Page 3 of Fierce Pursuit

Because if he did…I was dead.

CHAPTER 2

KONSTANTINE

Six months earlier

Veronika's bloodstained my hands.

It pooled beneath her, a crimson tide creeping across the marble, violating the pristine white of her dress. The metallic scent of it burned my nostrils, a sickening reminder of my failure. Her ragged breathing scraped through the silence, each desperate exhale weaker than the last, a death rattle counting down the seconds.

My wife was dying.

Murdered by my enemies.

"Please, Kostya," she gasped, her voice wet, bubbles of blood frothing at the corners of her lips as she choked on what life she had left. Her fingernails dug into my wrist, leaving crescent moons of desperation. "She knows. Marina knows what I took from him. Solovyov will killher for it. Protect her. If you ever loved me. If you ever cared?—"

Loved? We both knew better.

I should have loved her.

Maybe if I had, things would have been different.

Maybe if I had, she wouldn't have been so desperate for affection elsewhere. Wouldn't have clung to empty promises from men who only wanted what they could take from her. Wouldn't have made the mistakes that led us here, to her blood seeping between the tiles and her life fading in my arms.

Love had never been part of our marriage.

It was a contract sealed in blood and power, a political move disguised as devotion, a merger of families instead of hearts.

Her hands trembled as they clutched at me, fingers pale against my black sleeve, as if I could keep her tethered to this world.

I couldn't.

The last breath left her lips in a soft, surrendering sigh. Her body went limp, head lolling back, eyes fixed on something I couldn't see. All that remained was the echo of her words, haunting me in the sudden, stifling silence.

Protect Marina.

Protect her little sister.

Marina, the one woman I had never been allowed to touch.

The one who had haunted my thoughts since the moment I put a ring on her sister's finger.

I had resisted the gnawing urge to claim her.

She was my wife's younger sister.

For years, I ignored the way my blood ran hot, my skin tightened from Marina's sharp tongue and firestorm eyes. The way she looked at me, not with fear, not with obedience, but with challenge. A wildness that called to something primal in me.

She was forbidden fruit.

But before I could act, before I could even think, Marina ran.

Ran headlong into the dark. Innocent and unprotected from the wolves circling her scent.

It was reckless. Foolish.

And for the life of me I couldn't understand why.

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