Page 96 of Smoke and Shadows

“I agree.”

“Hell, you have to understand my position,” Trent argued. “Reesee’s a tough nut, but she’s been hurt before by someone like you.”

Viktor tensed, not sure he wanted to hear this, but he couldn’t help himself from asking, “How do you know the person was someone like me?”

“She has a good head on her shoulders—a good douchebag meter—and she doesn’t put up with bullshit, so I don’t usually have to worry about her getting hurt by some asshole.” His voice turned harsh. “Except that one time a couple of years ago. She’d just gotten transferred to the clandestine service. I think it was some guy from the black ops team she worked with. Like I said, someone like you.”

Or it was me, Viktor thought grimly.

“Look man, I already said too much,” Trent said. “I just have to trust her when she says she knows what she’s doing this time. Whatever happened to her back then fucked her up.” Trent shrugged. “But it made her what she is today.”

Hardened. Snarky.

“Marissa’s one of the best black ops team leads I know,” Viktor said, but underneath his bland statement, a rush of emotions plagued him—one of them was guilt. The knowledge that he had a hand in stripping the innocence from her and inadvertently shaping her into a woman more suitable to his world.

So now that her brother and one parent were on board with their relationship, Viktor was curious what her father had to say.

The smell of cigar smoke reached his nostrils even before he approached the ornately carved doors of the study. The assistant announced his arrival.

Trenton Cole was a tall man, but years behind the doors of boardrooms, and nothing more, had aged him prematurely. His forehead was creased permanently with frown lines. His mouth was pinched at the corners. An expensive sweater stretched over a more-than generous beer belly. But his eyes were watchful. Shrewd.

“Cigar?” Cole offered. “Brandy?”

“Brandy,” Viktor said.

Marissa’s father walked over and poured the amber liquid into a snifter, and then handed it to Viktor.

“Please sit,” Cole said, even as he walked over to a window and stared outside.

“I’d prefer to stand,” Viktor replied. “I doubt our conversation will take too much time.”

Her father turned around to face him. “You’re not what I want for my daughter.”

And there goes the opening salvo.

“I’m listening,” Viktor said.

Exhaling in irritation, Cole continued, “I’ve accepted that she will never run the business, but I was hoping she’d marry someone who would. Unfortunately, I don’t think I could bribe you with money to leave my daughter alone. You makemore than enough with your little enterprise to tide you over until Marissa gets her inheritance.”

What. A. Prick. Viktor thought angrily.

“I surely hope you’re not insinuating that I’m with Marissa because of money,” Viktor said in a bored voice.

“Don’t try to deny it.” Cole’s nostrils flared. “We’re talking billions. I have to protect what I’ve worked for all these years, so I’m taking drastic measures.” He paused, as if it was hard for him to say the next words. “I’m cutting her off if she continues to see you. She has a trust fund that I have no control over, but that’s only ten million dollars. I’ll offer you twenty million now to leave her. No more. No less. And you agree tonight or the offer is rescinded.”

Viktor thought briefly what the prison sentence was for breaking the neck of your woman’s father. He methodically tossed back the brandy and set the empty glass on the table, regarding Marissa’s father with a chilling gaze. It never failed to put the fear of God in people. His eyes had seen too much death and suffering. The eyes of a killer. The eyes of someone who would destroy anyone who would try to come between him and the woman he loved.

Trenton Cole’s eyes widened in a moment of uncertainty, swallowing a lump in his throat.

Viktor took a slight step forward; the older man took a step back.

“Are we done here?” Viktor said softly, a ripple of menace coating his words.

“Now see here, Baran—” Cole sputtered.

“No. You—see—here,” Viktor said, cold fury taking over. “The only reason I haven’t snapped your neck is because I love your daughter, and even if you’re her dick of a father, I have to show you some respect. But I’ve taken men down for much less than the crap you’ve just spewed out. So, I repeat. Are—we—done—here?”

Cole’s mouth hardened into a thin line and he nodded jerkily.