Chapter Seven. Ember #5
A dull roar fills my head as I stare down the length of the table at Asad. Heat builds under my skin, pouring into my face, licking at the palms of my hands and under my arms.
“Why marriage? Why can’t I just sign a contract or something promising to stay employed with House of Cross?”
“Because I say so.”
He lied to me. The bastard fucking lied to me about why I had to marry him instead of another alternative.
If I’m picking up even a little bit of what Dimitri Petrov is implying, then here’s the true reason why Asad needs to marry me.
Not just the voting shares and ironclad ownership of HoC. It’s to keep it.
Son of a bitch.
I loose a low chuckle, and though there’s no way Asad could’ve possibly caught it, his gaze seems to sharpen on me. Not that I give a damn.
Not when these muthafuckas stay using me.
“Not now, Kareem,” Michelle hisses at her youngest son, and though his lean frame seems to damn near vibrate with the anger tightening his face, he sits back in his chair, shutting up.
Oh, so none of this comes as a shock to Michelle either. Poor Kareem. It must hurt having the fact that you’re an outsider in your own family rubbed in your face.
“I apologize. Did I speak out of turn?” Dimitri asks, the wide smile on his face contradicting the remorse in his deep, rumbling voice. “I assumed that was the reason behind this impromptu dinner—to introduce us to your betrothed.”
Betrothed? I silently snort. What are we, in medieval England?
But then again, our world has more in common with that patriarchal society than a modern, progressive existence where women are recognized and valued as equals.
“It is one of the reasons,” Asad finally speaks, indolently reclining in his chair, eying the Russian crime boss.
Though I suspected the truth, hearing him confirm it shoves me back against my chair.
Fucking bastard. Playing me like I’m some toy.
No, worse. A pawn. Just a thing he can maneuver around on this chessboard only he and a select few know the rules to.
But me? The person whose life will be directly affected, whose future hangs and turns on every one of his decisions, doesn’t matter.
Not my voice, my dreams, my needs. They don’t matter.
I drop my hands to my lap, curling my nails into my thighs, embracing the flare of pain.
“Dimitri, I have respect for you as a businessman and an ally, but I don’t tolerate disrespect from anyone.
Especially in my own house. We can start this relationship off with the same cordiality you shared with Marcus, or we can go another route.
It don’t make one difference to me which one we do because I’m with the shits either way. ”
Across the room, two members of Dimitri’s security detail move forward, scowls darkening their faces, but the Russian mob boss holds up his hand, even though his back is to them. They halt, but they don’t retreat to the wall or lose their frowns.
I might be the only one not holding my breath at the terrible tension arcing between Asad and Dimitri.
The rest of the crime family heads remain seated, their bodies taut, gazes alert, watchful.
Julian leans slightly forward, shifting his frame so it’s a barrier between the other guests and his wife.
Michelle’s frozen, perched on the edge of her seat, and Kareem, although fury had just darkened his handsome features, unobtrusively lowers his hand, and reaches inside his jacket.
Eli, sitting next to Michelle, slides his hand behind him, as do the other members of the Cross family, no doubt reaching for their weapons in case someone in here jumps bad.
The select members of the other mob bosses’ security teams allowed in the dining room step forward from their posts against the wall.
They don’t reach for the guns that are probably on their persons, but one wrong move made, one wrong word spoken, and no doubt they will pull those weapons.
No wonder unease and anxiety fill this room like heavy storm clouds ready to burst and wreak havoc at any second.
Only Asad and I appear unaffected. Him, because, hell, he issued the threat, or choice, however you prefer to look at it.
And me, because I sincerely hope all these muthafuckas off each other and save me the trouble.
When or if the bullets start flying, I’m ducking beneath the table, pride be damned.
Self-preservation will first and always be my concern.
They can all go to hell, starting with my betrothed’s ass.
Finally, after a handful of nerve-screaming moments, Dimitri nods.
“No disrespect meant. I apologize if it came across as such.”
This time, I can’t hold back my snort at that half-ass apology.
All eyes swing my way, and though I hate being the center of attention, I meet each and every pair.
Don’t nobody in here intimidate me. True, I bleed like everyone else, and a bullet has no respect of persons.
But men aren’t the only ones not afraid of dying.
Do I want to? No, but none of them put fear in my heart.
Besides, they don’t know me. If they come for me, they better not miss. I can have their brains oozing out of their dicks or pussies if they try me.
Like Hallmark, I have a drug for every occasion.
“Excuse me. Who are you again?” Dimitri’s wife—Elena, Helena?—asks, plump lips curled into a sneer.
“No one,” Michelle hurriedly interjects, mugging me. “She’s no one at all.”
“Then why is ‘no one’ at this table?” Elena/Helena demands. “She needs to learn her place.”
My place? Oh, this bitch loose …
“Because it’s my table,” Asad says, a vein of pure steel threading through his voice. “And as she is my fiancée, I’m the only one who determines where ‘her place’ is—and that’s right here. With me.”
Well, fuck. This is happening.
I slowly inhale, hold that breath, then exhale.
The room erupts with gasps, murmurings, and “what the fucks” from Michelle, Kareem, and Aryn.
Horror spreads across Elena/Helena’s face, and she pales as if one of the Four Horsemen just rode through the dining room door and took a shit on top of her glazed salmon.
Hell, it’s not that far off. She’s staring Death in the eyes, and he’s wearing Asad’s face.
Dimitri cuffs the back of his wife’s neck and from the wince she doesn’t manage to fully cover, I can only imagine what awaits her at home.
She unknowingly just insulted the fiancée of the newly appointed head of the Cross organization, and by doing that, the boss.
Yeah, her ass is going to pay. And Dimitri doesn’t appear to be the gentle sort.
“Prince, is this some kind of prank?” Michelle snaps, slapping her hand on the table.
The crystal glasses tremble. Soft, feminine gasps follow her outburst, and Chelsea, Don Amato’s wife, throws a disgusted look Michelle’s way.
Dimitri’s lip curls up in distaste, and the rest of the men stare at her, their expressions stoic.
“This is in extremely poor taste. You have Aryn sitting right next to you, and you want to joke about marrying that, that … thing.” She jabs a finger in my direction.
“That’s Mrs. Thing to you,” I say, lifting my crystal tumbler in a mocking toast, the petty retort concealing the thick, deafening thudding of my heart and the damn near primal urge to grab my steak knife, fly across this table, and send fine china scattering to bury the blade in her throat.
This ho has made it her life’s work to disrespect me, and a bitch can only be expected to take so much.
None of these men would ever accept it, but because she’s Marcus’s wife, I’m supposed to?
Miss me with that. Especially now.
“Ember,” Asad growls, and I shrug, sipping my drink. Tightening my grip on it so I don’t commit the venial sin of throwing the fucker at his head.
“Could you please answer your mother, Prince?” Aryn asks, voice trembling and reed thin.
She sounds on the verge of crying, but a closer glance at her face, and there’s no evidence of moisture gleaming in her eyes.
Just a fury hot enough to burn this whole damn house down to its foundation.
“Are you seriously marrying someone else?”
The “and not me” isn’t spoken, but it’s definitely implied.
“Ember?” I look across the table at Kareem and meet his inexplicably hurt dark gaze. “Is this true? Are you and my brother engaged?”
Before I can reply, abruptly Asad rises from his chair, the screech of wood scraping wood jarring.
“Quiet.” He doesn’t raise his voice, but the low, sensual, authoritative timbre silences every sound in the room. “Ember. Come here.”
My mind screams fuck you! but my body is already on the move.
It instinctively heeds him as if he’s Geppetto pulling my invisible strings and I’m his helpless puppet.
In this moment, I’m a slave to my flesh, and as I near him, the shouts to keep walking until I hit the front door and freedom ring in my head.
But they’re overruled and drowned out by the primal governing of the physical.
What is this fucking power he has over me? He displayed it at the cemetery, in my kitchen, in my study … I shake my head even as I near him, and he encircles my wrist, those long, elegant, and lethal fingers branding my skin.
More importantly, how do I break free of it?
“As I just mentioned, the reasons of this dinner are twofold. The first is to reforge the alliances between the Cross family and the organizations represented here. The second is to announce my engagement. Let me formally introduce everyone to my fiancée, Ember.” He pauses. “Ember Cross. Marcus’s only daughter.”
A silence so loud blasts in the room, I restrain myself from lifting my hands to my ears and covering them like muffs. The expressions range from astonishment to confusion to rage at the bomb he just dropped.