I last saw him, but now, in a moment, my mind outlined the profile of my ex.
Blond hair, blue eyes, square jaw, hook nose, average height and weight ...
"Ryan!" I stifled a gasp.
Suddenly I turned around in shock.
He too had turned to me and took off his glasses.
He had longer hair and an unkempt beard, but it was him.
How was it possible?
I thought back to that year together and the problems I had had ...
I remembered all the times I'd confided to him my suspicions that someone close to me was cheating on me.
"How could you do this to me?" I understood instantly. He was the person who had hindered my projects from the very beginning.
Only then did I realize how much he had used me and how he had tried to compromise my plans.
Instinctively I looked for my Beretta hidden in the pocket of my skirt, but too late I realized I had left it in my room when Alexey had called me.
Ryan did the same and suddenly I found the barrel of his gun pointed at me.
"Kendra, don't take this personally, but here only one of us can get out alive".
"It doesn't have to end like this" I tried to convince him, starting down the stairs slowly, without turning my back on Ryan.
By now it was clear that he would soon betray me with Aleksej and at that point there would be no way out for me. I had to get out of that villa and quickly!
Also, the anger at the humiliation I suffered only made me want to take my cell phone in my pocket and call my contacts immediately to warn them not to trust Ryan.
"What the hell is going on?" Aleksej's voice thundered, attracting Ryan's attention.
I had too much experience not to understand that I was burned, so I did the only thing I could still do. I picked up my cell phone and quickly wrote a message, explaining what had happened.
"Put that phone away!" Ryan yelled at me out of his mind, as soon as he noticed it, blocking me just before sending the message.
I saw Aleksej stopping Ryan with a wave of his hand and come towards me.
His gaze seemed like a thin sheet of black ice that would soon break, exploding into a thousand shards ready to hit anyone near him.
After eight months in close contact, I knew him enough to know that he wouldn't hesitate to make me pay every single second alongside him, exploited only for my own purposes.
Forgiveness was the only thing he would never have granted me.
I had no doubts about this.
He would have done anything to destroy me. But only after making me confess how far I had come to do the same with him in those months.
"Give me your cell phone" he hissed in a low voice a step away from me, holding out his hand.
I took a quick glance at the display, regretting the old cell phones that used keys, easy to recognize by touch, instead of sight.
I just had to hit the Enter key with my thumb.
I was about to press it when I saw Aleksej's swift hand reach me.
I barely had time to move my arm to avoid it, but at the same time a gunshot echoed throughout the villa.
I didn't even notice the bullet directed at me, until a sharp pain in my chest cut my breath and pushed me backwards, making me lose my balance.
The heels of my shoes lost their support and, before I could cling to Aleksej's arm, which was stretched towards me, I fell into the void.
I barely felt the touch of Aleksej's fingers before starting the descent towards my end.
The last thing I remembered was his name which I weakly pronounced as a desperate and absurd request for help and then ... the pain.
Only the pain had the power to make me feel still alive, despite the bullet lodged a few centimeters from the breastbone and the repeated blows on the steps of the staircase, on which I rolled violently to the bottom.
And finally, there was only darkness.
CHAPTER 2
ALEKSEJ
Almost forty-eight hours had passed since that delirium that was unleashed in my house.
Hours that I had spent getting angry with myself for not having noticed the deceptions of Danielle Stenton, indeed no, of Kendra Palmer.
How could I have been so stupid?
How could I have failed to notice her true nature?
Yet I had some suspicions!
Was it possible that the beauty of that woman had managed to dazzle me to the point of completely losing my mind, so much so that I became stupid and blind?
Just me who had always boasted of having a sixth sense for scammers and liars.
My God, I could not believe that I had had such a person next to me for eight very long months without noticing anything.
The truth was that I had been too busy wanting to take her to bed and to subdue her rebellious and arrogant temper!
I had been so blinded by her desire and her elusive but provocative way of being close to me that I lost my mind.
I knew that closeness could be dangerous, but it had always been so exciting that it made me hold onto her.
I kept telling myself that I was an idiot, because I had always understood that there was something underhanded about Kendra.
Already from our first meeting, in which she threw herself on the street, getting hit by my car, while the driver was slowly leaving the parking lot, I understood that that accident had been combined.
I got out of the car with the desire to make the person pay for that joke and with the threat ready in case she started talking about complaints or anything else.
But then I saw her.
Her. On the ground. Aching in her knee that she had banged against the nose of the car, and with a skinned arm with which she had protected her face falling on the asphalt.
Despite the situation, I was immediately fascinated by that breathtaking body, wrapped in a skimpy black dress that left nothing to the imagination.
My driver had helped her to get up, while she had insulted him for hitting her.
Then I too went over and asked her if she was okay.
In an instant I found myself a prisoner of her beautiful gray eyes and menacing like a cloudy sky with a storm coming.
With that delicate-featured face of her and that long brown hair that covered her entire bare back, she had made me want to touch her and make her mine.
For this reason, when I proposed to take her to the hospital and she immediately stiffened and frightened, telling me that she was fine despite having a hard time walking, I took the leap and invited her to the hotel where I was staying.
She had accepted, but what I had believed to be just the prelude to an unforgettable night of sex, soon turned out to be the exact opposite.
With difficulty I had managed to get her name, Danielle Stenton, and when I had tried to step forward, she had immediately blocked me, telling me that she had not consented to follow me to be taken to bed, but only to be medicated, put ice on the knee and maybe have a warm bed to spend the night alone.
I had never been able to extort from her the reason why such a beautiful and charming woman could need a place to sleep, but I immediately understood that that incident