Chapter 173

The Predator

Three fucking days. Three days of pretending I was fine, of plastering on the mask I wore so well. But inside? I was unravelling. She’d done something to me. My little bird. My ptichka. She didn’t even know she was making me crave her second by passing second. Completely.

Every time she looked at me with those wide, innocent eyes, my chest tightened, and I forgot how to breathe. Me. Judas Romanovski. The man who broke necks for sport, who found peace in chaos. Now I was losing my goddamn mind over a girl who probably didn’t even know the power she held.

I wanted her. Every. Damn. Second. And not just to fuck her—though, God knows, the things I wanted to do to her would make a sinner blush. No, I wanted to own her. Body. Mind. Soul. She was mine, even if I had to remind it to her thousand fucking times.

And worst, I felt the primal urge again. In middle of the fucking meeting.

That itch. That fucking pull. I sat at