17. Dmitri
17
DMITRI
“ W hen you said reserve the restaurant at seven, I thought you meant a spot,” Elanee whispers across the table.
“Why are you whispering when we’re the only ones here?” I ask, sitting back as the waiter places the napkin on my lap. He’s intimidated and hasn’t looked Elanee’s way once, even when he places her napkin down. Good.
Because she’s stunning. A goddess. A jewel to behold and a view for only me.
“Thank you,” she says, noticing his reluctance to look at her directly.
Multiple dishes are placed in front of us.
“You got us tapas?” she says surprised.
“Well, it used to be your favorite, wasn’t it?” I point to four of the six dishes. “They all have chili in it.”
She seems taken aback but picks from the plates. I watch her every move, but not entirely sure I’ll be able to let her go again. Even by her wishes.
“You look beautiful, by the way,” I say, gesturing to the dress and smirking at the boots. “It’s nice to know I still have good taste.”
She rolls her eyes and the tension ripples away effortlessly.
“Great taste but a terrible personality,” she remarks as she places a piece of chili steak in her mouth. “Oh wow. That’s delicious.”
All of this is a fa?ade. I know that. But I find myself wrestling with asking the most important question. Because I don’t want her to ever think of it again. I’ve only just stripped back a tiny bit of her flight and fight response and now she’ll retract into her shell for self-preservation.
She places her fork on the plate, and it clatters in the empty restaurant, where there are usually a hundred guests at a time. I didn’t want to risk taking her out in public, and even if I had, she would be the only thing I focused on.
“You want to know about him, don’t you?” she asks.
My appetite turns at the mention of him . I’ve hated my father for as long as I can remember. Up until eight years old, I thought if I could prove myself to be strong, he’d come back for us. But after I watched my mother crumble time and time again because I mentioned his name, I realized he had only been a monster, and we were lucky to be set free. Although my grandfather looked after us and partially raised us, I’d always resented him for not doing anything further. As an adult, I understood why a business typhoon had no need to get involved with the Bratva, but it didn’t take away the amount of trauma he’d put my mother through. The screaming that aroused the household nightly from the nightmares that she could never say out loud should’ve put him into action. But it didn’t. Instead, it became my responsibility to bear.
I was just a child when I made that decision. I wasn’t a child anymore.
“More importantly, I want to know what he’s done to you.”
The atmosphere shifts. She takes a sip of her champagne and adjusts herself in the chair. She’s gone back to hiding behind the only mask that’s probably kept her alive this long. My hand grips the fork at my inability to be that shield for her.
“You can’t fight all of my battles for me, Dmitri. I made choices in this as well that led me into this situation,” she says diplomatically.
My jaw tics. As if she were to blame for any of this.
“When?” is all I can grit out.
She thinks. “When we first met, I didn’t realize who he was at the time. I’m certain he knew who I was all along. He promised me things like connections, jobs to dance in, and introducing me to a different circle. I thought he was kind and saw potential in me.”
The fork bends beneath my grip.
“But that fantasy came crashing down very quickly. Before I knew it, I was a possession. Property. And it was already too late; I’d unknowingly been isolated after two years. But I supposed there were signs along the way. A man of that power and influence had tell signs, just as you do.”
“Don’t compare me to him,” I grit, and she flinches under the harsh tone. “I’m sorry.” Because scaring her is the last thing I want to do. I refuse to be anything like him. “Did he touch you?”
Silence. She’s looking into her hands beneath the table. Tears begin to spill, and all my fiery rage and fury tug on me to burn this entire building to the ground. To find some type of destructive release. But all I see is her crying amongst my own raging storm. I go to stand, an incidental wince escaping me as I’m reminded of my ribs.
“Dmitri?” she says concerned.
“It’s nothing,” I say as I kneel in front of her and wipe away her tears.
“I’m sorry,” she sobs. My jaw tics because I want to know every place he touched her, but I’m also aware if I have that knowledge, there’s no coming back from it.
“I know he’s using me to get to you. When he told me he was moving me back to New York, I was relieved but confused about why. The only connection he had here was you. Everything he does is just a big game.”
I have eyes and ears everywhere looking for his movement, but not once had he stepped back into the city after the Italian mafia ran the last of his cousin’s operations out, who just so happened to be head of the Bratva almost twenty years ago. Now, only a few businesses run, but nothing so grand as to what they control on their home soil in Russia. “Do you see him still? Does he come to New York?”
She attempts to ease the crying, but that stubborn resolve slowly returns. “I haven’t since coming here. But he will.”
Every fiber in my body tightens. “When?”
“I don’t know. I never know what he’s thinking or what he’ll do.” She leans into my shoulder, and I hug her, holding her so tightly, terrified that she might just go up in smoke. Her trembling and tears break me from the inside. I should’ve never let her go in the first place.
He’s taken so much from her. And I had to be the asshole to pry because right now, she’s the only connection I have to him. And I refuse to use her as bait. But if I can learn anything, I’ll figure out a way to end this finally.
“He mentioned you often,” she says as she wipes at her tears.
My blood runs cold.
I have no doubt, considering how I’ve slowly pried his influence out of New York over the years. Anything that he touched, owned, or so much as pissed on—I claimed as mine.
Except this.
She wasn’t property.
Elanee takes a shaky breath and pulls back. Her lips are close, and her hot breath flushes against mine.
My body’s rigid as I fight every ounce of control.
I want her.
I always have.
Most likely, I always will.
But she made it clear it wasn’t mutual, and I’d be an ass for making a move on her now.
She was the only one I’d felt this type of restraint for.
The only one—
Her feather-light lips are moist from tears when they brush against mine. And it snaps the tiny thread of control I’ve ever had around this woman.
She melts into me as she leans down and takes everything I have to offer. Her tongue is a quick and hungry little thing. Desperate. Crazed. And deprived.
Our desperation bleeds into one another, her small whimper is enough to have my cock twitching with a large dose of guilt mixing in my gut. She wants to drown it all away as much as I want to my demons.
But I was as much the monster she’d claimed me to be even back then. If anything, I was even worse.
She pulls back, her bronze eyes searching mine as if she can sense my reluctance.
I want her. But was that really fair to her?
And yet, I would take whatever she was willing to give.
“Do you want to come back to the room with me?” she asks quietly.
A lump lodges in my throat because how was I to say no to the most beautiful woman I’d ever laid eyes on?
Even for only one night.
But I had the suspicious feeling that one taste would spiral me into an unquenchable thirst for the rest of my life.