I gasp.
“You needed a lesson in gratitude,” he shrugs, his voice emotionless. “And I made sure the right
men to give it to you showed up.”
Despite my suspicions, I never actually thought….
“You should have come with me,” he continues. “We could have been great. But instead, you had
to fucking leave me. I had to find a place to keep you while I found a place for us. And I did, didn’t I?
Didn’t I put in place the kills we needed to take over CASH-ULTY? I didn’t know what those
assholes would do, I only hired them to keep you safe. Took me a year to find you again, but that
wasn’t my fault. You never should have left. It could have been different, Galina. We could have been
different.”
A ball of nausea sits in my throat.
Trust no one but yourself.
“I think you should leave.”
My voice shakes, and Kris actually throws back his head and laughs, taking a step toward me. It’s
then I realize my pistol isn’t on my desk where I left it.
“No, little sister. I think you’ve fucked things up enough now. Time to let your big brother take
things from here.”
CHAPTER 36
SIN

ESCAPE HAS ALWAYS BEEN POSSIBLE, JUST NOT SOMETHING THAT WAS NECESSARY. WITH THEIR MAJOR
contracts having failed, all it will take is a small push for CASH-ULTY to come toppling over.
And that push’s name is Ginger.
Using the skills I’ve learned over the years, I work my way through the fortress, careful to remain
unseen as I head toward the special area Ginger once showed me. If not for the skills I’ve obtained
over the years, a fortress like this would have been impossible to break out of. As it was, I could
never have broken in without allowing myself to be taken. Security is one thing, but mere chains and
steel doors are no match for me. I have no clothes, but I’ll fix that soon enough. The coolness coming
from the stones beneath my feet centers me.
When I get to the research area, it’s as stark and white as I remember. I step in, and the two
researchers there freeze, terror filling their vision as they take in the sight of me. I suppose getting
pants on the way may have helped, but fuck it. A slow smile spreads across my face, and I twist my
neck to crack it.
“So which one of you assholes is going to get this thing out of me?”
One of the researchers, a wormy looking little man, tries to make a run for the door. I reach to the
table beside me and grab some kind of heavy, glass container and throw it. It shatters against the
doorframe, and the man freezes in place, his shaking limbs visible from across the room.
“Don’t fucking try it,” I warn as I stride the rest of the way into the room. I hear a low hissing and
realize the man has pissed himself. I have no patience, suppressing an eye roll before taking two giant
steps toward the man and twisting his neck with ease. A loud crack sounds before he falls to the floor.
Straightening my spine, I turn to the other person, a woman who is looking at me with wide eyes.
“You,” I point at the woman who is now wringing her hands. “Get what you need to get this
fucking tracker out of me, and make it fast.”

IT TAKES no more than fifteen minutes for the little bitch to get the thing out of my neck, but each
minute feels like an hour. It won’t take long for that fucker Krystof to figure out I’ve gotten out, so I
don’t need him looking up my tracker too soon.
My fingers tap against my leg as she uses some fancy metal tweezers to dig into my flesh. I grunt
but otherwise don’t react. She drops the small device onto the tray beside us, a few spatters of blood
marring the otherwise shining metal, then takes a step back from me.
“I did what you wanted,” her voice shakes. “Please don’t kill me.”
I nod toward the closet.
 “Get in there, shut up, and I won’t have to.”
Of course, she complies.

THOUGH I KNOW I don’t have too long, I do need to try to figure out how to work the trackers before I
leave here. This place is big enough that I don’t want to be wandering around trying to find Ginger or
risk getting caught again.
And I don’t intend to make them aware of the lapses in their security.
The laptop in the lab is password protected, so I glance back at the closet door.
“What’s the password for this bullshit?” I call out to the woman.
After a beat, she replies.
“Um, start typing, it’s long.”
She rattles off a dozen numbers and letters which I input, and sure enough, it unlocks. I click
around for several minutes until I find what I need and pull up the X219 fortress. It takes me another
minute to narrow down targets, but I do figure it out then scour the schematics for Ginger. I’m
surprised when I see where her dot sits, unmoving in the dungeon.
I scroll around again until I find Krystof’s dot, sitting in her … room?
A trickle of unease runs up my spine that I can’t explain. I exhale through my nose and consider
my next step. I stride back over to the closet and open the door.
“Show me how to bring up cameras on this thing,” I thrust the laptop in her direction. She looks
down at the device then up at me.
“T-this doesn’t show the security footage. That’s only accessible from the security room.”
My hand slams the wall beside me, making the woman jump.
“D-do you want me to tell you where it is?”
I crack my knuckles and shake my head, thinking back to the night Ginger showed me how the
trackers work.
“No, I know where it is. But where the fuck can I find some pants around here?

IT TAKES me over an hour to make my way across the compound unseen. At least with that stupid
tracker out of my neck, I don’t have to worry about my head exploding at any moment. Now there’s
only the human and mechanical eyes to worry about. There seems to be significantly less guards
around than usual, and I wonder if that’s because of the shitshow that happened regarding the contract
last night.
I’m still not sure what exactly happened, but that it fell apart is enough. After such a massive job
being fucked up, there’s no way the Dutch government will give Ginger the backing she was after
now.
I wonder if she’s upset?
I shake the ridiculous thought from my head and try to remind myself that I want her to be upset. I
want her to hurt.
I’m not entirely sure who I’m trying to convince.
I peer around the corner toward the security room and confirm there are only two men watching it,
same as the last time. I debate for a moment how to handle it before deciding to keep it simple.
Turning the corner, I’m behind the first man in several large, silent steps. He hasn’t even turned
his head before my hands come down, twisting quick and sharp until there’s a large crack. I grab the
knife at his belt in a swift motion as he falls to the ground. The other man scrambles to his feet, his
panic and the hissing of his now dead friend relieving his bowels the only sounds.
By the time the second guard has turned around, it’s into the large blade. It slides much too easily
into his chest, and the man coughs, blood pouring from his mouth. Stepping up to him, I twist and feel
my cock twitch at the choked sound that escapes from the man's mouth. His eyes are wide as I yank
the blade out, stabbing it in one more time at an upward angle. He drops like a stone.
I crinkle my nose at the smell of blood and excrement around me but otherwise ignore the two
corpses now at my feet as I sit down at the desk they just recently occupied. My eyes go up to the
screens in front of me, dozens of screens playing out scenes across the fortress.
It takes me a few minutes to figure out the controls and a few more to locate the rooms I am
looking for. First, I try to pull up Ginger’s room before remembering the lack of cameras there. Why
is that fucker in there?
Get a fucking grip, I tell myself as I switch the feed over.
My eyes widen as the dungeon comes up. Of all the things I expected to see, Ginger in a position I
was in only hours ago is not one of them. My heart pounds in my chest as I zoom in on her face, the
devastation I see there not giving me the joy it should. Her face is bruised and bloodied, and even
with the grainy video, I can see the tears rolling down her cheeks.
Krystof did this?
I lean back in my seat and consider my options.
Take down CASH-ULTY. Take down Ginger Russell.
I push away from the desk and make my way down to the dungeon.
I open the door, unsure what I plan to do once I’m inside,
Her eyes swim with emotion as she looks up at me, the ruthless cunt I’ve come to know gone. In
her place is the little sister I once loved. The sister who fucking left me after I gave everything to her.
“Dmitri.” Her voice is so soft I barely hear it, but the name sends a jolt of emotion through me. An
unwelcome jolt.
“Galina.”
“You came back.”
The corner of her mouth turns up, causing her split lip to crack farther and a small line of blood to
dribble down. Despite myself, I feel my cock twitch and have the overwhelming urge to wipe it away,
bring her to me.
She’d always been my weakness, so I spent decades training myself so that was no longer true.
Somehow, the little bitch still gets under my skin.
“I told you he was going to fuck you over,” I tell her needlessly, and she gives a wry smile,
nodding.
“You did. I didn’t listen.”
I frown, not liking this timid woman in front of me. Stalking forward, I grab her chin and force her
face up to look at mine. I can’t help but think of when we were in opposite roles only a day ago.
“What happened to you?” she asks, curiosity, not malice, in her voice. That she doesn’t ask me to
free her speaks volumes. That she first asks what happened…. I shove it from my mind.
“I told you already,” I reply. “I was found and raised by someone not so fucking nice, but at least
the fucker taught me how to be a real man, unlike that piece of shit Vasily.”
Her eyes gaze up at me, imploring.
“I should leave you here to rot,” I tell her. Like you left me, is the part I don’t say. The psychotic
bitch actually smiles.
“It’s what I would have done to you. Are you going to kill me now? That’s why you’re here,
right?”
I’m about to open my mouth when there’s a small buzz at my belt. The tracking app.
My nostrils flare as I lean down, lifting her chin to look at me.
“Him I expected it from. But you, little flower, you never came back. I laid in that dirt for hours
bleeding out before I was found. And not by you.”
A tear spills over from her eye, my chest tightening as I stand. I’m almost at the door before she
speaks again.
“I’m sorry, Dmitri. I love you,” she says in Russian.
I don’t turn back before shutting the door, plunging her back into the dark.
CHAPTER 37
GINGER

MY NOSE THROBS , AND I KEEP FORGETTING ABOUT MY CRACKED LIP , SPLITTING IT FARTHER. IGNORING
the blood on my chin, I shift in my chains to get more comfortable.
It’s ironic, I suppose, that I’m down here in the place I kept Sin not long ago. I wonder how he
managed to get out, but it hardly matters now. It grates on me a bit that he handled captivity so much
better than me.
I think back to the other time in my life spent as a captive.
I mean, there was the first sixteen years of my life being captive in my own home, but then I was
with my brothers. Despite the abuse Father put us all through, we had each other. Until one by one, we
were deemed not good enough.
Galina, Dmitri, Artur, Alexei, Viktor, Maxim, Krystof….
Seven children born to a man who never should have had one. Our blood is tainted, I’m sure of
this now. Even having only half of the blood of my brothers in my veins didn’t seem to stem the evil
I've become capable of.
Dmitri, Krystof, and I were the last of the Pashkin children. For a long time, I thought it was only
the two of us, but apparently, life has a way of coming full circle.
It was only days after my sixteenth birthday that everything hit the fan. Father found out about
Dmitri taking my virginity and set the dogs on him. Krystof killed Vasily to save me.
I never went back for Dmitri.
I’d assumed he was dead instead of checking, making sure he wasn’t injured and unable to move.
After I left Krystof, I wandered the countryside for days, nowhere to go and no idea what to do. I
can’t really remember much, everything was such a daze following that day. Maybe if I had had my
wits about me, I wouldn’t have been picked up by Fatso and Smokie, Benjamin and Jakob as I later
learned. It was when I was cutting into their flesh as vengeance for the months of rape and torture that
I found that out.
Sin’s words echo in my ears, and I feel another tear slip free.

“HIM I EXPECTED IT FROM . But you, little flower, you never came back.”

I WONDER how long he waited for me? Bleeding out on the hot Shakhty rocks, calling for the sister
he’d tried to save.
My now black heart weeps for what could have been.
 My eyes weep for what is and has been.

“L ITTLE CUNT ,” Fatso’s foot comes out, and I try to shy away, but it still connects with my ribs,
forcing the breath out of me. “Teach you what fucking happens when you burn our dinner!”

I PUSH the abhorrent pieces of shit from my mind as best as I can.

I never went and checked. I never made sure Dmitri was really gone.
I think back to the night Dmitri showed me his love, saved me in the only way he knew how. I
remember how right it felt.
It’s a wonder my time with Sin didn’t tell me that. The connection that lies between us is unlike
anything I’ve ever felt.

“ARE YOU OKAY ?” he whispers into my hair. I manage to give a choked nod of agreement.
“Yes, don’t stop,” I rasp out as I cling to Dmitri. Despite the pain, the closeness, the oneness,
is incredible.
If this is wrong, I never want to be right.
CHAPTER 38
GINGER
ONE MONTH LATER

“HOW THE FUCK DID YOU DEAL WITH THESE MOTHERFUCKERS ?” KRIS VENTS AS HE PACES THE ROOM.
Though I’ve been upgraded to my own bedroom, the length of chain keeping my foot to the bed and the
manacles at my wrists don’t make me appreciate it as much as I could.
“Unreliable, they say. Rumors of escaped prisoners. This is a fucking mess!” He runs his hand
through his blond hair in a gesture that so much reminds me of Dmitri.
I resist the urge to roll my eyes at his tantrum, one of many over the past weeks. There aren't any
windows in my room, so I can’t be entirely sure, but I think it's been about a month since the contract
failed.
I huff out a breath, and Kris turns his gaze on me.
“Something to say?” He strides up to the bed where I’m sitting, and as much as I want to pull
away, I remain still. His hand comes up and caresses the side of my cheek.
“If you’d just agree to help me, we could fix all this,” he tells me, his voice soft. “It doesn’t need
to be like this. You know that.”
His hand moves down to my neck, his thumb pressing against my trachea just hard enough that I
need to swallow deeply to try to dispel the touch. He squeezes lightly before smiling, his thumb
moving upward to trail my bottom lip.
“So fucking beautiful,” he mutters, leaning his face down.
My body shakes as I pull my head back from his kiss, his sharp inhale the only warning I get
before he smacks me across the face. I don’t reach up to hold my throbbing cheek as much as I want
to. He takes my chin, none too gently, in his hands and forces my eyes up to his.
“In time, you’ll love me too,” he vows, his tone betraying his words.
“Like Anya loved Vasily?”
Smack.
This time, my head is dizzy from the hit, and I can’t help but bring a hand up to my face. I glare up
at Kris. Our Father stole a young bride once. I hated the cunt and didn’t mourn when Krystof killed
her, but that he doesn’t see how like Vasily he is just shows how far gone he is.
I understand better now how Sin must have felt. When you’re in this position, there’s nothing more
to lose. He leans down so we’re practically nose to nose.
“I am nothing like that piece of shit, and if you compare me to him again, I’ll leave you in the
dungeon to rot. I don’t want to do that, sister. I want us to do this together, like we were always meant
to. Maybe you just need a bit more time alone.”
He stalks out of the room, leaving me blessedly by myself. A bit of the tension in my body
releases when I hear the door lock, knowing that means I have at least a few hours before he visits
again. Despite all his threats to lock me up, he can’t seem to stay away for more than half a day.
 I suppose I should be grateful for Kris’s obsession. It’s keeping me alive for now.
Alive for what, an unwelcome voice asks. To stay a prisoner to your fucking brother for the rest
of your life? Or worse, his whore?
I want to be angry.
I want to be so full of rage that it eliminates all other emotion. Feeling passion and fire running
through my veins so much stronger than anything else.
But I don’t.
Instead, I feel something else I’m really not used to feeling, something I’ve tried hard to push from
my mind.
Regret.
I’ve been so focused on making CASH-ULTY a success that I missed so much. I even failed at
making this work.
I so badly wanted to be able to come to a place where we were less wasteful with … well, life.
There’s no hope now of us retaining any of those organ donor contracts again, and it sounds like Kris
accepted some kind of payout to continue to stay out of it.
Idiot.
Back to good ol’ trafficking.
Not that I expect to have any part of it again.
Despite wanting to not give a shit, I am curious what Kris has fucked up so bad. I’ve managed to
keep this place going for years, playing the good little diplomat where needed, the good little psycho
in others. A month under Kris’s rule and it’s falling to pieces.
My body tenses when I hear the sound of the lock turning. It’s rare for me to get back-to-back
visits, but perhaps he forgot something? My body slacks when Hannah walks in the room, a tray in
hand. She walks across the room with her chin up, her skinny, little ass way too flat for the pencil
skirt she’s wearing. The haughty attitude she’s adopted since day one of my captivity is something I
won’t forget. If or when I get out of here, the little bitch is going to pay for her part in all of this.
She tosses the tray down on one of the side tables and looks over at me, raising an eyebrow as she
looks me up and down. I smile a mischievous grin at her and spread my legs apart, winking at her.
“You just missed Kris,” I tell her. “He certainly seemed to have missed me.”
I’ve watched how she looks at Kris, something I never paid attention to before my captivity.
Whenever she comes around, I like to fuck with her as best as I can.
I watch her squirm at my words. Her eyes meet mine, and for a moment, I think she’s going to
have the balls to say something, but her gaze drops quickly, and she shuffles off. But not before giving
me one final death glare.
I chuckle lightly to myself as I make my way over to the tray. As soon as the smell hits me, my gut
rolls. Nausea rises in my throat, and I have to bring a hand up to my mouth to keep the vomit from
spewing as I rush to the toilet. My body heaves and shutters despite my stomach being empty.
Elbow on the edge of the toilet, I shake my head.
What the fuck was that?
I stand and wash my face, giving my teeth a quick brush. The sound of the chains jangling grates
on my nerves, so I make it quick before heading back into the room. I eye the tray warily and
approach it, but as soon as the smell of eggs hits me, my stomach twists again.
Not in the mood to puke anymore, I grab the bottle of water from the tray and go to the other side
of the room.
Sipping slowly, I do what I do every day.
 I wait.
Though I’m not sure what I’m waiting for, I know it’s coming.
My mind, as it often does, drifts back to thoughts of Sin, wondering what he’s doing.
He hasn’t been seen since he escaped the day I was taken by Kris. I don’t even blame him for
leaving me in the dungeon. Is he okay? Did he make it out of the fortress and across the mountains to
the city? Is he getting more contracts and working, or is he in hiding? I’d wonder if Kris found him on
the way out, but I can’t imagine him keeping it to himself if he had.
Questions I’ll probably never know the answers to.
In my weaker moments, I imagine he’ll come back to me. Not Sin, Dmitri.
I close my eyes and pretend we’re teenagers, broken but ready to move forward.
He’d find me wandering the Shakhty countryside, both of us a wreck. We’d hug and cry and kiss,
then together move forward to forge a path in life.
It’s strange…. I’ve never once in my life wanted family. I’ve had it forced on me, but never have I
had the urge to start my own or to settle. Never have I wanted a man, a partner beside me in life. Even
Kris I only barely tolerated for years, accepting his presence rather than wanting it.
I settled for so long on what I had, I never even considered what else there could be.
I suppose chains will make you think of what could have been.
I could have had it all, but I fucked it all up.
CHAPTER 39
SIN

I’ M SITTING IN ONE OF SEVERAL PROPERTIES I OWN , THIS ONE BEING OFF THE COAST OF S PAIN IN
Ibiza, when Bram Visser finally calls. I managed to stay off the radar for almost a month after leaving
CASH-ULTY, laying low until I can figure out my next move.
After a successful job, this isn’t completely unusual. Laying low after a large or high-profile hit is
only smart, and my clients understand when they don’t hear from me. In this case, though, it was a
waiting game.
Over the last week, word has started to run down the grapevine about CASH-ULTY and its new
management. Speculation over the former CEO’s status, whether she’s alive or dead, is being
debated. I knew the call was coming.
As the director of the board for IRODaT, the International Registry on Organ Donation and
Transplantation, Bram is a man with a very public image. Slicked back hair and perfect suits, a paid
for white smile, and orange tan are all part of his façade. Beneath the smiling man the public adores is
a snake and the man who hired me.
I don’t like working for people like him. Being transparent and up front about what you are counts
for a lot in my book. One of the reasons I actually did respect Ginger is because she is exactly what
she appears. Men like Bram who use duplicity and manipulation as their tools are weak. When he
first approached me, I told him to fuck off. It wasn’t until he told me what the job was that I decided
to work with him.
“Bram,” I answer, my tone clipped.
“I need you to finish the job,” he replies, and I feel my heart rate pick up as he continues. “There’s
word of a new CEO taking over. So far, the contracts they’ve obtained are negligible, but that isn’t
what I asked for. I expect the job to be completed.”
My jaw tightens. “I understand.”
I click the phone shut, my body thrumming with anticipation.
Is she even still alive?
I shake off the thought. Despite the speculation that’s going around, I know Krystof wouldn’t kill
his prized possession unless he had to. She’s alive, and I have a job to finish.
I didn’t expect I’d actually be able to walk away from this one, but the respite was nice.
Can I really kill her?
She fucking left me.… Just another form of a snake needing taking down.
She’s always been able to get under my skin, and in the past, I’ve watched and let it happen. This
time, though, there’s no respite for the evil bitch.
My fists clench as I stand.
Sin does not accept failure.
CHAPTER 40
GINGER

I’ M SIPPING AT A GLASS OF WATER TO KEEP THE NAUSEA AT BAY WHEN I HEAR THE SOUNDS OF THE
lock. Never letting my eyes leave the door, I put the cup down gently and close my eyes a moment to
steel myself for what’s next.
When the door opens and Kris walks in wearing a button-down suit, I choke out a laugh at the
sight. His lips thin at the outburst, and he slams the door behind him.
“What the fuck is that?” I laugh, pointing at the dark grey outfit, so unlike anything I’ve seen him
wear. I’m used to army and tactical gear, or maybe jeans on a day off. How uncomfortable he looks
with his broad shoulders stretched into that thing is fucking hilarious. Not that he looks bad so much
as horribly out of place.
Kris is across the room in several large steps, his hand raised to me before I can react. The crack
of his palm across my cheek echoes, and I feel the skin burn though I don’t raise a hand to it.
“Show some fucking respect,” he spits at me. Anger flows through me, so I only debate the
wisdom of my next move for a moment.
“Ha-fucking-ha,” I reply as I sit up. “You look like a fucking—”
CRACK
I don’t see the fist coming down, but I feel it.
I hit the floor with a thud, the manacles yanking on my wrists as I try to hold my arms out to catch
myself. My head swims with the hit, and I swallow back the bile rising in my throat.
Hands grab my hair, pulling up, and I scream, trying to bring my hands up to relieve the tension.
Kris forces me to stand, not letting go his grip as he pulls my face toward him.
“Watch it, Galina,” he growls. “Don’t test my patience, not today.”
Despite my sincere desire to spit in his face, I see the seriousness in his face and frown.
“What the fuck are you doing? What’s today?” I manage, the look of resignation I see worrying me
more than it should.
“Doing what I have to,” he replies, tossing me to the ground. He strides across the room to the
full-length mirror, inspecting himself. My wrists and scalp are burning along with my cheek, but I
don’t move to do anything about it, instead watching Krystof.
“Not bad,” he says to himself before turning back to me. He smiles, a fake but brilliant grin,
before dropping the expression almost as if to say, ‘See? I can do this shit too.’
He walks back over to me, crouching down and letting a hand trail down my cheek which I’m sure
is crimson at this point. His smile softens.
“Hannah will be here shortly with your breakfast. I won’t be back until tomorrow, so stay out of
trouble.”
I bite at his hand caressing me, and he pulls back, clenching it into a fist with narrowed eyes.
When our gazes meet, I see his desire to hit me again, but he surprises me when he scoffs and stands,
not stopping until he’s standing at the door.
“Unless you really want to live the rest of your life here, I suggest you change your fucking
attitude.”
The door slams shut behind him.

I GUESS it’s no more than an hour before I hear the sound of the lock once more. Hannah walks in, and
a quick glance at the tray reveals yet another plate of eggs. I glare at her. Petty bitch. She smiles
nastily and puts the tray on a table.
I’m about to open my mouth to comment when she pulls out a small bag from the purse on her arm,
waving it in the air.
“I’d keep your nasty comments to yourself if you want this,” she tells me.
My body pulses with the urge to gut the bitch, but I have always been the good little diplomat
when needed. I let the tension leave my posture, subtly adopting a more submissive pose. My head
drops to my chest.
“You’re right,” I tell her with a sigh, keeping my eyes down. “Thank you for your help.”
Out of the top of my vision I see her smile and have to choke down a laugh of my own.
“That’s better,” she replies haughtily as she strolls over to me, opening the bag in her hand to hand
me a small box. I glance at it quickly to see it’s two pregnancy tests. I look at the bag and hold out my
hand.
“And the drugs?”
She shakes her head.
“You get this when I see the results. This stuff can kill you, I’m not risking you deciding that’s a
better answer.”
I can’t hold back an eye roll at that.
“Give me the stupid test.” I wrench the box from her hand, grumbling as I make my way over to
the bathroom.
Suicide, I scoff to myself. What a stupid concept. Dumb bitch doesn’t know me at all if she thinks
that’s the route I’d take. Whatever.
The chain on my ankle seems heavier than usual as I approach the bathroom. Once inside, I look
down at the box in my hand and feel a wave of something rush through me.
I hear Hannah come up behind me and look up to see her standing in the doorway. With the chain
on my ankle I can’t close it, so I glare at her.
“Privacy, please!”
It’s her turn to roll her eyes. She doesn’t give me complete privacy, but at least she turns her back.
My teeth grit together but I do my best to ignore her, ripping open the packaging and quickly
reading it. Simple enough.
It only takes a few minutes for me to pee on the first stick. I quickly discover it’s harder than it
seems to direct my pee stream, especially with the manacles, so my hand is sticky by the time I’m
through. Tossing the test to the counter, I wash my hands.
“Done?”
“Hold on,” I mutter back as I dry my hands. Looking up to Hannah’s back, I note her hair is up
tonight, revealing a skinny, pale neck. A smile curves on my lips when the manacles clang together as
I hang the towel. My eyes drift briefly over to the test before back at her.
Keeping the iron length tight, I take the two small steps toward her, cautious of not moving the
longer chain on my foot too obviously.
“What does it—”
Without my heels, Hannah is taller than me, but I move in quickly, tossing the wrist chains around
her neck. She stumbles with a choked sound as I pull tightly on the chain, yanking her down and back
toward me. Her hands come up to try to find purchase against the pressure on her delicate neck, and I
laugh as the sputters start to cut off as I manage to block her air supply.
I bite my lip as I pull back as hard as I can, grunting with effort as I keep the length tight. Her nails
scratch at my hands and arms, but I ignore them, relishing in the way her struggles begin to slow.
She falls to the floor, but I don’t let up for several minutes until she stops moving. I smile, my
chest heaving from exertion and exhilaration.
A calm settles over me as I step over her body and into the bathroom, the two blue lines staring
back at me not registering the way I know they ought to.
At my feet, Hannah lets out a small sound, and I frown.
I look around, quickly locating her purse then reaching in to find the knife all my employee’s
carry.
I don’t hesitate to drag it across her throat.

I FEEL CALMER than I ought to as I stand over her body. The blood rushes in my ears, my eyes staring
at the positive test like it’ll change what’s there.
There’s no confusion in my mind, no uncertainty about the being growing inside me.
The pills, I remember.
I whip around to see Sin standing in my fucking room.
How the fuck did he even get in?
The blood dripping from Hannah’s throat is the only sound. My heart pounds in my chest at the
sight of him, cloaked in blackness. His hair is cut shorter, the scruff on his face only days old instead
of the beard that was starting when I last saw him. There are also dark circles under his eyes I don’t
recall being there. His face has a slight paleness to it like that of a person who isn’t well.
He nods his head toward the corpse at my feet.
“Don’t say I told you so,” I blurt before he can say a word. His mouth curves up, and he doesn’t
say anything.
“You came back,” I say, the same thing I said to him a month ago when he visited me.
His body tightens, and the nod he gives me is curt.
“I did.”
Unease sits heavy in the air between us. My eyes dart to the pregnancy test sitting in the bathroom
behind me. I step out into the bedroom, closing Hannah and the positive test behind me. A line of
blood pours under the door.
My movements are slow as I approach, the chain dragging on the floor behind me forgotten. As I
get closer, I see the uneasy expression on Sin’s face.
“Why are you here?” I finally ask, not really sure what else to say when I stop a few feet away
from him. I wonder for a moment if Kris wasn’t lying, and if he’s here to kill me. But if so, why wait
a month? Why come back at all?
 “I came to finish the job I was hired to do and take out CASH-ULTY,” he answers darkly. I
swallow deeply and nod. He gives me a strange look.
“You accept this?” He takes a step toward me, and I feel a light quiver run through my body at his
proximity. All my nerves are alight with him so close.
One of my favorite Russian authors, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, one said, “We sometimes encounter
people, even perfect strangers, who begin to interest us at first sight, somehow suddenly, all at once,
before a word has been spoken.”
When I met Sin, he called to my very being so strongly and immediately that I knew there was
something there. Knowing what I do now, that he’s actually the brother I loved and connected with,
that he was the one who saved me and made my virginity my choice instead of something on an
auction block … it changes things.
Everything makes so much more and so much less sense.
It’s wrong, I know it is, but I want him.
I want him more than I’ve ever wanted anything.
My nostrils flare, my throat threatening to close as I try to speak. Clearing my throat, I try again.
“I want to help. I need to get close to Krystof.”
For a moment, he doesn’t do anything. My brow knits into a frown, and I open my mouth, but
before I can speak again, a rumbling laugh erupts from his chest. I watch, baffled as he doubles over.
“Out of all the fucking things,” he says between laughs, shaking his head as he slaps his thigh.
With the manacles, I can’t put my hands on my hips but do my best to cross them across my chest.
“And what the fuck is so funny about that?” I bristle.
The laughs taper off though the humor is still on his face. He brings a hand up to my chin, the
smile remaining on his face softer than I’m used to seeing on him.
“Some things never change,” he says softly.
“What do you mean?”
Leaning down, he plants a kiss just beside my mouth. I feel my entire body flush at the contact, and
for a moment, I forget to breathe until I hear a click. I look down in surprise as one of the manacles
clicks free, a small key sitting in the lock.
“I mean, you’re still the brazen, vengeful little bitch I grew up with. And thank fuck for that.” He
nods at the locks. “And use something harder next time. Those keys are easy to get a hold of. Get the
rest of that shit off. We’ve got work to do.”
CHAPTER 41
SIN

I WATCH AS SHE REMOVES THE CHAINS , SWALLOWING THE LUMP IN MY THROAT . S HE LOOKS PALE AND A
bit unwell, but the look of determination on her face as she curses at the locks are reassuring.
Not that I should care.
The sense of honor I’ve tried to uphold all these years seem insignificant to the woman in front of
me.
I was hired to kill Ginger Russell, and I’ve never failed a job.
My body thrums with anticipation as she gets the last of the chains off, brushing her hands in a
mock gesture.
“Good fucking riddance,” she mutters, and I actually smile.
“Annoying, aren’t they?” I comment, and she has the good grace to flush at that. Brushing a piece
of hair behind her ear, she takes a step toward me, looking up into my face.
For a moment, I think she’s going to reach out to me, and I have to consciously resist moving
toward her to bring her into my arms. That won’t help what has to happen next.
“What now?” she asks as I turn to the duffel bag I dropped by the door. Leaning down, I rifle
through and pull out several items before handing them to her.
“Nice. What kind of gun is this?” she asks, holding up my newest pistol purchase.
“Maxim 9,” I tell her. “Built in silencer. Reliable and quiet, you’ll love it.”
She nods and looks at the weapon with interest before placing it into the holster I gave her to
match.
It takes us only a few minutes to get completely armed. When I look over to see her with a few
splatters of blood still decorating her skin and several of my knives and pistols strapped to her small
frame, I feel my dick jump to attention. She licks her lips as she runs a finger down one of the blades
before noticing me watching. A devilish smile crosses her face, and she puts a hand on her hips in a
seductive gesture.
“Like what you see,” she teases, and I grunt, turning to zip up the bag while I adjust myself.
Turning back to her, I hold up my cell phone.
“Come on, we need to move.”
I quickly pull up the tracking app and start moving around the fortress. Behind me, Ginger steps
up.
“How the fuck did you pull that off?” she asks, nodding at the tracking app.
“Before I left,” I comment absently, frowning as I struggle to make the stupid thing work.
For the last month, it’s been set to Ginger’s tracker.
I’ll never tell her how I pathetically watched that little dot move around this room for weeks,
wondering what was happening.
 “Here,” I thrust the thing in her direction. “I can’t work this bullshit.”
She nods, not looking at me as she takes the app and quickly types in a few things. A moment later,
the screen shifts to one of the meeting rooms where Krystof’s dot is along with a handful of others.
“He’s holding a board meeting,” she gasps beside me. I lean my neck to the side to crack it.
“Guess we’d better interrupt that meeting.”
Her responding smile is brilliant.

I FEEL the anticipation of bloodshed rushing through my veins as we make our way through the CASH-
ULTY fortress. With the tracking app, it’s easy to ignore the few guards who roam the halls, and it
takes only minutes to get to the wing where the boardroom is.
“There should be three men attending from remote locations,” she tells me in a hushed voice as
we move. “And the five that should be in the room with him.”
“Security?”
She shakes her head. “The boardroom is so deep inside this place, we’ve never had much. There
will be the usual cameras, but we can disable the door locks so no one else can get in once we enter.”
I note how she doesn’t seem concerned with getting out after and count myself lucky I don’t need
to have that conversation right now.
First step, take out CASH-ULTY.
CHAPTER 42
GINGER

WITH DMITRI , OR I SUPPOSE I SHOULD SAY S IN , MOVING BESIDE ME, I FEEL A SENSE OF RIGHTNESS
that’s been missing for a long time. While we stood and discussed guns, preparing for what may very
well be a suicide mission, for a moment I found myself forgetting all the shit between us. The
lightness on his face, even with the scarring, when he spoke about the different weapons and
blades…. It’s that passion that I’ve always loved in him since we were children.
Dmitri was one of those people who would try his hand at anything and be successful at it. Had
we grown up in a different way, he could have been anything he wanted in this world. As it stands, I
understand better now how Sin became such a renowned and infamous hitman.
My brother would only be the best.
As we move through the halls in silence, I think of where we all started. It’s then I realize how
monumental this really is. The three Pashkin children, reunited.
Krystof, Dmitri, Galina.
My gut churns with the thought of another Pashkin baby in my belly, and I dare a glance at Sin.
Could it be his?
I mentally give myself a shake.
Sin’s or Kris’, it doesn’t matter.
“Are you sure you’re ready for this?”
The question breaks me from my train of thought, a welcome distraction.
“Definitely,” I reply, tightening my grip on the pistol in my hand. I have another strapped to my
side as well as two knives, and though it's been a while since I’ve been so heavily armed, it’s
pleasantly familiar and comfortable.
Sin gives me a questioning look, and it occurs to me to ask another question.
“Who hired you anyway?”
He tenses, stopping and turning slowly to me, unease on his face.
“IRODaT,” he finally answers, and my eyes widen at the mention of the organ transplant
organization.
“Cocksuckers!” I exclaim.
He snorts out a laugh.
“Well, you did piss them off something fierce,” he points out, and I glare at him.
“Big men shouldn’t be so threatened by little women,” I reply, and this time, he does smile before
leaning over to plant a soft kiss beside my lips.
“Before you, I wouldn’t have thought so,” he assures me, and despite myself, I feel a flush of
warmth at the offhand compliment.
“So what did this job actually—”
 “Sssh!” He holds up a hand to my mouth, nodding at the tracking app in his hand. We both move to
the wall, stilling ourselves as we watch the dot move down the adjacent corridor. It isn’t until it’s a
way away that we continue moving.
I’m still considering how to ask what his actual contract was when we turn the last corner before
the meeting room, and Sin stops us, looking at the app for a moment longer before shoving it into his
pocket.
“As you said, five plus Krystof. Any of these fuckers we should be worried about besides him?”
I shake my head. “Board is made of a bunch of pussies. They won’t be any trouble.”
Sin nods, his attention on the door across the hall from us. I’m surprised to see how tense he is,
but I’ve been dreaming for the last month of killing my brother. Perhaps the idea is just too new for
him to grasp.
Disregarding his unease, I tighten my grip on the pistol.
“Let’s do this.”
CHAPTER 43
SIN

S TORMING INTO THE ROOM BRINGS ME BACK TO MY TRAINING DAYS , THOUGH MY COMPANION IS MUCH
better looking than back then.
We stride into the room, each taking out a board member with well-placed shots before the others
can even react. Krystof, the lucky sonofabitch, drops quicker than the rest, so I can’t get him. The
chaos that ensues is magnificent.
Screams erupt around us as the remaining members dive to the ground, scurrying to get we can’t
reach. Panicked faces fill the two screens at the back of the room, the men picking up phones and
dialing. I hear a feminine laugh beside me as Ginger watches the members scatter before looking to
me with a brilliant grin.
Without a word to each other, we each move in sync around each side of the massive round table.
Ginger takes out the computer at the front of the room, and the three screens fizzle and die.
“You can’t hide from this,” I call out to Krystof. “Die like a fucking man.”
My eyes catch sight of one of the board members to my right, cowering under the desk. In a quick
motion, I pull him out, tossing him to the ground at my feet.
“P-please, don—”
A shot to his skull silences him.
Across the room, I hear another single shot.
We’re about halfway to the front of the room where Krystof hides along with one more board
member. I’m about to tell Ginger to move forward together when I hear the distant sound of pounding
boots and shouts.
“Fuck.”
I dive under the table as the door crashes in, and half a dozen armed men storm the room.
“Get down!” I manage to shout, hoping the bitch listens. Shots deafen me as splinters of wood fly
around me, the bullets missing by mere inches.
From the front of the room, I hear Krystof laugh. Gritting my teeth, I shift my position and exhale
slowly. My hand is like an extension of the pistol as I flip myself around and fire four shots into the
crowd of men. I hear several grunts and the sound of impact, not waiting to see how many dropped.
More bullets fly by my head, then I hear a female scream.
Throwing caution, my head flies up, and I see Krystof pulling Ginger by the hair from under the
desk, a pistol to her head. I resist the urge to hurl myself across the table to them when I realize there
are three guns trained on me. My hand flexes around the pistol grip, but the smile on Krystof’s face
causes me to hesitate.
“Let her go,” I grit out, and he laughs again.
“Hardly in a position to make demands, Dmitri,” he replies. “In fact—”
 He isn’t able to finish before a resounding boom echoes through the fortress. The walls shudder
along with the ground, and I see real fear in his eyes for a moment.
I couldn’t have timed it better.
“What the fuck was that?” he shouts over the loud sound.

I FEEL my confidence come back. With the confusion around me, I lift my hand and quickly fire shots
at the remaining three men who immediately drop.
“It’s over, Krystof,” I bellow, shouting due to the partial deafness of the close quarter guns. “That
was all of your computers, the research, the labs. It’s gone. It’s over.”
“It’s not fucking over until I say it’s over!” he screams frantically. I take a step around the desk
toward him. He clicks the safety on his pistol. “I’ll fucking shoot her, I swear!”
Despite the gun at her head and the iron grip on her hair, I don’t see fear in Ginger’s eyes. Her
gaze is steady as it meets mine, and I see the approval in her eyes.
“You won’t shoot our sister,” I tell him, keeping my voice as even as possible. I know that isn’t
true. If he thought it would save himself, he’d absolutely toss her to the dogs. If not for that fucking
gun, I’d be across the room in a second, gutting him. Really, I should let him take care of the second
part of my contract, but that’s not the way I do things.
First step, take down CASH-ULTY.
Second step, kill Ginger Russell.
Seeing Krystof hold a gun to her brings step two in to stark realization. I realize in this moment
that the approval I see on her face is actually acceptance.
She knows why I’m here.
As though reading my mind, Krystof laughs once more, a slow, building laugh as he clicks the
safety off.
“This is a poor threat, isn’t it?” he chuckles. “After all, you’re here to take her out, aren’t you?”
Again, I don’t see surprise in her face. Just acceptance.
My mind goes back to the small boy I saw in these dungeons only weeks ago. Similar to him, in
Ginger’s eyes I see a person resigned to their fate.
It’s for the best, a voice in my mind reminds me. Shoot them both, complete the job. It’s for the
best.
My hand is steady as I lift it, pointing the gun in their direction. Krystof’s eyes meet mine.
I forgot something about my big brother, and that’s how quick he always was.
When I trained for years, I won’t lie and say there weren’t times I aspired to be as strong, as
capable, as I remembered my oldest brother being. As a child, I would watch him train with Vasily,
envious of the praise doted on him by our father.
He always was quickest on the draw.
Before I can do anything, one of her knives is out of the holster and in Krystof’s hands. He pulls
her up by the hair so their faces meet. She grunts but doesn’t scream, though I’m sure it must be
painful. He waves the knife in her face, and I watch, gun in my hand forgotten.
Krystof smiles at her, leaning forward to kiss her when I hear the words, “I know about the baby.”
Everything seems to happen in slow motion, my body refusing to move.
I watch as he brings the knife down to her stomach, the scream wrenching from her throat cutting
me deeper than anything ever has.
 “Galina!”
He drops her body to the floor then bolts toward the front of the room. I watch her fall, blood
pouring from her abdomen.
Baby?
I’m about to rush to her when Krystof’s fleeing form catches my eye. Fury pumps through my
blood as I hurl myself across the room with a shout, tackling him to the ground and into the hall. We
tumble over corpses, blood covering us as we roll. I feel a sharp pain on the final roll and realize the
knife is protruding from my thigh, embedded several inches into the muscle.
I can barely move that leg with it in place, but I don’t take the time to remove it, shifting myself so
I can throw my body over him, my hands quickly finding his throat. His teeth clench as I squeeze, and
realization settles in his eyes.
“P-please,” he manages to get out before I’m squeezing too tightly for him to speak. I lean my face
into his.
“Beg me,” I tell him, and his eyes widen even farther, but I give him no air with which to speak or
beg for his life.
Once I see his eyes begin to darken, I know he’s about to lose consciousness. Steeling myself, I
remove one hand and yank the knife from my leg with a shout before slamming it down into his chest.
There’s a loud crack as the blade penetrates through his ribs and into his lungs, then I bring it up,
crashing it down once more. I can hear the blood bubbling in his lungs and out the holes as I pull the
blade free, standing above him.
I’m trying to think of something witty to say as he suffocates at my feet when a small sound from
the meeting room brings my attention back from the bloodshed. Leaving Krystof to drown in his own
blood, I rush back into the room and around the desk. A lone board member is shaking, crawling
along one edge of the room. I growl, moving the several feet needed to snap his neck before turning to
kneel at Ginger’s side. My knees are instantly wet from the pool of blood beneath her.
Still conscious, she looks up at me. Fuck, she looks so pale.
My eyes go to her stomach, a steady flow of blood still pouring out.
“You came back,” she says for the third time, bringing a hand up to my face. Her fingertip traces
the biggest scar, and she smiles. Fucking smiles.
“I can’t seem to help myself,” I tell her, my own hand coming up to cradle hers. She lets off a
small hum of pleasure and starts to open her mouth before her eyes begin to darken.
“Ginger?” I shake her lightly, an unfamiliar type of fear coursing through me. “GINGER!”
CHAPTER 44
GALINA

“S HE’ S DEAD ,” A FAMILIAR MALE VOICE BREAKS THROUGH THE FOG , THOUGH IT TAKES ME A MOMENT TO
place it. “That’s right, Ginger Russell is out of the picture. Yes. I’ll be waiting.”
I hear footsteps and the faint whir of a fan, but otherwise, it’s silent. I don’t feel dead? Exhaling
deeply, I take inventory, and find I can’t feel my body.
I try to sit up, but my body doesn’t cooperate. Instead, I barely shift as a whimper leaves my
throat. Large hands are beside me only a second later.
“Galina? It’s okay, you’re safe.”
I manage to see a bit through the haze, my eyes clearing enough to bring Dmitri’s face into focus.
No, I correct myself. Sin’s face. My sweet brother is long dead, and in his place is a fierce man.
A man you still love, a voice whispers in the back of my mind.
I try to bring a hand up to wipe away the tears that spring to my eyes, but it drops almost
immediately, and I let out a choked sound.
“Don’t try to move yet, galya,” he murmurs, his voice soft. “You’ve got a lot of drugs pumping
through you still. It’ll take a few hours for them to wear off completely.”
I try to swallow, to speak, but my throat is completely dry. My eyes land on a glass of water
beside the bed, and Sin rises, bringing it over and placing the straw next to my lips. The tiny glass in
his massive hands, the tenderness with which he holds it for me while I sip, brings a fresh wave of
tears to my eyes.
“Thank you,” I rasp, both the voice and the phrase unfamiliar to my ears. I look around and realize
I don’t know where we are, a bedroom of some kind. It’s plain, simple. Blacks and whites
everywhere other than the pale wooden floor. A few machines are hooked up to me including an IV in
my arm. I look down and see my torso is wrapped in bandages, trying to think back to the last thing I
remember.
Being stabbed. In the stomach.
“What happened?”
Sin’s movements slow as he puts the glass down, seeming to consider my question.
“Krystof stabbed you,” he begins slowly. “You … lost a lot of blood. And….”
I see the difficulty he’s having, the misery written on his face, and finish the sentence for him.
“And I miscarried,” I all but whisper. His eyes look up to mine, and for the first time, I see regret
in their depths. I try to bring up a hand to reach to him, but my limbs feel like they weigh a thousand
pounds, so my arm drops back to the bed. His hand comes up, taking mine in it, squeezing before he
stands to pace the floor near my bed.
I want to tell him it’s okay, that I’m not upset. Somehow, the words drop from my lips, though. I
think back to the conversation I woke up to and try to clear my throat.
 “You told someone I was dead,” I croak. “Why?” He looks at me, and I notice the curl of his lip.
“This amuses you?” I ask.
Moving back to the bed, he takes my hand in his.
“Yes, it does, but you already knew I was a twisted fuck.”
“Why?”
“I didn’t lie to them,” he tells me, his eyes falling to our hands. His dwarfs mine, and I swallow at
the sight. He looks back into my eyes, and I can’t seem to pull away from the vivid blue gaze.
“Ginger Russell is dead,” he tells me. “And CASH-ULTY, it isn’t coming back.”
I start to open my mouth before he interrupts me with a hand on my cheek, the gentle caress more
welcome than I care to admit.
“You are Galina,” he explains softly. “You are my Galina, and you always will be.”
The frog in my throat threatens to choke me, but I manage a small nod, my lower lip quivering.
Fuck, I feel like such a pussy for crying so much lately, but I can’t help it. The tears come out of
me harder than ever before. My entire body is wracked with sobs as Sin gently gets on the bed beside
me, pulling me into his arms.
My hand manages to come up to grasp his shirt, and I cling to him like a woman drowning. He
says nothing, just pets me gently as he holds me, letting me release years of pent-up tears and emotion.
And for the first time, I let myself.
.
It’s hours later when the drugs have mostly worn off, and my mind begins to work more normally.
Laying in bed, I stare at the ceiling, my hand grasped in his.
“I’m sorry about the baby,” he says eventually. I squeeze his hand lightly, turning to face him.
“I’m not,” I tell him, my voice a whisper. I see him frown.
“There should never be another Pashkin or Pashkina,” I tell him. “Our blood, our family, is
cursed. It’s better if it ends with us. Besides, I’d hardly make any kind of mother.”
He’s silent for several minutes, and I wonder if that upset him.
“You’re right about one thing,” he says finally. “Our blood is cursed, and the sins of our father
will carry with us forever. But, Galina?”
“Yeah?”
“You would have made an amazing mother.”
And despite itself, my little black heart squeezes at that.
“What the hell do we do next?” I ask, my voice quiet. “I’ve never done anything but CASH-ULTY.
What are we going to do?”
I feel him squeeze my hand as he sits up on his elbow and looks down at me, a devilish grin on his
face.
“Well,” he replies, “I know of a few guys who hired me to take out someone I care about. Seems
like they may need a visit.”
His eyes twinkle with mirth, and I feel one of my eyebrows rise, a smile spreading across my
face.
“Darling, I thought you’d never ask.”
CHAPTER 45
SIN

GALINA IS SIPPING THE WHISKEY SHE FAVORS , THE TIGHT RED DRESS SHE’ S WEARING DISTRACTING ME
more than a little. She catches my eye and gives me a knowing smile, winking at me.
“Tease,” I tell her, and her smile grows.
“You love it.”
I can’t keep a smile from my own face. In the distance, I hear the sound of a door closing, and
both our smiles turn mischievous.
“Ready?” I ask, and she nods, biting her lip.
“Fuck yes.”
It’s only a moment later when we hear a voice getting closer.
“Need someone much better. Who do you…?”
Bram’s voice drops off as he opens the door to see Galina in all her glory sitting on his desk,
whiskey and a pistol in hand. She holds up her cup to him, a signal to me, and I shove him farther into
the room, slamming the door behind him.
“What the fuck … Sin? What the fuck are you doing here?” His voice is frantic, high pitched, and
I feel my cock twitch as Galina hops off the desk. Her heels make a sound as she lands, and I mentally
shake my head at her insistence on the damn things.
I move across the room to her side and watch with amusement as Bram looks back and forth
between us. His face turns to a scowl.
“You said Ginger Russell was dead! People will find out about this, you know. You’re going to be
ruined! No one will ever….”
He shuts up and swallows deeply as Galina clicks off the safety and points it at his face.
“I don’t appreciate when people fuck up my name,” she says, crouching down beside him, pushing
the gun to his forehead. “My name is Galina Pashkina, and you fucked with the wrong girl.”
The shot echoes loudly around the room. The red dress hides some of it, but her face and chest are
spattered with blood, and she grimaces as she brushes a larger bit of skull from her shoulder before
standing.
“Well, I feel—”
My lips find hers, and I note the hint of coppery blood beneath the stronger taste of whiskey. It’s
so easy to lose myself in her sweet mouth as our tongues crash together.
Pulling away, she smiles as she places the pistol on the desk beside us and moves back, hopping
onto the desk. Pulling her legs apart, the tight dress parts, revealing her bare underneath. My cock
jumps as I move between her legs, a hand coming between us to caress her glistening pussy.
“Planned for this, did you,” I mutter against her mouth, claiming it with mine once more. I feel her
smile against me, her hands roaming under my shirt and up to the hard expanse of my chest. Her nails
dig into my skin, and I hiss in pleasure.
“You love it,” she says again, and I chuckle, pulling back enough to pull my shirt over my head
before kneeling in front of her. A hand comes down to caress my face before gripping my hair, just
barely long enough for it now. I don’t hesitate to lean forward, inhaling her sweet, feminine scent
before letting my tongue trail from ass to clit.
She jumps, a small gasp from her lips as I take a moment to circle the small nub. Her head falls
back, though her fingers stay firmly gripped in my hair. I take my time and let my tongue explore her
folds, savoring every small part of her. She tastes like fucking heaven.
A small whiff of whiskey finds my nose, and I get an idea. Bringing my hand up to take over, I
lean back enough to reach over and grab the glass. She looks down questioningly only until I press a
finger inside her, and she moans, her eyes closing in ecstasy. Chuckling lightly, I take a sip then put it
down, pulling the only partially melted ice cube from the glass and popping it into my mouth.
Before she can realize what I’ve done, I bring my mouth down to her clit once more, and she cries
out loudly as the cold hits her. Keeping the cube in my mouth, I run it down her pussy and watch her
shutter.
It melts quickly against her hot flesh, but my mouth stays cold as I suck her clit, lapping up the
juices as they fall. Her cries get louder, and her grip tightens on my hair.
“I want you to come for me,” I whisper, making sure to breathe out onto her skin as I do. She
shivers, and I feel her twitch around my finger. Smiling, I push in a second finger and bring my mouth
back down to her clit. It’s seconds before she arches her back, and I feel her pulsing around my
fingers. I slow my mouth but keep the steady pressure, moving my fingers in and out to help her ride
through the orgasm.
When I finally feel her stop twitching, I pull back to look up at her, reveling in the dazed look in
her eyes and the smile on her lips. She sighs as I pull my fingers out, bringing them up to my mouth to
suck them clean. I see her flush and grin.
“Turn around, hands on the desk,” I tell her as I stand, reaching down to free my straining dick
from my pants. She licks her lips and nods, the submissive trance overtaking her as she turns and does
as I told her. Her dress is hiked up over her hips, revealing her perfect white ass. She presses it out
toward me, looking back at me with a seductive smile.
My hands grab her hips hard, and I press my length against the crease of her ass. I let go with one
hand, bringing it up to grab her neck and pull her head back to me.
“You want this, my little kuvra,” I whisper, and she groans, pressing her ass back farther. I
chuckle. “Of course you want this.”
I don’t give her any warning before I release her neck, grab her other hip, and slam myself into
her waiting depths. She’s wet enough that I slide in easily, and we both moan as we fit into place.
“You feel so fucking good,” she moans, and I tighten my grip, knowing that tomorrow I’ll be
admiring perfect, little, finger shaped bruises in their place. I feel her pussy clench around me. Ever
the twisted bitch, the bits of pain I give her always make her come the hardest.
Never releasing my grip, I pound into her. My hips move wildly, and though I’d love for this to
last forever, I know we don’t have much time.
“I want you to come again for me,” I tell her, not stopping my movements. “I want you to touch
yourself.”
She doesn’t hesitate to bring one of her hands down between her legs, and I feel her clench around
me as her fingers find her clit.
“That’s it,” I encourage as I feel my own balls begin to tighten. “Come for me.”
 She cries out, her fingers moving faster as I feel her pussy pulse and tighten around me. Her other
hand buckles, and she all but falls flat to the desk, panting loudly. Pulling her hips back to me, I grit
my teeth and let out a cry as I move even faster, releasing myself inside her.
I keep my dick inside her, slowly moving in and out as we both come down from our release. Her
cheek is pressed to the desk, but she turns her head slightly to look up at me and smile.
“I feel better,” she says, and I chuckle, pulling myself from her with a grunt. She makes a small
noise as I do, and I watch with pleasure as my seed runs down her legs.
It brings my attention back to the corpse that we all but fucked above, then I kick it.
“We should get out of here.”
She sighs, standing up straight. Her dress is still pulled up over her hips, and with the wetness
running down her leg I feel my cock twitch again and have to mentally tell it to settle the fuck down.
This woman, though.… I couldn’t ever get sick of her.
The connection we had as children evolved in to something different.
I know it’s wrong, that the world won’t understand, but I don’t fucking care.
Nothing that feels this right can be wrong, and even if it is, I couldn’t care less.
“You think they’ll know it was us?” she asks as she moves around the desk, reaching into the
drawer to grab some tissues. She rolls her eyes and holds up a bottle of lotion from the same drawer,
and I laugh.
“Gross,” she comments, dropping the lotion and pulling several tissues out.
“They’ll know,” I tell her as I watch her clean herself. “But it doesn’t matter. I’m the infamous
Sin. No one fucks with me.”
She smiles at that.
“Just wait till they get to meet Galina Pashkina,” she says with a wink as she pulls her skirt down.
I laugh and move around the desk to bring her into my arms.
“The world doesn’t know what’s coming,” I assure her, and she smiles, wrapping her arms around
me as far as they’ll go.
“You and me against the world.”
I kiss her forehead.
“Always.”
CHAPTER 46
GALINA

WE GET OUT OF THE BUILDING EASILY, AND I’ M ONCE AGAIN IMPRESSED WITH S IN ’ S ABILITY TO MOVE
unseen in a place with such high security. I now understand a bit better how he was so easily able to
escape CASH-ULTY, though he assured me that the security had at least been good enough that he
never would have been able to get in without letting himself be captured. I think he may have just said
that to make me feel better.
Since Krystof’s death was announced in the news along with the destruction of the former Polish
fortress, things have been quiet. Ginger Russell is dead, for all intents and purposes.
I know Sin is getting eager to do more jobs, but we needed to wait for me to heal before we could
do this one, and he’d insisted this is where we start.
Can’t say I complained too much about the weeks we spent in bed.
Now that our grievances are taken care of, the world is our oyster.
We may not be good people, hell, we’re probably the worst type of people, but at least we have
each other.
Two dark souls bound for hell.
And I wouldn’t trade what we have for anything.

THE END

IF YOU HAVEN ’ T READ the story that started it all, the Pashkin children’s prequel story, pick up Sins of
the Family here
AFTERWORD

Well, there’s that.

If you enjoyed reading this, or even if you thought it was awful, please take a moment to leave a
quick review! It means the world to indie authors like myself and is better than caffeine, hugs and
chocolate combined (though I’ll take all of the above, if possible).
Sins of our Father’s originally started as a story about a ruthless bitch of a woman who ran an
underground organization. I wanted it to be something like human trafficking, but with the clients as
serial killers and rich folk. Inspired in part by the movie franchise Hostel, I wanted this organization
to be dark and depraved and use innocence as a gauge of worth. Basically, this started out as a horror
novel.
As I started dwelling into this character who I dubbed Ginger Russell and this hitman who was
hired to kill her, I realized that Sin was sooooo much more than the initial story I gave him. It was
when I was about 25,000 words into the story when it changed shape entirely. I dropped this novel
and spent a day writing Ginger’s backstory, Sins of the Family. Literally, sat and did it in one day. It
poured out.
Dmitri and Krystof. Anya. The bits of Viktor (who may one day get his own short tale told). It was
a short story that was essential to my creative process and truly understanding Galina Pashkina, aka
Ginger.
I re-read all of what I had written so far on the main novel, and reworked a LOT and scratched a
LOT. The general idea was there, but it needed to be adjusted.
Then I continued writing.
It took me about 50% into this book to have a true idea of what this story was, and that is a
slightly taboo and violence dark romance with horrible human beings who you somehow root for.
For the record, I almost let Kris win.
I loved writing this book. The dark characters within these pages grew on me and I hope you
enjoyed reading it as much as I did writing it.
I plan to write more in the taboo realm and I wouldn’t be surprised to see more bits in this world,
both of the past and future.
THANK YOU for reading and until next time, stay dirty and happy reading.

xx

ELLA BURNS
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Ryan, as always for supporting me but particularly for your expertise and help with the face skinning
scene. For the record, he normally hunts and skins animals, not people.
Kim, my incredible editor. I’m so grateful for all you’ve done. This novel wouldn’t be the same
without your amazing advice and I’ll never read ‘balls tightening’ without thinking of your valued
research on the subject.
My mom, who I hope never reads this but without her love and support, I never would have
published my first book much less my.. holy shit, what am I at now?
My beta readers, Jaime and Crystal. Not only did you guys drop everything to help me do a super
disorganized alpha/beta read, but you both gave me unique and valuable feedback that I know for fact
elevated this novel to new heights of dirty, darkness. I don’t have words for how much I appreciate
you both. Well, I have dirty ones….
My ARC and street team. You guys pump me up from writing “Chapter One” until I’m basically
sobbing I’m so grateful as I write the end. Without your encouragement, these books would never get
past those first chapters.
The lovely Charity B. for inspiring me as one of the Dark Queen’s in the world of dark romance,
and for taking the time to read my little blip of darkness. Authors truly do have to stick together but
not nearly enough do, and I can’t tell you how much I appreciate your support.
Last but hardly least, my readers. At the end of the day, I love sharing dark and dirty words. It is
you guys that make it possible for me to do what I do, and I can’t thank you enough for giving my
words a chance!
ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Ella Burns is the offspring of a fairy queen and an undead warlord and was brought up with an appetite for terror and beauty.

A Canadian author, she would like nothing more than to abscond to the remote wilderness of British Columbia with her daughter and a
Kindle full of dark reads. Since she was a child she dreamed of being an author and now writes a variety of darkness across several
genres. Despite her love of the macabre, she will always have a soft spot for fuzzy things and a cuppa tea.

Sign up for her newsletter here! You’ll even get two free stories ;)
ALSO BY ELLA BURNS

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