Chapter Twenty-seven
Dmitri Konstantinov
Iker gathered dangerous men and made it look like a celebration.
He filled a room the way dry wood waits for a match, one wrong move, and everything burns down.
Every man here was handpicked, invited, and weighed for value.
I stood among them with a glass of wine, thinking how convenient it was that predators preferred to gather in one place. Hunting has never been easier.
Security made a point outside. This was private. Nothing left these walls. Men like these never speak openly about the things that mattered. Reputation was the currency here, and everyone guarded it like their last breath.
The man in front of me kept talking. I let him. He mistook attention for admiration. I nodded when necessary, but my eyes moved around the room, monitoring.
Inna stood beside me, playing her role better than most. She nodded at the right moments, her lips curving just enough to pass for polite interest. But I knew her well. She was bored out of her mind. If she had a blade, she would have carved her way out of the conversation by now.
I glanced at her, and she breathed. “Can I join Caitlin? I’m super bored.”
There was no version of this night where I would let her walk away from me.
Not in a room full of men who smiled too easily and calculated too much.
Not when every pair of eyes here could spot weakness.
And definitely not when she was the highlight of the event.
I noticed how men stared at her. If I were in their position, I would stare too.
“I will take the silence as a yes.”
She turned to leave, but my hand found her waist before she could take a step. I pulled her back. A waiter passed by, and I handed over my glass, then took hers from her hand and gave that away too.
My fingers closed around hers, and I led her past men who watched without turning their heads. We went down a quieter hallway where the music softened.
“Where are we going?” she asked.
I didn’t answer since we had arrived at the men’s washroom. I pushed the door open and stepped in. Inna resisted, pulling her hand back.
“I can’t go in there.”
“Would you rather we go to the ladies?” I asked and pulled her in, moving towards the sink.
“Why are we here?” she asked.
The wound had been quiet earlier. Now it felt like it was waking up, reminding me I hadn’t dealt with it properly.
I slipped off my coat and handed it to Inna. Her gaze dropped to my shoulder, and the realization hit her. I could manage pain, but blood was an inconvenience. I unbuttoned my shirt and parted it open.
“Shit,” Inna’s voice cut through. I didn’t need to look down to confirm I was bleeding.
A knock came at the door, and it opened. Inna stepped closer to me, her body tensing as if she had been caught doing something she shouldn’t.
Akim stepped in, carrying a bag. He placed a fresh set of bandages beside the sink.
Inna let out a breath when she realized it was Akim, her shoulders easing.
“Anything from Ivan?” I asked Akim while I peeled away the edge of the tape holding the old bandage on my wound.
“Not yet,” he answered.
“Keep your eyes open for the signal,” I instructed.
Akim didn’t move immediately. I caught his hesitation in the mirror, a slight pause that didn’t belong to him.
“Also, your brother is here. I missed his name on the list.”
My hand stilled. I lifted my gaze to meet his reflection. I said nothing. Silence had a way of making people correct their mistakes.
“Roman, Boss,” he added.
Was this some kind of joke?
“You missed Roman Konstantinov on the guest list?” My voice remained even.
“He wasn’t on the list.” Akim didn’t miss things, especially not serious details. If Roman wasn’t on that list, then he wasn’t supposed to be here.
I looked back at the wound, but my thoughts had already shifted. Roman was the one who pulled me out of the incident in Cuba. He did it almost too cleanly. But I didn’t trust cleanliness when it came from someone else’s hands.
He was my brother, but he grew up in a different state.
New York shaped him into what I never witnessed myself, and that alone was enough to make me question everything.
The Konstantinov Bratva in New York ran well, I knew that much, but distance created gaps.
And gaps were where mistakes lived. Or intentions.
“Leave,” I finally said to Akim. He nodded and left.
What was Roman’s connection to this? From the entrance alone, no one got in without an invitation unless Roman had used mine to slip inside. And when the hell did he even get to Florida? Something about this wasn’t right, and it better not ruin my plans today.
“Don’t you like your brother?” Inna asked, pulling my attention back.
I tore open a pack of cotton. “I don’t like anyone.”
“True, including yourself,” she accused me, making me face her. She shifted, leaning back against the sink with my coat clutched in her arms.
“This event is important, Inna. Don’t act like I could have let a wound ruin it.”
“What can I do, anyway? We are already here,” she said, staring at my wound.
I pressed the cotton against the wound. The sting bit my flesh, but it barely registered beyond a dull ache. I had cleaned worse.
I flicked a glance at her and caught her staring at me as if she knew better how to handle this. She lifted her eyes to me and exhaled.
“Fine, I’ll help.” She trapped my coat between her knees and stepped in. Her hands slid over mine, taking control of the cotton and the antiseptic without asking twice.
“You think I’m incapable?” I asked, though I had already let go. Not because I needed her to do it, but because she was close enough, I could inhale her settling perfume.
“You dragged me here to do it, I know.” Her focus stayed on the wound, her fingers moving carefully as she cleaned it.
The men back there watched her like they were waiting for a moment when she’d be alone. I couldn’t leave her, not when she was draped in red and looked like an angel sent to earth. She had a way of standing out at these events, and people, especially men, never hid the way they stared.
She tilted her face up toward mine, close enough that her breath brushed my lips. Her brow arched. “What? Am I not doing it right?”
“What color are you wearing underneath?”
Her hands stilled, a flicker of disbelief crossing her face. She stared as if waiting for me to take it back. “Stop joking.”
My hand moved to the hem of her dress and began drawing it upward. She squirmed to stop me because both her hands were occupied. She stepped back, and I followed. The sink met her lower back, and she had nowhere left to go.
“You should stop.” Her hands paused on my shoulder.
I slid my hand up her thigh, over the curve of her hip, and found her underwear. I traced the waistband as she exhaled against my jaw. She was wearing lace panties, which raised the immediate question of whether the bra matched and whether the fabric was sheer enough to show her nipples.
“What are you doing?” she murmured.
I hooked my fingers into the waistband and drew the panties down, and she sucked in a breath. Her eyes dropped to watch what my hands were doing, and the coat she’d been holding between her legs slipped to the floor.
“Are you serious?” she asked.
“Very.”
“Fine, I’m wearing black. Now stop, someone could walk in. Dmitri!” Her hands flew to my shoulders as I lifted her and sat her on the edge of the sink. “You cannot be serious right now.”
I pulled the panties down and off her legs and brought them to my nose. Her mouth fell open, the color in her face shifting through several emotions. “What if someone walks in?”
“Are you embarrassed?”
“Am I—” She reached for them, and I moved my hand back. “Give those back.”
“Shouldn’t you be finishing the wound?”
“I will finish it when you give me my—” she lunged for the panties, but I pocketed them. “Dmitri!”
“Earn them back.” I ran a hand along the line of her neck, watching her pupils track the movement. “Otherwise, you walk into that event wearing nothing underneath. I find that genuinely interesting.”
“You are a psychopath,” she said with a flat certainty. “I am finishing dressing this wound, then you will give them back, and I will walk out.”
I leaned in until my mouth was close enough to her ear, and her posture changed. “That’s not how you earn them.” My hand slid under the hem of her dress again and moved upward. She shifted on the sink, her thighs pressing together around my wrist to stop me. “Open your legs.”
“Dmitri,” the word came out unsteady.
I used my other hand to press her thighs apart, and she gasped, fingers sinking into my shoulders hard enough to pass a message. “You can’t do this here.”
“Watch me.”
My fingers slid up between her thighs and found her pussy. She was smooth and soft; she had shaved. I drew my middle finger along her folds, parting her gently before circling her clit. Her head tipped forward against my jaw, her breath breaking at the edges.
“Shouldn’t you be dressing my wound?” I whispered against her temple.
“This is—” She swallowed whatever the rest of that sentence was and let her mouth move along the line of my jaw instead. My fingers kept their pace, rubbing her, reading every shift in her body the way you read a book.
I explored her with full attention, her warmth pulling me to the edge.
I didn’t stop even though I knew I couldn’t fuck her.
I wanted to feel more of her, and my fingers moved against her, the wetness coating them.
Her thighs fell further open with each pass as though her body decided against whatever expression she gave.
She was beautiful in the places people saw and beautiful in the places only I was touching right now. My body registered that with the blunt honesty of physical evidence, my cock pressing hard against my trousers, making its position clear.
A moan escaped her and cut off abruptly. She was swallowing them, pressing her lips together.
“Tell me,” I murmured, moving my lips along her cheek until I found her mouth. “Did you know you’re starving?”