Page 28

"Here," Sabrina says, handing me a prescription bottle, as Matilda's driver takes us all back to the small airfield.
"What's this?" I ask, taking it from her to read the label.
"It's an antihistamine."
I arch a brow in question. "I don't have any allergies."
I can tell she’s doing her best to keep her face neutral and not roll her eyes at me. "It's for your motion sickness. If you take it now, it'll start taking effect by the time we hit two hundred miles per hour." She digs into her bag and then hands me a tiny water bottle. Well, in her hands it’s small. In mine, it’s tiny. Akin to a sip.
How did she know?
She hasn't looked at me once since she got back from dress shopping with her mother, when I stared out of her bedroom window as Parker took the liberty to take her hand and help her down. Like a fucking gentleman.
I pop a pill and drink the water in one gulp, placing the empty bottle in the cup holder between us, before resuming my gaze out of the window.
At twenty-five thousand feet in the air, she falls asleep. During some turbulence, her head falls to the side and rests on Parker's arm. He catches me glowering, and smirks.
"I think I got a good hand in with Tildy," I say, making his smirk drop. "Pretty sure she'll agree you're no longer needed once the marriage certificate is signed."
"And you'll see Sabrina will hate you for it." He muses, his southern drawl barely noticeable. I wonder if it's fake. A show, like her pretty smile with all her teeth showing. "She doesn't want you. Don’t trust you. Won't trust your people. Without me, she'll find a way to leave, Maksim.I'ma ‘non-negotiable.’ You're just the man she's being forced tomarry to save her dad and the only thing she actually worked hard to achieve- her legacy. I read the contract. All of it. You keep thinking you’ll keep her safe, but we both know once that license is signed, there's a target on her back.
“Your men answer to you; I answer toher. That's the difference here, and that's exactly who and what she'll need. The wars I fought rage on in different countries. Yours follow you around and hers are in her mind. Do you think she'll see some random Russian or Italian and believe she'll just go to them if she's in danger of her own free will?" He shakes his head at me. "We both know when she signs that license, she signs her death warrant. All you want is your money back - all I want is for her tolive."
"And you call what she does now living?"
"Better than fighting in a ring for money you don't need, getting drunk to fill whatever void you got." His defined jaw clenches, muscle ticking and mine does the same. "She's just trying to survive the only way she knows how."
"You love her." I blurt. I should've taken that second pill.
His eyes retreat from mine and settle down to the top of her head still resting on him, his gaze softening. "My feelings for her don't matter. All that matters is she stays alive in your world until you get your money. And I think we both know that without me, she won't survive it."
It feels like doom befalls the cabin of the plane as we hit another pocket of turbulence. My fingers clutch the armrests tightly, knuckles going white. Fuck I hate flying. The only time I have to do it is when I meet the famiglias in Italy or the different Bratva chapters in Serbia.
And I have to do it all over again for our engagement party next week.
"What’s wrong? Need some alcohol?"
"Fuck you." I spit.
He chuckles darkly, keeping a smug smirk on his face. "If you haven't yet, look up my credentials. I'm sure you have a cyberpunk in your merry band of criminals that can do just that. Parker Savage Hayes."
It's a dig, but I don't let it bother me. I've heard it my entire life. But I do dig back. "Your parents must've hated you if they made your middle name Savage."
There's that fucking chuckle again. "Young, dumb, and full of cum when they had me. Just two hicks raised in a farming town with nothing better to do than get drunk and fuck."
I wish he'd shut up already. My stomach is threatening to reject my lunch just as the plane stops shaking.
Goddammit.
It's been three days since we landed in New York, and she hasn't reached out to me. Not even through my assistant, Jonny, to tell me we have to be seen together. So, I pick up my second phone and swipe over to the app for the cameras in her home in Brooklyn Heights.
Parker sits at the end of a long table meant to hold eight people – or more if extended by leaf – reading the newspaper like a domicile husband, while Sabrina walks around in an oversized sweatshirt that hangs off one shoulder, champagne hair up in a messy knot on her head. Her hands are on her knees, and she's having what seems to be a stand-off with one lone... cupcake, down to eye-level with it.
She picks up the plate and steadily walks over to Parker and sets it down in front of him. He peers up at her over the edge of the newspaper, folds it, and tosses it down on the table. From the inside jacket pocket of his suit, he plucks out a switchblade, flips it open, and cuts the cupcake straight down the middle. He inspects it as though he’s a judge on one of those baking shows, while Sabrina fidgets nervously, playing with the hem of her sleeves. He cuts it again into quarters. Then, picks a half up and takes a large bite.
Then another.
And finishes the entire thing.