Page 87 of Malicious Claim

Makros' lips pulled back into a sort of a sneer. "Then I'll dress you myself."

Her hands clenched in the sheets.

He was serious.

The woman hesitated, glancing back and forth between them, before Makros said again—low, commanding. "Leave us."

The woman left the dress on the chair, hurriedly departed, and shut the door behind her.

Leila hauled herself up, pushing the covers away. Her jaw locked into place as she planted her feet on the floor, retrieving the dress from the chair. All she wanted was to protest, to throw it back at him. But to disobey him now, when she was still unsteady—would give him a reason to remind her of exactly how much he controlled her.

So she simply stood up, and went into the bathroom, closing the door.

Makros smiled to himself as he heard the soft rushing sound of his shower. She could struggle all she wanted to, yet she still complied.

They drove up before the high-end hotel, a towering glass-and-steel edifice. It was a private club, members-only, for the kind of people whose money could buy anything—and that included silence.

They were alone, just the both of them. He'd sent Duragon to make an investigation and told Nicolai not to bother coming along.

Makros and Leila strolled side by side through the lobby, but they were worlds apart.

She remained distant.

Remote.

Her silence gnawed at him, more than any words she could have hurled his way.

Makros was a master of restraint. Of reading people, playing them for his ends. But Leila was an enigma. She was fire and fury one moment, ice the next.

Now, she was being icy.

A seething, gnawing frustration curled up in his belly.

He could command men to kill on a whim. He could negotiate with the most lethal crime lords on earth.

But he couldn't command her.

He wasn't sure if he minded that or if it made him desire her more.

They moved towards the elevators, heading for the conference room where the meeting would be held.

Then the mood shifted.

Makros felt it the fraction of a second before it happened—the sudden silence, the imperceptible move of the receptionist's hand under the counter, the wide eyed glance a visitor standing close gave them.

He tensed.

Leila whirled in time to see a man pull a gun out of his suit coat, aimed directly at Makros.

The initial shot cracked and the bullet hit Makros. He stumbled, a curse tearing from his lips as blood erupted from his wound.

A woman screamed out. A man overturned a chair as he dived for cover. The chaos swept through the lobby in an instant, people rushing, screaming, overturning tables in their frantic bid to avoid a stray, or targeted bullet.

Leila moved without thinking, gun in her, her movements sharp and automatic. She fired once, and the bullet lodged in the shooter's back as he tried to make an escape.

He fell to the ground.

But she wasn't done yet.