Saturday, September 21st, 7:02 am

I opened my eyes and saw nothing but darkness.

I blinked. Darkness.

Again. Still the same.

I stretched out to my right, searching for anything to tell me where I was. My fingers brushed over nothing but a sea of silk.

Where the hell was I?

What had I been doing?

Brown leather? Soft kisses.

Erin.

My eyes burned as I closed them and pressed my fingers to my lids. A headache flared to life, but for some reason, it felt like it should have been worse. I almost felt normal.

It all started coming back to me: the drinking, the making out, the sex with Erin in my study.

I reached to my left, feeling more silk beneath my fingertips, and then the warmth of skin. Soft. My fingers trailed down the gentle contours of a feminine back lying beside me.

A light, contented hum cut through the darkness, responding to my touch.

I rolled away from the body and stretched, reaching again, trying to find the edge of what was obviously my bed and the nightstand where my phone probably was. Sure enough, my fingers met hard edges and glass. My phone lit up instantly, flooding my vision with a harsh glow.

I blinked rapidly and squinted, trying to tame the sudden brightness. My dull headache protested at the intrusion, but I’d seen enough to know I was in my room and that it was 7:05 in the morning.

Saturday.

I must’ve blacked out and been carried here.

Embarrassment clawed at my mind, and I squeezed my eyes shut, picturing three or four women hauling my drunk ass to bed, and with each passing moment, it only got worse. I suddenly remembered why I’d gotten drunk in the first place.

Hiro Tanaka. Sashiko Tanaka. European banks. Tokyo real estate. Interpol and the SEC. Thousands of lives ruined. Billions lost…

I opened my newsfeed and immediately wished I hadn’t.

“Fuck. Kill me,” I whispered.

‘IMF Emergency Meeting Called—Fears of Currency Manipulation Surface.’

‘Tourism Craters Overnight: European Travel Sector Bleeds $4.3B in 48 Hours.’

‘Cryptocurrency Surges as Fiat Confidence Wavers—‘Digital Gold Rush’ Begins.’

‘Rumors of Insider Immunity: Which Hedge Funds Knew Before the Plunge?’

‘Anonymous Source Says Cyberintelligence Links Back to Japan.’

‘Flash Crash or Financial Warfare? Investigators Probe Source of Friday’s Euro Dump.’

And they just kept coming…

I groaned and dropped my phone on the bed, rolling onto my back to stare at the ceiling.

This was all my fault.

No matter what Erin said—or any of them, for that matter—I was the one calling the shots. I was the one who hadn’t listened when they told me Hiro Tanaka had the experience and the fortitude to pull something like this off.

I was the one who decided not to give Carla or his son back to him. I wanted to use them as leverage—to make Hiro surrender to me. I was tired of letting my pride take the hits. I wanted a goddamn win.

Instead, I’d lost.

And it only cost me several billion dollars and the livelihoods of countless people.

I had to meet his demands.

Didn’t I?

He had won! I couldn’t compete with something like this!

I picked up my phone again, opened it, and navigated to the only number I had for Hiro. He hadn’t answered a single call or replied to a text since the day I turned him down… but his daughter had.

You just destroyed the lives of countless people, I typed, smashing the keys like I was mad at them. I hope you die today. In the most painful way possible, so you can get to hell faster than you already are. In the meantime, you win.

My finger hovered over the send button, hesitating. I didn’t want to admit it to him.

No. It was too late. I needed to give him what he wanted. There was no other choice! Was I supposed to wait for him to nuke a third-world country full of orphans?

But I couldn’t bring myself to hit send.

You win…

I swallowed the lump in my throat and held down the backspace key until that last sentence was gone.

Instead, I typed. You have my attention. Can we talk?

I hit send and backed out. I didn’t even want to see the message get delivered.

That brought me to the ever-increasing list of unread and unanswered texts that had been building since last night. More from Mom, Dad, Dillon, Jonah… None from Natalie, which felt a little off.

The newest one, though, was from Astrid.

Even though I never replied to a single message from her, I always opened them. I couldn’t help myself—every one of them came with a creative selfie, and as crazy as she was, Astrid was a beautiful woman.

The newest image didn’t disappoint.

She sat on the edge of her bed—the same one I’d last seen her in before leaving Norway. There wasn’t a stitch of clothing on her. Her shoulders were bare, white-blonde hair draping over them and concealing delicate breasts that barely qualified as such. Her long legs were parted, toes touching the floor in such a way that emphasized the gentle slope of her calves. A touch of makeup enhanced her porcelain beauty—a hint of mascara, a kiss of rouge, and just enough blush to give her color.

She had a wicked gleam in her eye and a half-smile that could inspire a straight nun to sin. One hand delicately rested beneath her chin.

Between her legs sat Lara—the young woman who’d massaged me my first night at Astrid’s house. Like her mistress, she wasn’t wearing a scrap of fabric. Unlike her mistress, everything was on full display.

Lara’s breasts hung freely, heavy and ripe, begging to be kissed. Her tender pink nipples were hard, capping areolas slightly wider than a quarter. Her skin was almost as fair as Astrid’s and just as flawless, contrasting beautifully with the raven-black hair twisted into a messy bun.

Her legs were parted, knees half drawn toward her chest. Between her thighs was a dark thatch of hair nestled above faint pink lips that all but disappeared in the way she sat. Maybe it was my imagination, but I could’ve sworn something glistened there.

Her fingers, tipped with blood-red nails, were elegantly long and feminine.

Astrid’s other hand cupped Lara’s chin, guiding her to look up at her mistress. It was a subtle act of gentle domination—something at odds with what I knew Astrid to be. She didn’t believe in subtlety or gentleness at all. Bobbi could attest to that.

Still, Lara’s cornflower-blue eyes stared up at the other woman with absolute adoration.

The caption beneath the image read: You didn’t get a taste last time. Come back and see me, and maybe we can both indulge.

Goddamn, Astrid knew how to take a sexy photo. Did she have a photographer on standby? It wasn’t like she could shoot them herself.

Despite everything, I reached down and squeezed my cock through my underwear. It had grown hard as I stared at the image.

“Marcus?”

I glanced to my left, at the girl sleeping next to me. I’d only gotten a fleeting look at her back earlier and had assumed it was Erin.

It wasn’t.

Rolling over to look at me was Natalie.

“Oh God! Natalie!?”

She arched an eyebrow, her expression unreadable. “Expecting someone else?”

“I… uh…”

Natalie shook her head and chuckled softly. “Relax. I’m just giving you a hard time.” She reached out and stroked my cheek. “How are you?”

“I…”

One moment, I was concerned that Natalie was about to hit me for assuming I had another woman in my bed. Next, she proved to be unbothered by it; instead, she was more concerned and worried about me. It was a kind of whiplash I hadn’t experienced before.

I looked up to meet her gaze—barely visible in the dim light from my phone. “Do you know what happened yesterday?”

She nodded. “Marduke was going crazy. Something to do with the European markets? It’s all they’re talking about in the news, and I’m on-call this weekend. It looks bad. Is this related to why you got wasted last night?”

I nodded. “Yeah.” My throat was dry, and that one word came out thick. I physically had to keep tears in check. “It’s my fault… and you’re right. It’s really bad. There are already lawsuits. Interpol and the SEC are sniffing around.”

“God, Marcus… what happened?”

I shook my head. “It’s a long fucking story.”

Natalie sat up all the way, the sheet slipping from her chest to reveal her perfectly nude body. In the dim light, her heavy breasts hung freely.

She gracefully folded her legs beneath her. “It’s Saturday. I have plenty of time… until they call me, anyway.”

So I told her everything.

If I couldn’t trust Natalie, who could I trust?

I gave her all the gory details—the boardroom meeting, how Carla had outplayed everyone, and how that had sparked Hiro’s fury. I told her about the meeting with Ryo in Norway, set up by Astrid—how he shot us out of the air and sent his goons after me. I told her how I came back to the States with Ryo Tanaka in my pocket… about the meeting with Sachiko Tanaka and the assassin who’d been found while we were trying to talk. I mentioned Rajesh’s visit to the party, and the threats he’d delivered through Hiro.

I didn’t leave anything out… except for all the sex.

It didn’t feel necessary to tell her that I’d had angry sex with Carla after Hiro threatened me for something I hadn’t done. Or that I’d slept with my bodyguard while stranded in the Norwegian forest. And I sure as hell didn’t mention nearly fucking the crazy woman who had almost gotten us all killed.

Maybe I needed one of those anonymous groups for sex addicts.

Natalie listened with the patience of a saint, silent until I was completely done. “So… the man found dead in his hotel earlier this week. He was at your party. How did he die?”

Something about her tone was off as she asked the question.

“We’re not a hundred percent sure,” I said.