“No.”

I open my mouth to use my safe word but hesitate. Do I believe he’ll ignore it? Or that he’ll actually let me go if I use it? I don’t know which is worse, and that speaks volumes to how fucked my head is right now. But, damn it, I want answers. “How long did you stalk me before we ‘met’ for the first time two years ago?”

He lifts a single dark brow. “A few months. You made it easy. You put every thought in your head on social media.”

My breath whooshes out. The question was a hunch; to have it verified feels . . . complicated. But he’s answering my questions, so I don’t linger on the emotions clogging my chest. “Why me?”

“You know the answer to that.” He moves around the room, making the same circuit I did when I first got here, examining the toys and tools, poking his head into the bathroom.

Yeah, I guess I do. He picked me because I’m heir to the Belmonte territory—not because he took one look at me and was overwhelmed by wanting. It shouldn’t matter. He’s Casimir fucking Romanov. He’s a fucking stalker, a murderer, an enemy; the answer to why me shouldn’t make my chest tight and hot.

Carver City has had peace for a long time, and the territory leaders are—mostly—still in their prime and not easy pickings. But us heirs are coming of age, and most of us are taking on more responsibility, training for the roles we’ll one day fill.

It’d be smart for an enemy to plant the seeds of dissent now. To target us. Whether to tee us up to be perfect victims later . . . or to merge with us in a more traditional format. Marriage.

I swallow hard. “How many Romanovs are in Carver City right now?”

He gives me a wolf’s grin. “Smart girl.”

Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck. Michelle hasn’t said anything about suspicious people in her life, but she’s definitely been acting strangely. I was dating a damn Romanov for two fucking years and I had no idea. She might have someone close to her. She might be in danger. And Zayne . . . and the others. Fuck. “Who?”

He just stares at me, expression stony.

A slow-dawning horror takes up residence in my chest. “Tatiana. She’s one of you.”

“My . . . sister.”

The horror inside me grows claws and teeth. His sister. I had his sister’s mouth and fingers all over my pussy. I sent him a picture of it. Oh gods . . . “What the fuck, Casimir?”

“I told you to leave her alone. You didn’t listen.”

I stare at him, trying to see the man I fell in love with. The features are the same—his handsome face, sensuous lips, pale eyes—but Luke never wore a cold expression like Casimir does now. They don’t even move the same. “What was your endgame? Because from where I’m standing, it looks like you never planned to tell me the truth.”

He shrugs. “Once we were married, I would have mentioned something.”

“Mentioned something,” I repeat numbly. “You lied to me. You’ve been lying to me from the beginning.”

He gives me a long look. “Keep throwing stones, baby. You were so quick to tell me who your parents were to Carver City—who your aunt was. Oh wait, you weren’t. You never did.”

Because I thought he was outside the life. I thought he was something just for me. I hadn’t planned on us getting so serious, moving in together, the whole nine yards. It just kind of happened, and it never felt like a good time to explain that my parents were overprotective because we’re in organized crime. I tucked that conversation away in the same place I’ve tucked my thoughts and feelings about being heir. “That’s different.”

“Sure.” He doesn’t say it like he agrees. “Then let’s do one easier. I might have lied about who I was . . . but so did you.”

“No, I didn’t. You knew my name from the start.”

“Come on, Red.” He picks up a flogger, and my whole body goes tight. But he doesn’t approach the bed with it. He just runs it lightly over his palm, almost contemplatively. “We wouldn’t be here if you were the good girl you pretended to be for years. You’d still be sleeping next to Luke, the nice guy who’s perfectly safe.”

“Perfectly boring,” I snap.

“You never thought so when you were coming on my tongue.”

I flinch. It’s true. During the first year of our relationship, we were insatiable. I was insatiable. I’m still not sure when it all changed. “Not recently.”

“No,” he agrees. “Not recently. I’ve been distracted with work, with things back home that required my attention. I would have course corrected, but you took that option away when you . . .” His fist clenches around the flogger. “You cheated, baby. So before you get on your high horse about lies, consider that I haven’t touched another fucking person since we started dating. You’ve done it three times.”

My body flushes with shame, which only makes me angrier. Yeah, I cheated, but would I have if I’d known who he really was? The logic is deeply flawed, but I’m too mad to care. “I cheated on Luke, not you. Once.”

“Semantics.” He drops the flogger and moves to stand at the foot of the bed, his cold gaze raking over me. “Once on Luke, twice on Wolf. It all amounts to the same thing.”

He’s right. I hate that he’s right. I could argue that I was never in a relationship with Wolf, that we never agreed on anything at all, but that doesn’t feel like the truth. “If you were honest with me⁠—”

“Then you would have gone running to your precious parents.” He crosses his arms over his chest. “And your fathers would have taken exception and tried to do something about it. So I would have killed them, and we still would have ended up here.”

He says it so calmly. It’s not even a threat. It’s just fact. I stare. “No.”

“Yes.” He shrugs. “This is better.”

He’s been four steps ahead of me this entire time. What the hell am I supposed to think of that? I don’t know. I can’t think at all. “Did you hurt Tatiana? Threaten her?” Her text hadn’t seemed worried but I was a stranger. It’s no like she’d confess to me.

He actually has the nerve to look insulted. “We’re family. She might be a bitch, but she’s blood. And she hardly forced you into that little threesome. That’s not on her.”

“Funny how you make an exception for her when you didn’t for the others.”

“Life isn’t fair, baby. You know that better than most.” He drinks me in with long sweeps of his gaze. He finally stops at my pussy. “What’s your safe word?”

“No.”

“That’s not it.” He moves back to the cabinet of toys and tools. “You use it, this stops. But you want me as much as I want you. You wanted me as Luke, even if you weren’t honest about what you needed. So I gave you what you need in the form of Wolf. You liked our fucked-up little games, or you would have put a stop to them. So, now that there are no more lies between us, we’re going to keep playing.”

“No.”

He turns back around, a few things I can’t quite see clearly in his hands. “Keep telling me no while that pussy practically gushes in anticipation. You might have a lying mouth, but your body knows who owns you.”

“You don’t own me.” I wish I sounded more confident, especially as he climbs on the bed to kneel between my spread legs. I jerk on the bindings, but they hold me steady. Worst of all, it doesn’t hurt. He’s been very careful with me, and I love and hate that realization in equal measure. “Stop, Casimir. I mean it.”

“No.” He parts my pussy with rough fingers, and then something snaps around my clit. I jerk, but there’s nowhere to go. I can’t see the thing either.

There’s no time to figure it out. Not when he pulls a small plug out of his pocket and smears lube on it. I struggle. It’s no use. Casimir holds my hips down and presses the plug against my ass and then carefully inside. I haven’t done much anal, and the intrusion is strange. But not awful.

He brushes the base with his knuckles, and it shifts inside me. “I like this,” he says.