Chapter 4 Dante
DANTE
When the door closed behind Alex, I still had an hour left in my office-hours block.
I wanted to lock the door and refuse to speak to anyone.
Why the hell did he affect me so strongly?
There was something about the way he stared at me—like he was desperate, hungry.
I knew many of my students crushed on me, but I’d never felt anything as intense as Alex’s interest.
And you’ve never been as interested yourself.
I wasn’t interested.
You wouldn’t want to fuck him? To put him in his place? He’s begging to be punished.
He certainly was, but I couldn’t be the person to give him what he needed.
But you’d like to be.
No. Yes. Fuck. Did he have to be so fucking intelligent, so capable of having real intellectual discourse? I knew I was being stereotypical, but I never expected a frat guy to have a conversation about a research article—certainly not voluntarily.
He just wanted to stare at you.
I was sure that was his motivation, but his questions about the paper seemed genuine. That didn’t matter though. I was not getting involved with a student.
I needed to make sure I didn’t end up alone with him again. I’d have to let one of my colleagues know I had an issue and make sure they were around to interrupt if he came by again. If? Who was I kidding? He was going to come by again.
The next morning, I dragged myself from the bed after a fitful sleep.
I’d lain awake worrying about the shit my family was involved in.
Tonight, Lorenzo was attending a party where he had to negotiate with Dimitri Kosovo, a Russian asshole he partly blamed for the years he’d spent in prison.
I was praying he could keep himself in check.
My younger brother, Rafael, was mad that he wasn’t the one Remington had sent to do the negotiating, as if Remington would ever assign Rafael anything where diplomacy was involved.
He was way too hotheaded and rarely took anything seriously.
Once I finally fell asleep, I dreamed about Alex. He was in a burning building, and I was trying to save him. Even now that I was awake, I couldn’t shake the feeling that he was in danger, and he was mine to protect. What the fuck was that about?
I should have gone out last night and found someone to help me work off my sexual tension, but by the time I got home, all I wanted to do was stay in. Maybe a good, hard run to banish the dream—and Alex—from my mind.
I pulled on a pair of athletic shorts and slid my feet into my running shoes. After stretching in the blessed air-conditioning, I headed out to face the oppressive heat. Could I sweat out my interest in Alex? I was sure as hell going to try.
I headed toward campus and followed the trail around the pond.
When I reached the part of the trail that ran by several sorority houses, Alex was leaning against a tree next to a bench.
That’s when it hit me. He looked vaguely familiar because he’d been on that bench, which I’d run by a few days ago, looking like he’d ended a rough night there.
I’d felt him staring at me as I’d passed by, but I’d ignored him.
And now he was back. Fuck.
He waved and made a show of stretching as I approached, and then he fell in beside me. I picked up my pace, and he did too.
“What are you doing?” I asked.
“Going for a run.”
“You were waiting for me.”
He glanced over at me with a smirk. “What makes you say that?”
“I saw you there the first day of class.”
“Forget about that. I wasn’t at my best.”
I huffed.
“It’s not what you think though.”
“So you weren’t sleeping off a night of binge-drinking that left you unable to find your bed? Then what was it?”
He was breathing hard, and I could tell he was fighting to keep up.
I was sure he could run a good distance.
He looked like he worked out regularly, but running wasn’t life or death to him.
If I weren’t in shape, I could get killed or get my family killed.
I pushed myself hard every day. I wasn’t going to be the reason one of us got hurt, even if I did wish to God we could all get out of the criminal world. I’d tried, but I hadn’t gotten far.
“I’ll tell you later,” he said, obviously far too winded for some long story justifying how getting drunk and ending up on a bench was for a higher purpose. “I didn’t think you saw me that day.”
“I notice everything about my surroundings. Why were you watching me?”
“Seriously? You have to know how you look.”
At least he wasn’t being coy. “I know that I’m your professor and much too old for you.”
“You can’t be that old.”
I was twenty-eight, but I felt so much older. I’d had to step up and be an adult at twenty when Lorenzo went to prison. I accelerated again, and it took Alex a few seconds to catch up.
“Damn. You’re fast.” He could barely speak.
“I can go faster.”
“For how long?”
“As long as I need to. See if you can keep up.” I sprinted ahead, and he did his best, but after about half a mile, he stepped off the trail and leaned against a tree, trying to catch his breath. I waved goodbye.
Alex didn’t interrupt my run again for the next few days, which was good. I absolutely had not hoped to see him again, no matter how many times I’d thought about him. I was hoping he wouldn’t be there, not wishing he would, because that would be wrong.
I really needed to find a casual fuck, but I spent Friday evening at the casino Rafe managed for the family, making sure he didn’t get himself into trouble.
Earlier in the week, he’d started a fight with a man he’d accused of cheating.
The fight had morphed into a huge brawl and brought way too much police attention to the place.
Rafe was twenty-five. Why did I still need to babysit him?
As if that wasn’t annoying enough, I was on edge all evening as I waited to hear how things had gone for Lorenzo.
He had good reasons to hate Dimitri, but he had to be civil and negotiate a weapons deal with him.
Why Remington wanted to keep working with such an evil fuck as Dimitri, I didn’t understand.
I supposed most people thought of Remington that way, but he had standards—all the Theriots did.
Around the time we expected him back, Rafe and I went to his house to wait, but hours passed before he finally walked through the door. I scowled at him. “You said you weren’t going to stay long.”
He yanked off his suit jacket and tossed it onto a chair. “You’re always saying you don’t care about the family business, so why are you even here?”
I gestured toward Rafe. “I’ve got to keep this one from destroying the place.”
Rafe rolled his eyes. “So did you make the deal or what?”
“It’s done. Dimitri agreed to eighty percent of what we asked for at the original price we wanted.”
Rafe protested the deal, but I shut him down as I studied Lorenzo. “Something else happened tonight. Why did you stay longer than you meant to?”
Lorenzo shrugged. “Dimitri was busy. There were lots of other guests. I had to wait for a chance to get him alone.”
Rafe shook his head. “He was fucking salivating to talk to you about this sale. It’s the only reason he invited you. He would’ve made himself available. Tell us what else happened.”
I finally realized what was off about Lorenzo. “Where’s your tie?”
He started to reach for it but stopped himself. “I didn’t wear one.”
“That’s a lie,” Rafe said.
Lorenzo rolled his eyes. “Fine. I had a little fun at the party, and I forgot my tie when I was done.”
Rafe wanted details, but Lorenzo shook his head. “I don’t have to tell you every move I make. You know what’s up with Dimitri. We’ll get our weapons within three days. I’m going to bed.”
I grabbed his arm as he headed for the stairs, and he tried to pull free of my grip. “Let me go. I’ve had a long night.”
Rafe huffed. “I could’ve had a long night too, but I was sitting here, bored off my ass, waiting on you to get home. Now I find out you’ve been fucking some hot guy in Dimitri’s house, and I want to know who it was.”
Did my little brother think about anything but sex? “Something happened—something that’s got you worried,” I insisted. “I want to know what the fuck it is.”
Lorenzo sank down onto one of the stairs. “I fucked Nikolai, Dimitri’s son.”
“Oh my God, what were you thinking?” I yelled as Rafe yelled, “Damn, go you.”
“Rafe, shut up. This is not something to celebrate. If Dimitri finds out—”
“We’ll have to kill him,” Rafe said. “Would that be so bad?”
I did not need this. I’d just started a new semester. My research was really moving forward. I was hopefully on the brink of a significant discovery, and now we were about to go to war with the Russians. But Lorenzo wasn’t himself. This night had affected him more than he was willing to say.
Lorenzo faced Rafe. “Have we taught you nothing?”
Rafe rolled his eyes. “I know, I know, it could start a war. We could get hurt, and you think you have to be our protector.”
Our parents had died when Lorenzo was seventeen. I was twelve, and Rafe was ten. Lorenzo had taken on the role of parent, and he’d worked as hard as he could for us until, thanks to Dimitri’s father, he ended up in prison and couldn’t be there for us. He couldn’t forgive himself for that.
Lorenzo explained that Nikolai was being forced to marry Alina Ivanov, and he’d be under the control of her father, who was allegedly the head of a network that specialized in trafficking boys and young men.
The marriage was basically a death sentence for Nikolai, but it was dangerous as hell for us to try to stop it.
They’d do anything to protect their secrets.
“We cannot get involved in their family business.”
Rafe grinned. “I think he’s already involved.”
Did he have to be such an asshole? “Could you be serious for one fucking second?”
Lorenzo spoke before Rafe could say anything else. “I fucked up tonight. I was tempted. I was angry. I wanted something, and I took it.”
“We should go get Nikolai,” Rafe said.