32. Thirty-Two
THIRTY-TWO
HARLOWE
The city blurred past the window as we drove, neon smears against the dark canvas of early morning. I didn’t bother fixing my makeup or my hair. Let Arrow see exactly what I’d done, who I’d been with. Let him taste another woman on me when he kissed me.
If he kissed me.
“Good.” I shrugged.
“Careful, Principessa,* you’re playing a dangerous game with a man who won’t play fair,” said Frank, but his mouth twitched.
Frank drove slowly and carefully through construction and blockades, as if he believed he could ferry me past danger if he just kept the Caddy at a low enough velocity.
He took the FDR instead of the surface arteries, which meant someone had warned him to stay off major roads.
The black river ate our reflection, the city above flexing in its own neon self-regard.
I steeled myself for the lecture. But Frank surprised me. His eyes in the mirror were flat and tired, no trace of judgment or lecture forming behind them. “I’m not your father,” he said. “I don’t tell you what to do.”
“You’re not Arrow, either,” I pointed out.
His mouth thinned. “No. I’m not him. That’s why you’re still breathing.”
I laughed, but it sounded hollow even to me. “You think he’d hurt me?”
“I think,” Frank said, voice measured, “that you’re testing a man who doesn’t know how to fail tests. And I think you know exactly what you’re doing.”
I looked out the window, watching the city lights streak past. Frank had been with my family since before I was born. He’d carried me on his shoulders as a child, taught me how to shoot a gun when I was thirteen, and bandaged my wounds after my father’s worst rages. He knew me better than anyone.
“He knows more than you think,” I said, picking at a fleck of glitter on my wrist. “He’s always known.”
Frank’s eyes flickered to mine in the mirror. “Maybe. But there’s knowing, and then there’s seeing.”
I let that sink in. Arrow had seen me with Harley. He’d seen her fingers inside me, seen me come apart under her touch. The thought sent another illicit thrill through me. I shouldn’t have been excited by his rage, shouldn’t have craved the storm waiting for me back at the penthouse, but I did.
“He was with Svetlana Kovenski tonight,” I said, the name bitter on my tongue. “At The Raven.”
Frank didn’t deny it. “Business.”
“Is that what they’re calling it now?” I laughed, the sound harsh in the quiet car. “Tell me, Frank, how many of his ‘business associates’ has he fucked before?”
“You know it’s not my place to answer that,” he said, voice steady.
“Because the answer is all of them,” I finished for him.
Frank sighed, his massive shoulders rising and falling. “You Virellis and Romanovs. You think love and war are the same thing.”
“Aren’t they?” I asked, genuinely curious.
He didn't answer, just kept driving through the sleeping city.
As we neared the penthouse, I felt my heart begin to race, adrenaline flooding my system, making me light-headed with anticipation. When the car pulled up to the curb, I hesitated, my hand on the door.
“I won’t be far,” Frank said.
The doorman averted his eyes when I walked through the lobby, a sure sign that Arrow was in a mood.
The elevator ride to the penthouse felt eternal, each floor ticking by excruciatingly slowly.
When the doors finally slid open, I stepped into the darkness.
The penthouse was silent, but I could feel him there, watching from the shadows, his rage a physical presence in the room.
“Are you going to hide all night?” I called out, dropping my bag on the floor with deliberate casualness.
No response.
I moved deeper into the kitchen. Arrow sat in the armchair by the window, still wearing his suit from earlier, sans jacket, one leg crossed over the other.
His posture was relaxed, but his eyes were anything but—they burned into me like lasers.
On the table beside him sat my gold chain, coiled like a snake.
“Have a nice night?”
His voice was so controlled that it made my skin crawl. This wasn’t the explosive rage I’d expected—this was something worse. Something cold and calculated.
I stood my ground, refusing to cower. “Actually, I did. Quite nice.”
He inhaled deeply, his nostrils flaring slightly. “You reek of her.”
“Good.” I tossed my hair back defiantly. “At least I’m honest about who I fuck.”
Arrow’s jaw tightened, the only visible sign that my barb had landed. He uncrossed his legs and leaned forward, elbows on his knees. “Is that what this is about? Svetlana?”
“Don’t say her name like I should know who she is,” I spat. “Like she matters.”
“She doesn’t.” His voice remained eerily calm. “But clearly you think she does.”
I laughed, the sound brittle in the tense air between us. “What I think is that you’re a hypocrite. Running around with your ex while I’m supposed to sit here like a good little wife-to-be.”
Arrow stood then, his movements fluid and predatory. I fought the urge to step back as he approached, his eyes never leaving mine.
When he was close enough that I could feel the heat radiating off his body, he reached out and touched my neck where his chain used to be. The lack of the metal against my skin felt like a betrayal more intimate than what I’d done with Harley.
“There’s blood on your wrist.”
It was almost a caress, the way he said it. I glanced down. I had licked Harley’s bite clean but missed the trail along my radius.
“Is it mine?” I let my voice go teasing, a little fake-brave.
“Not unless you’ve been securing your own restraints,” Arrow said, still not facing me. “Or fucking girls who use knives for dessert.”
Then, I saw the edge in his eyes. Not rage, not jealousy, but something sharper. I’d never truly seen pure emotion on his face, only performance. Now the mask slashed open, every motion bare, electrified to the limit of what a man could survive.
“I saw the video. Every second of it.”
My heart hammered against my ribs. “And?”
“And I watched another woman make you come while a room full of strangers cheered.” His thumb brushed my bottom lip, still swollen from Harley’s kisses. “Did you think of me while she fucked you?”
I swallowed hard. “Yes.”
His eyes flashed with something dangerous. “Liar.”
“I thought about how you’d react,” I admitted. “I thought about you watching me.”
“You wanted me to see?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
I met his gaze unflinchingly. “Because you were with another woman tonight.”
A muscle in his jaw twitched. “Business, malen’kaya gadyuka.* Just business.”
“Bullshit,” I hissed. “I’ve seen the pictures. The way she touched you. The way you smiled at her.”
“Is that what this was? Revenge?” Before I could decide whether to flinch or fight, he had me pressed to the wall, a forearm pinning my shoulder blades flat.
His other hand found my chin, yanking it sideways with a precision that flared every battered nerve.
He pressed his mouth to the shell of my ear and whispered, “You wanted an audience, did you?”
My ribs fluttered. I tried to be indifferent, but my pulse gave me away. I was a rabbit caught in a snare, and both of us knew it.
“Maybe I did,” I lied, and Arrow smiled.
“You didn’t.” His voice was like gravel, rough and sharp. “You just wanted me to hurt.”
My body betrayed me, already responding to his proximity despite everything I’d done to prove I didn’t need him. I could feel my pulse quickening, my skin heating where he touched me. The wall was cold against my back, but Arrow was burning hot against my front.
“Did it work?” I asked, my voice steadier than I felt.
His laugh was mirthless. “What do you think?”
He spun me around so fast my head knocked against the wall. I gasped as he pinned me there, one hand tangled in my hair, the other sliding down to grip my hip hard enough to bruise. His face was inches from mine, his eyes dark with something that looked like rage but smelled like want.
“You let her touch you,” he growled. “You let her make you come. In public.”
I tilted my chin up. “And you let Svetlana whisper in your ear. You let her press her body against yours. You smiled at her.”
“It wasn’t the same.”
“Wasn’t it?” I challenged. “You were with your ex. The woman you used to fuck before our little arrangement. What was I supposed to think?”
Arrow’s grip tightened in my hair, pulling my head back to expose my throat. “You were supposed to trust me.”
I laughed, the sound bitter even to my own ears. “Trust a Romanov? That’s like asking a lamb to trust a wolf.”
“And yet here you are, little lamb, walking straight into the wolf’s den with another predator’s scent all over you.”
“I’m not a lamb,” I snarled, shoving against his chest. He didn’t budge. “I’m a fucking Virelli.”
“Then act like one,” he hissed, his lips brushing against my ear. “Fight me like you mean it instead of running to some club whore the moment you feel insecure.”
My palm cracked against his cheek before I could think better of it.
The slap echoed in the silent room, and for one terrifying moment, I thought I’d gone too far.
Arrow’s face remained still, the red imprint of my hand blooming on his skin.
Then he smiled, a slow, dangerous curve that made my stomach drop.
“There she is,” he murmured. “There’s my little viper.”
I tried to slap him again, but he caught my wrist this time, pinning it above my head. His other hand came up to wrap around my throat, not squeezing, just holding—a reminder of his control.
“You don’t own me,” I spat, even as my body betrayed me, arching into his touch.
“Don’t I?” His thumb traced the hollow where his chain had rested. “You wear my mark. You sleep in my bed. You’ll be my wife in three days. So tell me, Harlowe, what part of that doesn’t sound like ownership to you?”
His words should have infuriated me, but instead they sent a treacherous heat spiraling through my body. I struggled against his grip, but he held me firm, his body pressing mine into the wall.