Page 105 of Monstrous Urges

Small world.

Eventually, I’m making my way past a quiet side hallway toward the secondary ballroom of the gala, enroute to the bar for a glass of champagne, when a hand suddenly slips out of the shadows.

I gasp as I’m yanked backward, and the breath leaves my body as I’m slammed against the wall behind me.

A hand grabs me by the throat, and my eyes widen as I stare up into a beautiful but fiercely savage man’s face.

“There seems to be a misunderstanding,” he growls in a slightly British-accented voice.

His features are a mix of—Japanese, perhaps?—and something vaguely Nordic. The dark hair and Asian eyes coupled with his towering height and squared, European jaw makes me think of a samurai mixed with a Viking.

My eyes drop to the wrist of the hand gripping my throat. The cuff of his tuxedo has slipped up, showing a flash of brilliant bright Yakuza ink.

“I—”

“You’ve been introducing yourself all evening as Annika Brancovich,” he snarls quietly. “But you and I both know that isn’t true.”

I swallow painfully, his grip still firm around my windpipe.

“I—yes, I?—”

“No,” he snaps coldly. “You’re not.”

My stomach knots as he looms over me.

“You don’t belong here, Ms. Crown.”

I stare at him. “I?—”

His hand abruptly drops from my throat. He steps a half foot back from me, as if he knows he shouldn’t be this close to me.

“I believe you employ my half-sister.”

My eyes go wide.

Holy shit.

This is Kenzo Mori?

I frown at him. “You’re Fumi’s brother?”

“We can’t talk here. But we do need to speak.”

“I don’t understand?—”

“Tell no one you saw me,” he growls, reaching into his pocket and pulling out a little black flip phone. “Especially Fumi. Certainly not Drazen.”

I tense as he looms into me; for one second, it feels like this man might freaking kiss me. But then his mouth slips past mine to hover near my ear. I stiffen when I feel him slip the phone into my hand.

“Hide this,” he growls. “When you’re ready for answers, use it.”

“Answers to what?” I whisper as he pulls back and adjusts his tux.

“To all the things you can’t explain, Ms. Crown,” he growls. “The gaps in your memory. The things you do when you’re asleep.” His eyes lock with mine. “The question that I think deep down you’ve already figured out.”

I start to shake my head, but then I stop cold.

“I’m not her,” I whisper, almost to myself.