“I have to leave after dinner to do some work.” He let those words hang in the air, and I didn’t respond because I knew he wasn’t finished. He slowly took a long drink of his vodka and then set the glass on the table, keeping his hand wrapped around it, his index finger slowly tapping against the side in an almost hypnotic way.

  “Okay,” I said a little too breathily and then felt my cheeks heat. I reached across the table for my glass of red wine, the exact opposite of what I should’ve been drinking. After I took a drink and set the glass back on the table, a heavy weight of silence moved between us.

  “I don’t have to ask that you stay in the apartment while I’m gone, right?” His voice was low and firm, as if he was trying to be as nonthreatening as possible. And although this man was dangerous on every level, I knew he wouldn’t hurt me.

  Stupid, stupid girl.

  “I’ll stay in the house, because I know it’s dangerous, but we do need to discuss me going to work tomorrow.”

  He didn’t move, said nothing, but I saw the subtle tightening of his jaw after I spoke.

  “We’ll talk about it,” he said, and now it was my turn to clench my teeth together, because his tone felt strangely like he’d only said the words to placate me.

  I wanted to instantly lash out. I didn’t need another father. And although mine was worthless and the world wouldn’t miss him if he was gone, I also didn’t need anybody to look after me. I could do that myself. No one could take care of me better than me.

  So although I wanted to stay on the subject, because that’s what I did—fight—how I survived, I had to pick and choose my battles. I didn’t have anywhere to be tonight, and I felt safe here. With Arlo. He was helping me by training with me, showing me how to protect myself. But I did repeat in my head a mantra I’d said over and over again, that I would get answers from him one way or another. Eventually.

  It was another twenty minutes before I finally finished my dinner. I’d never eaten so well than when I was with Arlo, that was for sure. I’d never been full, always feeling that sliver of hunger biting at the edge.

  And the entire time I’d been eating, Arlo had watched me. As if he couldn’t take his eyes off me. I didn’t know whether to be flattered or if he thought there was something wrong with me, but I chose the former, because the things I felt toward him with just a glance, things that made my belly tighten and my heart flutter, couldn’t handle rejection, not with the way my life had been going.

  I finished off my wine, the alcohol giving me a warm sensation, my limbs feeling a little heavier than normal.

  “Come here, I want to show you something.” He stood and walked past me, and I had no choice but to follow.

  We made our way through the living room to the other side, where the shadows seemed thicker, where the lighting didn’t penetrate. He stopped at a sliding glass door I hadn’t even noticed, it was so seamless with the rest of the windows.

  When he pulled it open, the night air washed in, teasing the strands of my hair around my shoulders. It was chilly, but it felt good, my body temperature seeming stifling whenever I was near him. We stepped out onto the balcony, and I felt the breath leave me at the scenic view in front.

  Although the city had been gorgeous on the other side of the windows, as I walked toward the balcony and curled my hands around the cold, hard edge, it now seemed so surreal.

  The banister was made up of thick glass with steel framing, giving the illusion that you were closer to falling over the edge than you really were. It had my legs tingling and my knees buckling. It made me feel alive.

  This high up, the wind was vicious, lashing out at you as if it were angry you’d dared to come out and experience it. I felt Arlo’s presence as he came to stand next to me, but I couldn’t drag my gaze away from the cityscape.

  Even so high up, I could hear the faint trickling sounds of life down below. I could visualize people yelling at each other, honking their horns and waving their fists in their anger. I imagined lovers were whispering soft things in each other’s ears and children crying for their mothers to buy them more sweets.

  I could practically smell the hot dogs from the street vendors, the yeasty scent of the fresh bread that filtered out from the open doorways of cafés and bakeries. If I closed my eyes, I could imagine I was somebody else, somewhere else where nothing could touch me. And being stories upon stories above it all, it was an almost tangible feeling that it was true.

  “I know you want answers,” he finally said after a long moment of silence.

  I turned my head to look at him, my upper body leaning against the banister, the wind now more of an intimate caress.

  “But you being dragged deeper into this—into a darkness that is unforgiving—comes with a price.” His eyes looked so dark under the moonlight and backlit by the cityscape. “I don’t think you understand how⁠—”

  “Dangerous it is?” All the whys bounced in my head, but they didn’t make it past my lips. I found my gaze drifting lower. His mouth had tipped up at the corners slightly as I’d cut him off, but he still finished his sentence.

  “Something like that.” His voice wrapped around me, pulling that invisible thread between us tighter until I feared it would either snap before we made contact or irrevocably keep me ensnared.

  I forced myself to look back into his eyes, trying to wade through the fog that had suddenly filled my head. “I can handle precautions. I can even handle violence.” I’ve seen enough of it. “I just don’t want lies.” I didn’t know what I meant by saying those words, but his expression told me maybe he understood. But still he said nothing, and I felt like the flickering in his eyes told me he couldn’t promise me the truth regardless.

  I cleared my throat and faced the city again, a shiver taking hold of me tightly. “Would it be possible to go to my apartment and grab the rest of my things?” I didn’t know if I expected him to tell me I’d go back there soon so there was no need to get my stuff, but he kept quiet for so long I glanced back at him. He was still watching me, but the look on his face was conflicted.

  “Tell me what you want, and I’ll stop by and grab what you need.”

  Now it was my turn to stay silent for long moments. “No offense, but I usually wait until the third date before having the guy riffle through my underwear drawer,” I teased, but the way his pupils dilated after I spoke had any humor leaving me. His expression was so intense that I felt goose bumps move along my arms and legs. I shivered again.

  When he reached up and smoothed his thumb along my cheek, I closed my eyes and leaned into his touch. He felt so good, his skin warm, his hand big.

  “Ya by ubil lyubogo, kto pytalsya zabrat' tebya u menya.”

  I felt my heart race faster at his words. I didn't know what he said, but he whispered it so deeply, with so much possessiveness laced within, that I knew whatever he’d just spoken was the absolute truth.

  “Did you just say I wasn’t worth all this trouble?” My voice was light, or at least I was trying to make light of the sudden heaviness I felt.

  He didn’t smirk, didn’t do anything but stare at my lips, ones I suddenly felt like licking. “Let me know what you need, and I’ll make sure you get it. Whatever you need,” he said deeply, his gaze still on my mouth.

  And then he turned and left me standing there, and a part of me knew he’d forced himself to leave, because if he hadn’t, I was pretty sure this night would have been ending a hell of a lot differently.

  Like with me in his bed.

  Chapter

  Sixteen

  Arlo

  I’d gotten the text from Dmitry this morning.

  Butcher and Son. Midnight.

  A part of me wasn’t going to go. I didn’t owe the bastard anything. I didn't work for him or his father, yet a dark curiosity filled me on why Leonid's oldest would want to speak with me. And if we were doing this at the old slaughterhouse, it was clear he didn’t want a witness. He didn’t want the Pakhan to know.

  I pulled my car around the back of the old building and cut the engine. I grabbed two guns, a GLOCK and a Beretta, and tucked one in the waistband of my pants and the other in the front. I adjusted my jacket and climbed out, already having three knives strapped to my body, hidden yet easily accessible.

  I didn’t trust any of these fuckers.

  As soon as I stepped in the warehouse, I felt eyes on me and found Dmitry leaning against one of the rusted walls to the sides. The shadows hugged him like an old friend, welcoming him back to the fray.

  Tendrils of smoke curled around him, the end of his cigarette lighting up in the darkness, a flare of brilliant orange as he inhaled. He exhaled, those tendrils turning into a thick cloud in front of his face before dissipating.

  Although I only saw Dmitry, I knew his brother was close. They were never far from each other. At only a year apart in age, they acted more like twins than siblings, knowing what the other thought, what the other felt, how they’d react. It was fucking eerie.

  “Your brother can crawl out of whatever dark hole he’s occupying anytime now.” I kept my voice low, but I knew it was loud enough Nikolai would hear. I made my way toward Dmitry, watching for any subtle changes in his posture, listening to the sounds around me to gauge where his brother was.

  The Petrov brothers were young, in their early twenties, yet I knew they’d experienced much of the same depravity of the underworld as I had. It had hardened them, made them lack any normal empathetic, human feelings toward others. It had pulled that light that could’ve grown in them completely away until there was no chance they’d ever grasp it.

  That's how I’d been, how I’d felt. I had always assumed I’d die in a dark hole where I’d forever be alone, the dirt covering me up so I’d never have the chance to crawl myself out of it.

  I thought of Lina back in my apartment. Moy svet. My light. She made that light attainable, reachable. Real. And that’s why I’d do anything—everything—I could to ensure my world didn’t touch her.

  I could hear Nikolai’s low laugh somewhere close by, echoing off the rusty, debilitated walls, but I kept my focus on Dmitry. When I was a few steps from him, I watched him inhale again, that smoke circling him, clouding his visage. Yet his eyes positively glowed as he stared at me.

  He leaned against the wall with one leg crossed over the other, one hand tucked into his pants pocket. He flipped the ash from his cigarette, took one more hit, then flicked it away before pushing off the wall and coming to stand before me. His lips peeled off his teeth, all straight, white, and flashing in the darkness.

  “My father has been talking nonstop about the scene you caused the other day.” He let those words hang in the air between us. And so did I. “I swear he’s got a constant fucking hard-on because of it. It's been a long time since I’ve seen him so excited about something.”

  I had no doubt Leonid was obsessing about the fact that I’d expressed so much emotion, especially over a woman. That’s why she was at my penthouse, because I knew the fucker wouldn’t give up until he figured out a way to take her, to use her so I would do what he wanted. And that was joining his army in the Bratva and just becoming another soldier, another one of his pawns.

  He was twisted enough to hurt her to force my hand. And I wanted her too much that I’d do anything to keep her safe.

  I heard one set of footsteps behind me. I knew it was Nikolai. He was even less of a threat to me than his brother and his father, although only because I was more skilled, more deadly and dangerous. I saw him in my peripheral as he made his way around me and stood beside Dmitry.

  “I don’t know whether to be offended or to up my game over the fact that you didn’t even flinch in my presence,” Nikolai said, and I looked in his direction.

  “Probably safe to assume both.”

  Nikolai sneered in my direction but kept his mouth shut.

  Both the Petrov boys were large assholes, as tall and as muscular as me. With matching dark hair and eyes, they looked more likely to grace a fashion magazine or be on the big screen than slithering around in the dark, killing and maiming in the name of the Russian mafia.

  If their father was the gun, they were the bullets.

  “Your father needs to find a hobby if my life is so consuming to him.” I addressed Dmitry in reference to what he’d said about Leonid. I looked back at Dmitry and saw something flicker in his eyes, a hard calculation. But it was gone as soon as I’d seen it, washed away with a sharklike grin.

  Long moments of silence stretched out, and my patience wore thin, my annoyance growing. I wanted to go back to Lina. I wanted to feel the softness of her cheeks again. I wanted to feel her lean into my touch. And these little fuckers were taking my time away from her.

  “You need to get the fuck on with it and quit wasting my time.” My voice hardened, my jaw tightening. My fingers twitched to grab my gun and aim it at Dmitry’s head, to pull the trigger and put a bullet through his skull just to send a message to Leonid. I always was a trigger-happy bastard.

  “I’d like to offer you a job.”

  I didn't hesitate to respond right away. “I already have a job with the Ruin.” I could see the snarl on Dmitry’s lips, but I didn’t care if the fucker didn’t like my response. “And even if I didn’t, I wouldn’t take a job from someone who barely has hair on his balls.'' It was a low blow, but I was agitated over the Lina situation and these assholes keeping me from her.

  Dmitry laughed, deep and low. “Man, Arlo, if you were anyone else, I would have already put a bullet between your eyes for your insults.”

  I curled my lip. “You could try.” Dmitry may have only been a decade or so younger than I was, and far from a child, but I’d seen more in my years in this fucking underworld than he’d probably ever experienced in his life, even being the son of the Pakhan.

  “I’m going to give you a pass on the disrespect.” He held up one finger. “But just this once, Arlo.”

  I curled my fingers tightly into my palm and bared my teeth. “Is that so?” I took a step forward and saw Nikolai tense. But Dmitry held his hand up, stalling whatever his brother was about to do.

  “I think we’re getting off on the wrong foot here.” Dmitry tipped his head to the side as if trying to examine me, trying to figure me out. Good fucking luck. “I think this is something you’ll like, Arlo, something that will satiate that evil, tar-stained, fucked-up soul of yours.”

  Nikolai gave a little chuckle in response.

  And then the air shifted, changed as it charged with something sickly and vicious. The atmosphere wasn’t lighthearted anymore, wasn’t the soft laughter of a demented man with fake smiles and a twisted mind. It was a sudden seriousness that was cloaking, a sturdy presence like a fourth body in the room.

  “We want you to kill our father.” Dmitry said it so matter-of-factly that I was actually taken aback, his words so final there was no doubt in my mind he meant every single one. “I know, before you say it or even think about it, that you're wondering if this is a setup.” He held his hands out, palms up. “This is my brother and me offering you an olive branch. We’re giving you a chance to take out the threat that is directed at your woman, no strings attached, no repercussions with the Bratva. No retaliation.”

  I eyed them both, gauging their body language, sifting through it all to see if they gave away any signs. Sweating, shifting of eyes, twitching of bodies. But they were both cool and collected, their breathing easy, their focus on me.

  Well, fuck me. They were dead serious.

  I knew they had no real love for the man who’d fathered them, had heard plenty of stories of their upbringing and all the vicious shit Leonid did to “toughen” up his sons. Where he treated his daughter like a princess, a little bird in a gilded cage, his sons got the blunt force of his brutality.

  I chuckled, but it held no humor. “You little shits think you can take down Leonid on your own?” I lifted an eyebrow as I eyed them both. “I’ll give you both credit; you have some balls of steel, conspiring to take down one of the strongest Pakhans in the Bratva.”

  “He’s become unorganized, his vengeance with the Cosa Nostra becoming volatile. He’s making too many mistakes and fucking things up. He’s going to end up bringing a lot of fire and death down on this organization and ruin a lot of connections we have in place.” Nikolai was the one to speak, and I was surprised by the thought-out response. He actually sounded clearheaded and not like a raving lunatic.

  I’d always heard Nikolai was more of the partygoer in Petrov’s trio, the one less likely to give a shit about following in his father’s footsteps. The responsibilities fell more on Dmitry for obvious “oldest son” reasons.

  “I’m not sure how this is my problem,” I responded, feeling the need to go to Lina even stronger than before.

  Dmitry gave me a hard smile. “This is your problem, because my father has plans for your woman.”

  My entire body tightened, even though I already knew Leonid wouldn’t leave this alone. I’d seen the excited glint in his eye as I took Lina out of his bar.

  “I don’t need you or your brother interfering.”

  Nikolai snorted and leaned back on the wall, crossing his arms over his chest and glaring.

  “He’s like a dog with a fucking bone over having you join the ranks.” He shook his head. “I don’t get his obsession with you, but he holds you in high regard and will use whatever means necessary to bring you in.”

  “And he plans on trying to use her as collateral to force my hand.” I didn't phrase it like a question, because I knew that was the outcome Leonid saw. I knew the way the fucker’s mind worked. Dmitry was quiet for so long it started to feel like this itch under my skin.

  “I don’t think you understand the obsession my father has with that woman. Because he knows you want her, because you couldn’t control yourself, he won’t stop until he makes you see his way of thinking.” I saw a muscle in Dmitry’s jaw tick, as if just speaking about how fucked up his father was almost sent him into a rage. “He wants to make her his, Arlo. That’s the fucking truth of the matter.” Dmitry took another step forward, and my entire body tightened. With readiness. I was already walking on a razor’s edge and trying to control myself after hearing the news—the fucking threat—of what Leonid wanted with Lina.