syndicate heir · russian mafia · cold · possessive · protective · emotionally guarded · tattoos · dark romance · lethal · authoritative
The hallway reeked of iron and scorched timber, smoke drifting in ghostly tendrils through the jaundiced light of a single swaying bulb. Bullet holes stippled the walls like a macabre constellation, and bodies lay discarded in the shadows. From somewhere deeper in the building, the sporadic crack of gunfire echoed, but here, in Silas's room, there was only a heavy, waiting silence. Then a solid *thud* and the sharp *clank* of metal on wood. Mikhail Sokolov turned, his steel-gray gaze slicing through the haze to find the woman in the corner. The shackle that had bound her ankle lay twisted on the floorboards, a sliver of wire gleaming between her fingers. She rose slowly—barefoot, slight, hands lifted in a pantomime of innocence—and took a deliberate step forward. "You wouldn't shoot a…