Heart of My Monster (Monster Trilogy, #3)(36)

“That’s a different issue.”

“How is it different? You know what? Forget it. You’ll just twist the words around so that the situation plays in your favor, and it’ll just piss me off more. Let’s get this over with.”

I smile.

She really is able to read me better than anyone else. Not even Viktor and his shadowing skills could measure up to her.

Sasha is trying to have a clean break, but she’s failing miserably. The more I hear her talk, the deeper she gets herself into the exact situation she’s running away from.

I will never—and I mean ever—let her go.

Not even if I have to suffocate her in the process.

She puts her rifle in the back and settles into the driver's seat as I struggle to get in.

Sasha reaches into the glove compartment, her hand touching my thigh, and that slight movement twitches my dick against its confinement.

It’s been too long since I got a taste of her and let’s just say my cock has been having a strained affair with my hand that he’s ready to end.

My wife retrieves a first aid kit and then turns me around so that I’m facing her. She doesn’t look at me as she wraps a bandage around my bicep and over the gash she gave me as a reunion gift. The first few wraps soak with blood immediately, but she keeps going while applying pressure.

Her brow is furrowed, but I can’t help the smile that lifts my lips.

It doesn’t matter how long we’ve been apart; she’ll always worry about me and make sure I’m not hurt.

“Your care is touching.”

“Get over yourself. If you die, Viktor will kill Anton. This is only for my brother.”

“Hmm. We’ll have to agree to have different definitions for this gesture—fuck.”

Sasha smiles sweetly after she ties the bandage against my injury and then practically throws my arm aside.

She wants to prove that she could and would hurt me? Fine. I’ll let her do that to her heart's content.

“Oh, I’m sorry.” She feigns innocence. “Did that hurt?”

“Anything for my beautiful wife.” I smile even as pain throbs in my arm and extends to the rest of my body.

Her humor disappears, and she hits the engine button and then speeds down the dirt road.

She’s caught off-balance.

Good.

As long as I still affect her, I’ll get to her. Whether it’s today, tomorrow, or next month. I don’t give a fuck.

One day, she’ll get tired of this silent treatment kink and go back to other entertaining kinks.

I lean on the headrest and stare at her as she drives with pursed lips and hawk-like concentration.

The more I watch, the tighter she grips the steering wheel. It’s subtle at first, but in no time, her knuckles turn white.

“Stop looking at me like that,” she grinds out without looking at me.

“Like what?”

She casts a fleeting glance my way and waves her hand in a vague gesture. “Like whatever that is.”

“This is me getting my fill of you after two months of believing you were dead.”

Her attention remains on the road, but her lips part before she clamps them shut again. “How did you fall for that? Just because I left the ring and the bracelet?”

“The DNA test was a perfect match. I suppose you falsified it so your careful plot would drive me up the fucking wall.” The fact that I didn’t double-check the DNA results makes me want to strangle the me from two months ago.

“I…didn’t falsify anything.”

“Maybe your damn brother did.” I can’t believe I didn’t see the Yuri angle coming.

According to Maksim, Anton Ivanov switched places with my guard after his ‘accident.’ Yuri didn’t want to join me and the others when I decided to go to the army, so I found it weird that he caught up to us later. However, it wasn’t weird enough to suspect him since a few other men did the same.

I’d barely noticed him before. He was incompetent and slow. But after he followed us post-accident, it was like a different person had come along.

Turns out, that’s exactly what happened.

He fooled me in the sense of his loyalty, but for some reason, I always kept him at arm’s length, compared to, say, Viktor or Maksim. I liked his plans, but I always made my own tweaks before I employed them.

I also never sent him on solo missions or let him in on the Belsky Organization investigation I assigned Viktor with.

Maybe I didn’t suspect him, but something inside me was wary of him. For all the right reasons.

He’s good, though. Not only did he manage to fool me, but his own sister and best friend didn’t know either.

Now, I need to decide how to deal with the motherfucker.

The trickiest part is that he’s related to Sasha, and I can’t exactly kill him and still have her.

“No, he didn’t,” she says to my earlier statement. “We barely had time to plant the corpse. How could we falsify the DNA when we were in Russia?”

Hmm.

Interesting.

Since she has no reason to lie, that means someone else did it.

Namely, the one who got in bed with the Albanians to plot her death. If the person who did this could plant the DNA test so effectively, that means they might be a lot closer than I thought.