Chapter 17
Chapter seventeen
Alisa
During the trip to upstate New York, I tried to steady my thoughts. My father’s usually monosyllabic driver hadn’t said a word the entire drive, so I’d been able to focus on two important points:
One: I was going to prove my worth. Even if everyone thought all I was good for was opening my legs to men in power.
Two: Dmitri told me he’d break me. And I wouldn’t let him.
Around two hours later, I’d been repeating those thoughts in my head so long that I was starting to crave the stoic driver’s conversation.
When I asked him how he was doing, he just ignored me. At least, the silence was soon broken by him throwing on his ticker, and pulling into an overgrown street off the highway.
Dmitri leaned against a shiny black sports car. His eyes darkened as we pulled up beside him.
I swallowed when I noticed his rolled up shirtsleeves revealed ink and toned forearms.
“You’re late,” he said flatly, flashing an irritated look at my driver.
While I stepped out of the car, I tried to concentrate on the ire in his voice and ignore the way his muscles strained against the fabric.
“We hit traffic,” I said.
His gaze met mine. “If you would’ve just driven with me, we would’ve already been there.”
“You got a problem with my driving, Novikov?” my father’s driver said, a muscle ticking in his jaw.
“If I had a problem with you, then you’d already be dead.” Dmitri smiled, but there was no warmth in it. “Now leave, before that changes.”
The driver flinched.
It was hard to have much sympathy for him. Years ago, the driver hadn’t even reacted after my father had beaten me so badly that my blood had stained the car’s white leather seats.
The driver had offered my father a handkerchief to dry off his bloody knuckles. I’d just been offered an irritated look when he caught sight of my blood dripping onto the new floor mats.
Now, the driver took my suitcase out of the car. He went to hand it to me, but Dmitri threw it over his shoulder before I could even react.
“What a gentleman,” I said, unable to keep the sarcasm out of my voice.
Dmitri’s voice dipped, his tone gravelly. “Something tells me you’ll find out how much of a gentleman I’m not this weekend.”
My legs tightened together. But any warmth I was feeling from my traitorous body died when I caught the driver looking between the two of us. Everything he saw would be reported directly to my father, and the last thing I needed was to feed into his belief that I’d slept my way into my ranking.
My bruises had just finished healing thanks to the ointments and arnica, I didn’t need a repeat when I got back to the city.
“Let’s go,” I said, yanking Dmitri’s passenger door open and settling into the seat.
Dmitri shot a cold look at the driver. I didn’t miss the dusty gravel the driver sent flying in his hurry to get back to the car.
After my father’s driver sped away, Dmitri leaned his arms onto the roof of the car, and stared down at me. He was so big that he swallowed up the entire frame. Even if I’d been capable, his presence was simply too large and deadly to be ignored.
“I thought we were in a hurry,” I said, trying not to stare at his hard muscles straining against his white button down.
Dmitri’s gaze trailed down my body, leaving heat in its wake.
Despite the electricity skimming across my skin, I reminded myself that I was completely alone on some deserted road with the man who’d stabbed my brother in the jugular.
“Why didn’t you drive here?” he asked.
Because my father had forbidden me from learning to drive a car and beat me for asking. He certainly hadn’t allowed me to use the garage full of cars he’d bought with the proceeds of my earnings.
Luckily, I was far from alone in my lack of knowledge. Barely anyone who grew up in NYC knew how to drive, let alone owned a car. Six hundred dollars a month for just a parking spot did that to a person.
But I wasn’t going to reveal my deficiencies to him. The last thing I needed was to give him more ammunition.
“No license,” I said.
He raised an eyebrow. “Kotenok, I don’t think I need to remind you that we kill for a living. Driving without a license is the least of your concerns.”
I said nothing.
His head tilted, his gaze honing in on my tightly crossed legs. “Unless you don’t know how to drive. In that case, there’s so much I could teach you.”
My breath caught at the implication in his words.
Despite all those reminders I’d repeated to myself on the way here, Dmitri was destroying all coherent thoughts in my head.
It was like everything outside of him and this car ceased to exist when his intensity was centered on me.
When his gaze skimmed over the waistband of my pants, it was apparent my body had forgotten that this man had promised to break me.
No, it yearned for it.
My fingernails bit into my palms. He saw that, too.
Of course, he did.
I swallowed, trying to steady myself. Without taking his eyes off me, Dmitri silently shifted his lethal body into the driver's seat.
The engine purred to life, and my entire body with it.
“Come here, kotenok,” he said, patting his huge leg. “Let me teach you.”
My body yearned to crawl over the seat, and curl up on his leg like the kitten he thought I was.
My brother’s last rasping breaths echoed in my mind, and it felt like a bucket of freezing water had plunged over my hypersensitive body.
“I’m not interested,” I bit out, moving my attention to the window.
Dmitri raised a disbelieving eyebrow, but just eased the car into reverse.
When my heart rate steadied, I mentally berated myself for my reaction. As he maneuvered down the road, all I could hear was Natalya’s words about sleeping with him, so I could get a better position. And the whispers of others who already thought I was sleeping my way to the top.
Dmitri probably had every woman in the Bratva throwing themselves at him. The fucked up part was that his reputation wasn’t negatively affected by it.
No, the women who participated were the ones looked down upon. Look how rumors had been weaponized against me when I’d never so much as touched a man within the Bratva.
But when Dmitri’s finger skillfully flicked up the turn signal, my core couldn’t help tightening.