𝐕𝐈𝐓𝐑𝐈𝐎𝐋𝐈𝐂 ❶

𝟐𝟕. ✭ 𝐓𝐎𝐑𝐄𝐘 ✭

I reach forward and grab my drink before polishing it off. She watches every single one of my movements like a hawk. Her gaze like frostbite as it roams over me. I place the glass back down and then lean back in my seat with, "now what would make you say that?"

"First, and foremost, the fact that you don't look surprised at the accusation. Second, I know my daughter. She didn't like being around any of the other men but you," she pauses, looking me over thoughtfully, "when you entered a room her eyes lit up, round and big and bright like the moon." I swallow the lump in my throat as she continues. "It was clear that she was infatuated with you and then things changed. She went from looking at you like she wanted you to be her entire world to that you were her entire world."

"Tatyana, I don't know what you are talking about. I don't—"

"She was engaged," she interrupted with a look of vexation. "Did you know that?"

"No." I grit out the word angrily, too angrily for my own good which makes her smirk. "Why would I know?" My tone much more calm the second time around.

"I suppose she wouldn't want to tell you. Maybe she thought she could've gotten out of it. Agelos would've never let that happen though."

"Seriously, I don't—"

"I caught the two of you." Fuck. "The night of Daniela's twenty-fourth birthday." That was the night right before she left. I could never forget that night. It was the last time we had sex together until recently. "I had noticed you leaving early and thought it was odd you weren't with the rest of the guys, who were all drunk and dancing or gambling the night away. Beautiful women were everywhere which you had never shied away from before." She's right about that. I have always been a flirt but when I was with Dani she was all I saw. "I went upstairs to call it a night and went to check on my daughter and well... there are some things a mother never wants to see her daughter doing."

Something clicks in my mind at that. "It was you. You told her where we'd be. You knew what she'd walk in on."

"I did. Daniela had an idea who her father was, who you were but she needed to see the reality. She needed to know what she was risking her future for— someone who tortures people, murders them."

I let out a sardonic laugh at that. "That's real rich coming from a woman who would've seen her daughter married off to a man nearly fifteen years older than her. One that attacked your own family."

"A powerful man is who he is. He is not just a crime lord's bitch." I want to bark out that she has no idea the man I am but I keep my mouth closed. "You may be close to my husband but you are not my husband. You will always be the one who takes orders not the one who gives them."

Oh if she knew all of the orders I'd given her daughter in the past she wouldn't be saying that. I hold back the arrogant look that wants to take over my features. A part. I am playing a part.

"So, why are you here, then? Just to tell me I was never good enough for your daughter? That I will never be good enough? What's the point of this conversation?"

"The reason I haven't fed you to the wolves is because I want you to murder Polat." As if this whole situation couldn't get any more fucking complicated she wants me to move directly against my boss' orders.

"How do you expect me to do that when I'm supposed to be researching everything he's been doing up until now? I'm supposed to be finding anything as a bargaining chip."

"You would be the bargaining chip." I grit my jaw. "But I don't want to bargain with a man that has killed members of our organization, our family. No. I want him dead and I want my daughter home." I don't want Dani anywhere near this family again.