2. Veronica

Chapter 2

Veronica

F atigue set in as I pulled the feed from the cameras. My heart pounded harder than it should have. Even after the fiasco a few months ago with Victor breaking in — twice, my setup was decent. I’d worked hard to revamp it and improve it. I thought I’d had all corners of the property covered, but every time I thought I had it managed, Eli always seemed to find the spots he could sneak in. Or maybe he just knew exactly where to stand to taunt me. He’d proven before that he was a competent hacker, too. I shouldn’t underestimate him, I reminded myself.

The footage played out in front of me, showing the slider door in my basement. The first gifts were small river rocks and flowers, always by the doorway. I was glued to the screen almost twenty- four hours a day, watching. There was a flash of movement in the corner, just out of focus. My breath caught in my throat as I paused the video, leaning closer.

Eli

My fingers tightened on the edge of the desk. He was doing it on purpose, just enough to let me know he was there but never enough for me to catch him outright. A game. And damn it, I hated games. This pulled me in and kept me on the edge of my seat for some reason. I wasn’t sure if I was flattered, intrigued, or both.

I pushed back from the desk so hard that the chair skittered on its casters and hit the far wall. Glancing at the door into the darkness, I could see that the flower petals led away from the house, delicately set against the darker gravel. What the hell? This was the first time he’d done that. Most of the time, he put his presents on the patio pavers so I could reach them.

Was this a challenge?

He wanted me to follow? Maybe he thought I wouldn’t? Well, fuck that. I totally would. He didn’t know me. My face flushed with anger.

I turned off the sensors so the alarms wouldn’t sound when I opened the back door. The last thing I needed was for it to set off the security system and bring my Bratva guards after me, namely that big annoying lug Luca. I grabbed my hoodie off the back of the chair, pulled it over my head, and shoved my feet into my boots before I could change my mind. Eli thought he could keep playing these games without consequences. Well, he’d see that wasn’t the case. I wouldn’t just sit back and let things happen—I would take control.

S liding the door open took all my strength. It was a monster slab of glass, ridiculously big, and I’d been meaning to ask my assigned Bratva guard, Luca, to talk to the powers that be to get maintenance on it. Of course, that’d mean he’d ask all sorts of annoying questions about why I would want to open the door.

Luca wasn’t fond of Arizona, but he was a snob. He didn’t like my sister’s new boyfriend, Pike, either. I was pretty sure that was because Pike had been in jail when my sister met him. Either that or it was because Pike was the reason Luca was called from his cushy assignment in San Diego with my cousin Maxim.

“Fresh air,” I’d say .

He’d say something stupid like, “Ronnie, it’s dangerous to open the door. Some stray could wander in.” He’d mean Eli Walters, of course.

Pike’s brother because he was a psycho, but … whatever. Everyone was a closet psycho, especially when you were a criminal. They all acted like Eli was a step away from an insane asylum, but they weren’t any better. They all killed people. They thought I didn’t know about that part of their dirty little businesses, but I was good at unearthing secrets. I knew all about what they did.

Of course, I didn’t really know Eli Walters at all. Not personally. That’s what my sister Natasha would say. The information I had about him was built from everything I could glean from my deep dive online — and it wasn’t much. Eli Walters was a mystery.

I had been looking for more information on Eli, but even my contacts on the dark web had come up dry, and any effort I’d made to find information had been met with resistance. I remembered the latest incident with the incursion on my desktop and grimaced. Uncool.

“Ronnie, you can’t know someone from online. That’s not how you meet people.” Then she’d roll her eyes at me .

Natty and I were besties, but I knew it was a push-pull with her. She didn’t understand my contentment in my computers, codes, gaming, or online life. Natty wanted things that were up close and personal. She enjoyed the conversation and the social interaction that lawyer life provided her. I was proud of her. She’d gone to college, become a lawyer, and now was working for our cousin Maxim on behalf of the Volkov Bratva. She took all sorts of cases, but she was a badass.

When our cousin Dimitri called her, I had to beg a little to get Natty to let me join her on this job. I loved my mother, and God knew that she’d made the ultimate sacrifice for us girls (for me) by returning to the Bratva, but her overbearing ways were driving me absolutely bananas.

In this instance, I had to admit that Natty would be right. You couldn’t possibly know Eli Walters from the information gathered online because there wasn’t anything to find. However, I had his presents that he was leaving me and this weird attempt at communication that he was making — if that was what he was doing. I couldn’t tell and didn’t want to ask my sister. Was this his try at flirting with me? I didn’t have much experience in the social scene, so I didn’t have much to compare it to. Natty had talked to him in person, though. So I knew he was real. I wanted to talk to him too — damn it.

It occurred to me as my boots crunched over the gravel and the hair on the back of my neck prickled that I was being an idiot, but I couldn’t make myself turn around. Calia, Arabella, and Reed would be furious at me if they knew what I was doing. Everyone who knew me would have cautioned against this, but it didn’t stop me.

The agave and cactus plants cast shadows around me, making me see things that weren’t there. Arms grasped at me in the dark, bulbous heads leered, making my heart beat faster, but I didn’t turn around even then.

Eli’s early childhood records had shown that he’d ripped the eyes out of everything, blacked out eyes in magazines even. His brother, Pike, told my sister that he would find Eli in corners rocking himself, unable to stop until all the eyes were gone. Maybe I should be more careful, but I was only intrigued by the man he’d grown into. Maybe I was one of those girls that wanted to touch the darkness. I’d thought a lot about it and circled the topic in my head endlessly. As soon as the little gifts began, I should have reported them, but I didn’t.

I came to the trail’s end, idly rolling the petals between my fingers, wondering what flowers these were. He’d left all sorts: roses, lilies, violets, and peonies. Some were deep colors, and some were pale as milk. I was sure there were reasons behind each of his choices, but I’d yet to decipher them. Everything about him was a puzzle to me.

I would ask his brother, but he wouldn’t know. Eli and Pike were separated when they were children. Sent to a foster father who had abused them and then pretended Eli was dead and drowned. It was a horrendous story. It was only recently that Pike had learned that Eli was still alive. Of course, maybe Pike thought that Eli being dead was better, but I didn’t think so. Eli was strange then and stranger now, but nobody wouldn’t want a sibling. Natasha was a pain in my ass, but I’d never want her to be gone.

My breath was shallow, and I tried to steady my nerves, heaving in a great big breath, ignoring the burn on my damaged lungs. I felt that tickle in my throat that indicated I was about to cough, and I tried to keep it back. Now wasn’t the time to be hacking up a lung. I was trying to be stealthy. I still couldn’t decide if I was terrified or excited.

Would today be the day that Eli Walters spoke to me? What would he say?

The last few petals lay at the base of a tall saguaro, its spiny arms reaching up toward the starless sky. The flower petals were soft under my fingers, contrasting the tension coiling in my chest. The darkness seemed to close around me, pressing against my skin, making me hyper-aware of every sound and movement. I had no business coming outside like this.

Eli might be out there. Somewhere. Watching.

The thought sent a shiver down my spine, a mix of fear and something else—something that had me gripping the petals tighter as if they were the only thing keeping me grounded. I didn’t know what I was doing, following his trail like this, walking right into whatever trap he might have set. But something about how he danced on the edge of danger pulled me in despite my better judgment.

I knew he was dangerous. He’d shown that by killing the man who had gotten into the house a few weeks ago. I watched the footage afterward.

It had been my first real visual of Eli Walters. He was taller than I imagined, well over six feet and bulkier. He appeared from the shadows of the courtyard, looming like some apparition. From the camera angle I had, he looked enormous and powerful, but that could be just the perception of the lens .

Then he’d gutted the guy without even blinking. Victor supposedly had been his friend, and he hadn’t even hesitated. Don’t get me wrong … I didn’t want him to hesitate. My sister Natasha’s life had been on the line, but you’d think if it were your friend, you’d hesitate a little. Right? That the blade in your hand wouldn’t unerringly pull through flesh and organs like Eli’s had. I had rewound the tape and watched Eli’s face when he’d done it. Savage. He’d stared down at Victor’s body dispassionately afterward, completely unaffected.

Natasha said that Eli had saved her, which was all that mattered to me in the end. Maybe it was wrong of me that I didn’t care that Victor was dead. He was obviously a special kind of psycho — and he’d tried to hurt my sister. I was glad Eli had killed him. I hadn’t missed what Eli had told Victor, either. Right before he’d pushed the blade in, he’d told him …

“You aren’t my brother, Victor.” Eli’s words had been harsh as he watched the other man with something close to disgust. Victor’s eyes had fluttered closed as if in pain as Eli had spoken. “You made a mistake. You were using me.”

The dynamic between the two men still puzzled me. I’d been able to unearth some information about the other man, but not very much. Victor Litvin had been a runaway from a foster home at age ten in the Seattle area. He fell off the map until he reappeared at seventeen, getting picked up for theft. Victor spent a month in youth camps until he ran away, leaving one person dead. After that, I’d pulled a few other digital items that contained that name, but they were few and far between. Those crumbs did leave me a few threads to pull: a lease on an office in Phoenix, a parking garage pass, and a membership to a boxing gym from around age nineteen. I would circle those locations and see what else I could dig up because I knew when I unearthed Victor’s life, I’d be able to excavate Eli’s. That’s what I was after.

I scanned the area, my eyes adjusting to the shadows. The agave and cactus plants that lined the path seemed to loom larger, their shapes distorting in the dark. I knew this part of the property like the back of my hand, having spent so much time implementing all the security measures. Granted, I didn’t spend as much time outside. It felt unsettling, as if reality was twisted just enough to make me question what I knew. The house used to be an old farm, according to my cousin. The walls were stuccoed to compensate for the Arizona heat, with courtyards, fountains, and worn wooden floors.

The cough finally wracked through me, making me bend over my knees as my whole body shook. I sighed, frustration mingling with the anger and the adrenaline that still coursed through me. Well, there wasn’t ever going to be cat burglar in my resume, I thought wryly. Fuck my life.

Eli was playing with me, creating this dumb little trail to follow. This was just an extension of the game, like when he left the presents or showed part of his stupidly handsome face on the cameras. He was toying with my emotions, keeping me on edge, and never giving me what I wanted—answers or a conversation. Fucking edging me. I was tired of being led around like this. Scuffing my boot in the dirt with frustration, I kicked a rock as hard as possible. Goddamnit. Was it so wrong that I just wanted a moment to see him face to face and talk to him? This was torture for me.

I was naturally curious, and something inside me couldn’t settle until I knew . It wasn’t because I wanted something else.

Lie

The girls said I was … interested.

I didn’t know why I let him jerk me around or why I spent so much time on a man who was so obviously unavailable. I had work to do. Important shit. I scoffed at myself. Nothing could be further from the truth. My sister had an actual job, and I was spinning my wheels in life. I had a scheduled chat with my friends in fifteen minutes anyway. Kicking rocks as I went, I spun back towards the house.

I hefted the door back across the track, cringing when it squeaked against a stray piece of gravel caught in the track. Reactivating the security system, I booted everything back up and collapsed again into my chair in frustration.