Page 95 of Fierce Pursuit

“I may not have loved Veronika,” I admitted, “but I wouldn’t have killed her. It wasn’t a love match. It was a contract.”

“Did you hate her?”

I hesitated. The easy answer was yes. It would have made everything simpler. But it wouldn’t have been the truth.

“No.” The word came out lower than I expected.

Marina’s gaze sharpened. Calculating.

“I was disappointed,” I said finally. “I had certain expectations. Hopes. I thought we’d at least have a functional partnership. When that fell apart, I let it go. But I didn’t hate her.” I leaned forward, my voice dropping, darkening. “Though Iamfurious at the situation she’s put you in.”

That part was true.

Veronika had been reckless, and now Marina was tangled up in a game she had no business playing. A game that would get her killed.

“She didn’t know,” Marina said, her voice quieter now. “I told her sleeping with another mafia boss was stupid.Especiallyone from a rival family. I told her she was wasting an incredible opportunity by making poor life choices, and she was.” She exhaled, jaw tightening as if she hated herself for still caring. “But she never would have given me that bag if she knew it came with strings.”

I studied her. The careful way she saidthat baginstead ofthe money.As if she were still trying to separate herself from it, as if she hadn’t already drenched her hands in the blood Veronika left behind.

I tilted my head. “Do you know what those strings were?”

“No.” A flicker of unease crossed her face. “The only thing I know is that she said if anything happened to her, I needed to take the money and run. So that’s what I did.”

She ran.

And I chased.

I raked a hand through my hair, the full picture coming together piece by piece. Veronika had known she was playing with fire. She hadn’t protected herself—but she’d tried to protect Marina.

And she had sent her right into my hands.

Marina studied me, then asked, “If you knew Veronika was cheating, why didn’t you ever say anything?”

I felt the weight of that question settle between us.

“Every time I threw her in your face,” she continued, her voice quieter now, “you could have told me she was sleeping with other men. You could have shut me down. But you never did.”

I looked at her, my pulse steady but thick with something darker.

“She was your sister,” I said simply. “You loved her. I didn’t know you knew about her affairs, and I didn’t want to trash her memory in your eyes.”

Something shifted in her expression.

Not quite softness—somethingworse.

Something dangerous.

“Oh…”

That tiny fucking sound, barely even a word. If Marina ever realized how helpless I was when she looked at me like that, I was fucking ruined.

I leaned in. “If you knew what your sister was doing, then why didn’t you use that information against me?”

Her lips parted slightly, her pulse flickering at the base of her throat.

CHAPTER 26

MARINA

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