14. Brooke
Lev is wearing a smirk, but it vanishes when he sees Wilson’s hand around my throat, and a storm cloud sweeps over his face. His dark eyes sharpen on Wilson, then go back to me, and the scowl on his face deepens.
Wilson looks at Lev with utter terror. “What the fuck— His vice-like grip on my throat vanishes, and I slump against the wall with a gasp. But without air, my legs are too weak to hold me, and I sink to the floor in a heap.
“Not the welcome I was expecting,” Lev drawls as he walks into the apartment.
“Mr. Zarkov… W-what… a-are… you… d-doing… h-here?” Wilson stammers.
Through the murkiness, I realize Wilson knows Lev. Confused, I rub my throat and try to figure out what the hell is going on.
“I think you know why I’m here.” Lev talks calmly but there is something terrifying in his voice. A sharp blade. A warning.
What the hell is going on?
Lev raises an arm, and it’s then I notice the gun in his hand.
A gun he has aimed right at Wilson.
Wilson throws up his hands. “It was a misunderstanding, I swear.”
“That’s the lie they all say,” Lev says, walking right up to him and pressing his gun to his forehead. “Right before I put a bullet between their eyes.”
I gasp. “Stop.”
All the air seems to disappear from the room, and the tension feels like it’s about to pop.
“What’s going on?” I beg Lev. “Please tell me.”
“Your fiancé tried to blackmail me. Found some interesting footage on the CCTV feed at his club and thought he’d use it to make some money.”
Wilson is blackmailing Lev?
My head is still cloudy from lack of oxygen, but I’m sure I didn’t mishear what he said.
“It wasn’t like that,” Wilson cries. “I was doing the bratva a favor.”
“You emailed me the footage anonymously and told me if I paid you, then the police wouldn’t get their hands on it. That’s not a favor, mudak. That’s blackmail. Now, I want every copy of that CCTV footage, and I want them now.”
“There is only one copy and it’s on a flash drive. I don’t have it, but I can get it to you, I swear,” Wilson says.
“Where is it?”
“A safety deposit box in Oregon. Then I mailed the key to my grandma in Houston. It was insurance. If anything happened to me, I told her to take the key and open the box, then send whatever she found to the police.”
I can’t believe what I am hearing. CCTV footage. A mysterious flash drive. A safety deposit box. The police. How did I not know he was involved in this stuff? Although, I guess I shouldn’t be surprised. I didn’t know about his affair either.
“What is on the flash drive?” I ask.
“None of your goddamn business,” Wilson snaps.
“No, go ahead and tell her. Let her know who she was about to marry.” Lev’s eyes settle on mine. “What kind of bullet she dodged.”
Sounds like you dodged a bullet.I remember him saying that to me on the plane the day I met him. And somehow, him bringing it up now twists a knife in. Because clearly he knew exactly who I was and what had happened to me when we met, yet he let me go on about it on the plane.
How could I be so foolish?
“Keep her out of it,” Wilson says.
Lev smirks darkly. “Don’t you want her to know how your cameras in the club caught the murder of The Chicago Sea Angel, yet instead of sending it to the police, you contacted the bratva whose vor was on that same footage and decided to blackmail the pakhan?”
I gasp. The Chicago Sea Angel was a girl who was pulled from the harbor. She was beaten pretty badly before she was murdered and dumped in the water. Turned out she was a student at Chicago U who was paying her way through college by doing some escort work. Her face was splashed all over the media. They had no idea who murdered her. There were no leads.
I look at Wilson. “You knew who killed her, and you didn’t tell the police?”
Wilson is quiet while he looks for his next lie.
“Who are you?” I snap, realizing I never really knew him at all.
Lev drags his gaze back to me.
“Dodge meet bullet,” he says.
I glare at him and he smirks, then offers me his hand.
“And who the hell are you?” I ask him.
“He’s bratva, Brooke,” Wilson says.
“Bratva?”
“Russian mafia.”
Slowly, the pieces come together.
This is the man who Wilson said would gut us and chop off body parts? I struggle to swallow. This man—the one who spent the night making me come on his cock until I was a boneless mess and couldn’t walk for days afterward without feeling him there?
My body flushes with a combination of lust from the memory and fear from the man standing in front of me with a gun.
When I don’t take Lev’s hand, he wraps his strong fingers around my wrist and guides me to my feet with little effort.
Once I’m standing, I glare at him and yank my wrist free from his grip when the realization hits me. All this time, he knew who I was. Which means he orchestrated our encounter on the plane to see if I knew the whereabouts of my loser ex-fiancé. He didn’t strike up a conversation because he was attracted to me. He was trying to find out where Wilson was.
Images of that night fly at me with startling clarity.
Him bending me over the outdoor table and plunging his cock so deep into me I saw stars.
The way his fingers dug into my hips as he dragged my pussy back and forth over his cock.
The unbridled cries erupting from my arched throat as he made me come time and time again on his bed.
What he did to me with his face buried between my legs.
Oh God.
I close my eyes as the humiliation washes over me. “You used me.”
When I open my eyes, Lev is calm and expressionless, showing not an ounce of remorse, and a deep embarrassment twists in my stomach. That night meant nothing to him, and I was a fool to think it did.
“Wilson had disappeared,” he says. “You hadn’t. If there was a chance you could lead me to him, then I had to take it.”
“But I told you on the plane that I didn’t know where he was.”
“I didn’t know if you were lying or not. For all I knew, you were telling me a story you and Wilson had concocted as a part of the ruse.”
My stomach drops. “You played me.”
“It needed to be done,” he says, still showing no remorse, and I feel the swell of emotion inside me crash and shatter against my heart.
“So fucking me—was that you hoping I would let something slip when you had your face buried between my thighs?” I snap before I have the good sense to stop myself. It’s bad enough that he played me like a pawn—I don’t want him to know how much it hurts as well.
“What the fuck?” Wilson finally decides to say something. And he has the audacity to look pissed off.
I throw him a dark look. “Two words, you asshole. Laura and others.”
He backs away, and I turn my sharp gaze back to Lev. Because right now, the pain Wilson caused me is nothing compared to the anger I am feeling toward Lev.
I struggle to control the emotion in my voice and the trembling of my hands. My chin quivers because, damn, I thought this man was something special, a secret one-night stand who made me feel desirable and special when I needed it the most.
But it turns out Lev Zarkov is something entirely different.