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“No,” she said before I could reach her cornered near the hallway that would open to the selection of private rooms.
Another of her admirers rushed at her, bringing his arm back and up to strike at her. “You can’t tell meno,” he growled, high and furious.
Just in time, before he could backhand her, I stepped forward and intervened. These idiots were low-level Gemini soldiers. Nobodies. But in this moment, they were the dumb fucks who’d learn to back off before I killed them for trying to touch this stranger I had to have.
“Then how aboutItell you no?” I offered roughly, gripping the man’s hand before he could hit her. Keeping her at my back, I physically blocked these three men from being close enough to get to her. Aware of the warmth radiating off her body, I knew she had to be pressing herself behind me, using me as a shield.
“We saw her first,” one man argued, trying to punch me. I held the first man’s arm in the air as I deflected the other’s punch and kicked him so hard that he flung back. With the music so loud, no one could’ve heard the thud of him smacking into a table or the crash of it falling with him.
“Hey, fuck off,” the third guy said. He tried to charge at me, to tackle me, and I punched him twice so he’d drop to the ground.
Down to the last one, the one I’d stopped in the beginning and whose arm I still held out of the way, I dared him to try anything else. His two friends were moaning on the floor. If he had any sense, he’d retreat. But he seemed too high and out of it to think straight at all. “Who do you think?—”
I never cared to humor someone who asked me who I thought I was. I knew who I was and would always be. A boss of the Ivanov Syndicate. The eldest son of Grigory Ivanov, leader of the criminal world in New York. I didn’t need to guess or be put in my place—ever. But I did that now. Twisting this guy’s arm, I made him screech out in pain as I dislocated his shoulder. Then before he could fully embrace the total pain of that maneuver, I raised my knee up into his face twice, feeling the bones crack before letting him drop to the floor.
No one noticed the violence in this corner, tucked further from the main space of the party rooms.
All the groans and grunts of pain went unheard with the music and conversations carrying over the celebration.
One man made no noise at all. As I caught my breath from the brief rush of adrenaline from fighting, I glanced at them and wondered fleetingly if I’d killed that tall one with my knee bashing in his nose like that.
That was his mistake. Not mine.
Turning slowly, I took in the beauty cowering behind me.
She still looked edgy, too guarded to swoon with relief that these punks had been handled. As she lifted her cautious green gaze up to meet mine, I wanted to growl at the instant punch she gave me.
One full look into her eyes and I was sucked in.
That wild intensity challenged me. That cautious defensiveness intrigued me. She was gorgeous, so unafraid to stare me down, as if she couldn’t decide whether I was worthy of being in her presence either.
And as I watched her lose a fraction of that nervous tension to almost smile at me, I knew I was too intrigued to give up on exploring who she was now.
“Um.” She swallowed hard, lowering her gaze quickly to check me out belatedly. Mesmerized by the vulnerability and barely veiled interest in her reaction, I stepped forward to move her with me away from these men on the floor.
She didn’t protest, walking aside with me as I put my hand on her curvy waist.
“Thank—”
“Third door on your left.”
I tore my gaze off the blonde to realize a club employee was speaking to me. “What?”
“Third on your left,” he repeated, indicating for us to go ahead. He stalked forward, nearly corralling me and this woman toward a private room. We’d been close enough to the entrance to the private room area that he misinterpreted us as the next couple waiting for a small room.
“I— He—” Stammering over her words, the blonde was directed to enter the dark, small space with me.
She seemed as surprised and confused as I had been, but I couldn’t tell whether she was trying to protest his mistake or trying to explain that we hadn’t been in line to get a room.
Once we were inside together with the door securely closed behind us, I stood there and wondered if she’d want to bolt or stay.
9
SLOANE
“Wait—”
The door closed on my feeble resistance.