Chapter 21
Miss Volkov.
Zeno knows my name. This entire time, he’s known precisely who I am.
It doesn’t mean anything, inner logic cautions me, even though I know it does. He could have mentioned it sooner, but there’s a reason he didn’t.
I glance at my nightstand. It’s where the closest weapon is. More are tucked beneath the mattress, but I’ll never get the corner lifted before he reacts.
You don’t know he’s out to attack you.
Instincts deem it though, so I basically do. He hid the fact he knows who I am all while sleeping with me. He planned this for reasons that I doubt have anything to do with pleasure.
Zasranets . Asshole.
Zeno takes another step in my direction and my spine tingles in awareness. How did I not see it before? Staring at me across the club. Answering precisely how I wanted him to. Some massive premeditated plan to get close to me—for whatever reason a supposed tourist would want to. The truth is in his desolate stare boring down on me now. There’s a coldness there, that’s almost downright hatred.
It’s a quick movement; one he distracts me with a step forward but Dimitri’s training is superior and probably the reason I catch it at all. His arm subtly slides to the side, and his hand curls after retrieving whatever he does from his back pocket.
“Who are you?” My tone is firm, a threat in itself, as I inch to the side, closer to my gun.
“Told you. Name’s Zeno.” Another step from him.
“So that’s the truth?” I keep him talking, hoping to distract him.
“Sì.”
“How do you know who I am?” Please be some massive crazy coincidence.
His lips pull into the same kind of smirk that had me practically melting earlier tonight. What an idiot I am for falling for his charms. “Vanessa Volkov, Pakhan of the Russian Bratva.”
Shit. Well, that’s decided.
I lunge toward my nightstand at the same time Zeno reacts, throwing himself across the bed. He lands on my floor with a loud thump, just barely missing me. His body skims mine but I’m able to get to the drawer and pull out my Glock, quickly cocking it and pointing down toward the floor, where he’s just slowly getting up onto his knees, hands held up. One palm is open and toward me, and the other clenched around a knife.
“Drop it.” I jerk my chin toward that hand.
He surprisingly does, but it likely means he’s armed with more. If I were sneaking into a mafia leader’s stronghold, I’d heavily equip myself…but that’s just me.
“Good. Now, you’re going to answer a few questions or you die.” I reposition my legs into a shooter’s stance, aware I’m still naked from what should have been an ideal ending to my Friday night.
Zeno ticks his head to the side, his blistering stare studying every inch of me before suddenly saying, “Merciless Queen. That’s what your soldiers call you, no? Why would I tell you anything all to die regardless because you never show mercy?”
He knows all, right down to the nickname. I try to keep an impassive expression, to avoid revealing my true thoughts when lifting the gun to his forehead. “You have two more seconds to tell me why you’re here before my staff will end up having to scrub your blood off my window.”
“I only need one.”
Then, suddenly, he lunges from his kneeling position. It’s so quick, he manages to wrap an arm around my legs and topple me to the side, my hold on the gun faltering until it drops to the floor, landing a couple feet away from where I do.
Hand on the floor, I push to my feet and dive toward Zeno, landing a hard punch to his nose before he’s righted himself. It unfortunately doesn’t have enough power behind it to affect him in any visible way, but I cock my arm back to do it again. Zeno ducks low, aiming for my legs again, but this time I see him coming and skip to the side, away from the wall and closer to my gun.
He's slow getting to his feet, so maybe my punch did do something useful. I glance toward my gun; a quick peek so he doesn’t realize my plan.
“You’re playing with death,” I taunt, hoping it distracts him.
I move at the same time he does, both of us heading for the weapon. He beats me by milliseconds and blocks my path, pushing me entirely in the opposite direction toward the window. The glass pane catches me, the chill of it numbing my bare ass.
Zeno’s on me before my next breath rather than retrieving my weapon. His strength overpowers my resistance and he grabs my wrists in one palm and forces me around, shoving my front to the glass, the biting cold on my nipples making me hiss.
He steps into me, his body reminding me of a better time. His jeans, covering the cock that did so well pleasing me earlier, rub against me. The memory of him on my bed, in my bindings, shoots red hot fury down my spine. It was all some game to him.
“Get the fuck off me, zasranets !” I buck against his unyielding hold, using my feet and body to make his grip difficult to maintain.
“Did you know,” he murmurs in my ear, a soft tone so opposite from what the situation calls for, “that your accent gets so strong when you speak your language? It’s sexy.”
“You wouldn’t think that if you knew what I said.”
“Oh, I’m sure it’s something indicating how pissed off you are because you’re not used to losing.”
I kick my leg backwards at the same time as yanking on my wrists, but to no avail. “You talk too much for someone who’s here to…what? Kill me.”
“Yes.” A click pulls my gaze to the right, where a secondary blade is coming into view. He’s teasing me with it because if he wanted me gone in this instance, that knife would have been stabbed into my spine or my heart from behind or something, rather than playing show-and-tell. Instead, he keeps the weapon in view and pushes his body more into mine, until glass coats my entire front. “You put up a good fight, Volkov. I like that.” His head dives into the space between my shoulder and neck, his lips trailing the sensitive skin there, making me shiver for reasons I wish I could deny or prevent entirely. “You have no idea how delicious you taste.”
The show he put on tonight certainly was a grand act. One maybe even rivalling Anastasia’s ballet performances. Played the submissive so well, and now it’s striking to be the one in that role.
I jerk my head hard to the side, hoping it hurts him in some way. He lost all rights to touch me the second he raised a weapon against me. “You will die, Italian scum.”
“Big words from the person who’s trapped.”
“Shitty actions from the assailant,” I shoot back, keeping the knife in view. “What have I done to deserve all this?”
“The Cosa Nostra sent me to finish the Volkov line.” With the knife, he dips it close to my neck, trailing the dull edge along my skin. My pulse jumps, even though he’s still only taunting me. “And in case your daddy never taught you properly, they’re the Sicilian mafia, one of the oldest organizations in the entire world. They control Italy and some surrounding countries, even parts of North America. Needless to say, they’re the real deal, Volkov, and I hate to be the one to tell you, but the Bratva are a fraction of what they are.”
Papa never taught me shit, but I’m aware of who the Cosa Nostra are and where they hold territory, both in Italy and in the U.S. since Dimitri went over all the mob organizations as a part of my training. It’s vital to know who’s running where, should they ever rise against me.
What I don’t know is why they’d be after me now. Old documents I dug up described decades’ old battles between us and them, but nothing in recent years, and certainly nothing that’d give them reason enough to come for me. The world’s only so big so at some point every organization has been in a battle with another; it’s just how it is, and why alliances can be important.
The thing that’s always unnerved me, though, is how discreet they are. Lev found the lack of information strange, believing they had people scrub the internet of any mention of them, so my knowledge is unfortunately limited no matter how hard I’ve searched. They’re very secretive on how they’re ran, but thankfully I have the important information: that their boss is a man named Alessandro Vitale. I’ve never interacted with the Cosa Nostra before—never had a need to—so if this is Vitale’s way of saying hello, he can shove it.
I jerk on my wrists again, feeling a burn from his tight grip. I’ll get out of this soon, but the fact he hasn’t used that weapon on me yet says he wants something else. I can work with that. Keep him talking, break him down.
“You’re a mercenary then? Come to assassinate me in my bed. What do you want? I’ll give you anything.”
In the window’s reflection, I find his gaze, and it tells me everything. His falter says I’ve succeeded. He didn’t expect me to negotiate for my safety. There’s almost an annoyance in the twist of his mouth and the narrowing of his eyes.
But he does what I hoped he would and his grip wanes, loosening just enough that when I yank again, I’m free to go immediately for the kill. My left leg swings up into a roundhouse kick that lands on his thigh and gets him away from me. It’s enough to push off the window and sprint for my gun, which is still on the floor. He swipes the knife my way but misses entirely, and I make it to the gun before he’s upright again.
This time, I refuse to play his game.
I refuse to miss.
Zeno’s eyes widen because he must see the promise of death in my own. Must realize that this time, there’s no hesitation on my part. He nearly won before and it’s a mistake only made once. His knife is pathetic compared to the gun, and he must realize this when he takes off for the door.
I shoot, only it misses wide and creates a puncture in my doorframe, just shy of his head. My shots are too messy and chaotic for my liking, but it’s symbolic of this whole night and the way, as much as I despise admitting this, that Zeno’s trickery has thrown me.
“Volkov!” Zeno shouts, hands coming up to cover his head.
I ignore his yell, or plea, or whatever the purpose behind screaming my name was and shoot again.
And this one doesn’t miss.