Page 23

YULIAN

I feel Mia freeze.

Then I see why.

A hand.

On her ass.

It slaps her once, then it’s gone.

And everything I see gets tinted blood-red.

“Yuli!” an older male voice booms cheerfully. “ Blyat’, look at you! You’ve grown so big!”

I turn to look at the man who spoke. My hands are flexing and unflexing, knuckles popping, as the surge of blood into my muscles wakes up every last nerve ending.

I’m going to hurt this man. I’m going to do it slowly and painfully and publicly.

But not yet.

“Ieronim,” I greet coldly. “You seem to have misplaced your hand there. Did you want to lose it permanently?”

Ieronim Salnikov—one of my parents’ closest friends.

Once, he was a legend in the Bratva world. Then he started clinging a little too close to his liquor, and the legend faded into myth. Now, the Salnikov Bratva is a footnote in New York’s history.

I’m about to wipe it the fuck out of existence for good.

I pull Mia closer to me. The room falls silent around us, every other businessperson gathered here suddenly too busy staring at their drinks to come greet us. Waiting for the storm to pass, too scared of getting caught in it.

Clinking ice cubes in glass tumblers go still.

Murmurs cease.

The red tide in my vision darkens.

Finally, Ieronim seems to realize just how badly he fucked up.

“Now, now,” he says in an attempt to pacify me. “You know I can’t resist a good piece of ass when I see it. Besides, I hear you’re not the type to get attached. What’s the harm in sharing, right?”

I can smell the alcohol on his breath as he speaks. A haze of bourbon and unbrushed teeth.

Fucking vile.

“Why are you talking to me, friend?” I say.

He blinks. “Pardon?”

“Don’t talk to me.” I jut my chin toward my date. “Talk to her. Apologize.”

Ieronim blinks again. Drunk, confused, or stupid, I’m not sure which and I don’t fucking care. All I know is that his abject, groveling, and heartfelt apology is the only thing that will stop me from ripping his head clean off his spine right here and right fucking now.

“For…?”

“For daring to lay a single one of your greasy fucking fingers on a woman of her stature.”

His jaw drops.

From my side, Mia blinks at me, eyes wide. Like she can’t believe what she’s hearing. Like the thought of me defending her clashes with some deep-set conviction that this is not what’s supposed to happen when some gropey, idiotic stranger takes liberties with her body. “T-that’s really not nec?—”

“I insist.” My voice goes cold as ice. “Ieronim. Now.”

He doesn’t catch the threat in my tone. Instead, he gives another booming laugh. “So sorry about that, Miss! Like I said, you’re quite pleasing to the eye. Can’t blame me for being tempted, yes?”

Nor can you blame me for filleting you like a fucking fish.

I’m opening my mouth to say exactly that when Mia cuts in with a laugh, too shrilly to be natural. “Not a problem! I, um—I’ll go see what the bar has to offer. Yulian, do you want?—”

Ieronim pipes right up. “A scotch would be nice, dear.”

She gives a tight nod and heads straight for the bar. Unease swirls in my gut—I don’t like leaving her out of my sight. She has no idea where she is tonight, what kind of club I brought her to.

Yeah, ‘cause you sure as fuck didn’t tell her.

I silence that nasty voice in my head before it gets wildly out of hand.

I’ve got two choices in front of me. One is to shred Ieronim limb from limb. The other is to go after Mia, because this room is full of vultures who will make Ieronim look like a harmless little guppy. If I leave her alone, a hand on the ass will be the nicest thing that happens to her all night.

You brought her here. You put her in danger again. It’s your fucking fault if something happens to her.

So, with a discontented growl in Ieronim’s direction that suffices as a goodbye, I turn and go after her. If only so I can protect the only thing in this whole cursed fucking room that’s actually innocent enough to deserve protection.

I see her. Beautiful, curvy, a vision in black lace. Fuck, she looks incredible as hair tumbles down the curve of her throat.

It strikes me, not for the first time, how lucky I am that she stumbled across my path. Or rather, that I parked along hers.

For her to be not just tough, not just desperate, not just feisty, but also gorgeous enough to make me pause in my tracks in a room full of dangerous men? To stop and stare while my enemies lurk in the shadows?

To drool?

To lust?

To need?

What the fuck did I do to deserve that?

I snap myself out of my reverie. I don’t know how I got so lucky, but I do know that I have uses for Mia Winters tonight, and abandoning her to the jackals will only waste her potential.

I take one step in her direction, desperate to put my hand where Ieronim’s was, but?—

“Good evening, Mr. Lozhkin.”

Suddenly, it’s like flies flocking to shit. The greetings multiply, my name crooned over and over again.

I’m swarmed by business associates I cannot easily brush off, department heads of manufacturing companies and CFOs of office buildings sporting our cybersecurity technologies.

That’s what nights like these are for—making more lucrative deals.

And greasing the palms of dangerous men.

I’m one such man. Ieronim is another. I can spot at least half a dozen more: the Neri patriarch, the Alexopoulos heir, Yamazaki’s eldest daughter. Everyone here is rich, but not everyone got there through legitimate means.

It’s why we gather at the Goldenrod, the most exclusive club in New York. Not just because membership is a hundred grand per month, but because, by night, the usual golf-doctors-and-lawyers clientele is gone.

Instead, access becomes restricted to only a certain kind of elite.

Men like me.

And I don’t want Mia alone near men like me.

It takes a while before I manage to extricate myself from the conversation. When I do, I see everyone’s dolled up plus-ones lounging by the couches, colorful drinks in hand and light laughter floating in the air.

Ideally, that’s where I’d want Mia to be, too. If not by my side, then at least with her ilk. At least to be safe.

But when I finally lift my eyes back to the bar, I can’t find her.

I promptly abandon every man demanding my attention.

“Tell me where she went,” I snarl as I approach and slam my hands down on the counter, rattling bottles of champagne.

The bartender blinks back at me, confused. “Pardon me, sir?”

“The woman. Short, petite, black lacy dress.”

He gives me another lost look. With a glance at the couches, I realize I’m describing almost every girl in here.

“Brown hair, light,” I tell him, my patience slipping. “Blue eyes. She’s got a beauty mark right here, under her lip.”

Finally, the bartender’s expression lights up. “Oh! Yes, of course. She went to the smoking terrace with a gentleman.”

I fucking doubt it.

No one here’s a gentleman, least of all one who’d take another man’s woman to the “smoking terrace”—a well-known code for something else around here.

But it wouldn’t be well-known to Mia, would it?

This is your world, not hers.

You brought her here.

You did this. You did all of this.

So what are you gonna do if something happens to her?

I head to the smoking lounge without a second’s thought. The elevator pings next to me, but I don’t pay it any mind. Instead, I take the stairs two by two, praying I’m not too late.

If something happened to her… My fists clench, fury exploding in my knuckles. If I let something happen to her…

That dark, amused voice in my head chuckles. Then what? It grates against the walls of my mind. That’s the whole point, remember? For something to happen to her. Get shot at, kidnapped, dismembered—you name it. Anything to get you closer to your goal.

So what if it happened tonight?

“No,” I spit under my breath. “No one touches her. Not until I say so.”

I’m a fucking hypocrite. I know that. But now is not the time to deal with introspection.

I just need to find this fucking woman.

“Stop,” I hear as soon as I step out into the terrace.

A woman’s voice.

Mia’s voice.

“Aren’t you a coy little one?” Ieronim slurs. He’s way too drunk to be standing. Definitely way too drunk to be shoving his hands up Mia’s dress, squeezing her ass like it’s the only thing keeping him upright. “So demure. Making me work for it, are ya?”

“N-no,” Mia gasps. It’s brittle, quivering, terrified. “I—I don’t want?—”

“C’mon, sweet thing.” He takes a whiff of her neck and grinds her harder into the railing. “You know you want it.”

Mia freezes. Like a deer in the headlights. A doll with her strings cut.

She just—stops. Stops doing anything.

Stop pushing him off, talking, resisting.

Like…

Like she doesn’t think it’ll make a difference.

The next time I blink, Ieronim is screaming.

I realize, dimly, his arm is in my grip. His wrist, to be exact.

And it’s hanging at a very awkward angle.

Odd. I didn’t even hear the bone crack.

“Arghhh!” he yells into the night. “God, Yulian, don’t— Stop, please?—!”

“‘Please, don’t stop’?” I echo. “If you say so.”

I twist harder.

Against the railing, Mia is staring wide-eyed, horror on her face. But it’s a dim, distant sort of horror. Like she isn’t fully here yet. Like she’s still wherever she went when Ieronim called her?—

Sweet thing.

Suddenly, Brad’s voice echoes in my ears. I remember him using the same exact words with her—the same lecherous tone.

Back then, Mia froze, too.

Blind with rage, I yank Ieronim hard. He goes careening into the floor, blood spurting from his nose and staining the beautiful Portuguese tiles.

“Are you out of your fucking mind?!” Ieronim coughs. “Jesus, Yulian, she’s just your whore for the night! You think I don’t read the articles? She?—”

“She isn’t yours to touch,” I boom. “So do not fucking touch her.”

“I— ARGHHH! ”

I feel his fingers snap under my heel. This time, the crack echoes loud and clear. Impossible to miss.

“And do not, ” I grow, lower and darker and angrier than I’ve been in a long fucking time, “call her a whore.”

When I kick him in the head, he goes out like a light.

Then I turn back to Mia.

She’s still staring at me, but something’s different in her gaze. More present. More here.

“Let’s go,” I bark, grabbing her hand.

She blinks down at it. My fingers wrapped tight around hers. Like she can’t quite make sense of it. “B-but your event—your meetings?—”

“I don’t give a shit,” I snap. “We’re going home.”

Home. Like it’s something we share. If I was in a better state of mind, it’d make me fucking laugh.

When’s the last time I’ve shared a home with someone?

When’s the last time I’ve shared anything?

One thing, though, is for certain.

I will not share Mia.

Not as long as she’s mine.