Chapter 6 Wolves In Velvet
WOLVES IN VELVET
KONSTANTIN
The restaurant looked exactly like I’d expected—money and menace wrapped in velvet.
Low ceilings. Dark booths. Crimson lamps bleeding over tables. A string of white Christmas lights sagged along the bar, doing fuck-all to soften the edges. Wreaths on the walls, holly tucked into crystal vases, but the only thing that really glowed in here was power.
Perfect stage.
She needed to see this. Needed to understand the world she’d walked into when she followed the wrong shortcut through a tree lot.
I kept my hand on the small of her back as we crossed the polished floor, feeling the tension pouring off her. The black silk dress I’d chosen clung to every new curve the stylists had sculpted, turning her from mall elf hostage into a weapon I could aim.
She had no idea how dangerous she looked.
No idea how every man in this room was already cataloguing her as mine or a potential vulnerability, depending on how suicidal they felt tonight.
The hostess saw me and went still. To her credit, she didn’t stammer.
“Mr. Zverev.” She grabbed two menus, abandoned the usual script. “Your table is ready.”
Smart girl.
She led us toward the back. Eyes tracked us through the half-dark—measured, weighed. Some full of hunger. Some suspicious. Some calculating risk. None of them brave enough to meet my gaze for long.
Let them look.
Let them see exactly what happens when something belongs to me.
“Breathe,” I murmured against Dani’s ear, catching the way her shoulders had crept toward her ears. The scent of her hair—shampoo and the faint, sharp tang of nerves—drifted up. “You look like you’re about to bolt.”
If she ran here, half this room would see it as weakness. The other half would see it as an opportunity.
“I’m fine.” She lied badly, but some of the rigidity left her spine. “Just taking in the ambiance. Very… atmospheric.”
Atmospheric. That was one fucking word for it.
Our booth was where I always sat. Back to the wall, direct line of sight to exits, no one behind us. Paranoia was just good planning in my line of work.
She slid into the velvet seat with unconscious grace, the slit in her dress flashing a strip of thigh that made my blood run hotter than I liked. I settled beside her, close enough to feel the warmth of her through silk. Close enough to make sure every predator in the room thought twice.
Mine. Whether she knew it yet or not was irrelevant.
“Konstantin Zverev.”
Fuck.
I recognized the voice before I turned.
Maksim approached with that cultivated charm that had always made me want to break his nose. Immaculate charcoal suit, cufflinks that caught the low light, smile polished within an inch of its life.
Of course he was here. I should’ve expected him to sniff around the first time I brought her out.
“And this must be the famous fiancée,” he said, switching his attention to Dani. His gaze swept down her body, slow and appreciative, like he was inspecting a new car.
Something cold and violent uncurled in my chest.
My hand found her thigh under the table. Warm silk. Soft flesh. I squeezed, not gently.
A reminder. To her, to him, to everyone watching.
“Maksim.” I kept my voice neutral, the need to put my fist through his perfect teeth buried under years of discipline. “Dani, this is my cousin.”
Family. The one thing you didn’t get to choose and never truly escaped.
"Maksim had always circled my father’s empty chair like a vulture with a law degree, too smart to grab and too patient to leave."
“Dusha.” He reached for her hand with theatrical gallantry, using the endearment like poison. “How did you manage to capture my notoriously commitment-phobic cousin?”
He lifted her fingers to his mouth. Let his lips linger too long. His thumb stroked across her knuckles like he had the right.
Dani’s smile didn’t crack, but I saw the stiffness in her shoulders, the flicker of discomfort in her eyes.
Touch her again. Give me the excuse.
My fingers tightened on her thigh, and I felt her pulse jump under my grip.
I forced every muscle in my body to stay relaxed. Reaching for the knife under my jacket in a room full of my own men would send the wrong message.
“Sit,” I said.
Just that. Short. Sharp.
His eyes flashed, but he obeyed, lowering himself into the booth opposite us.
Dani inhaled carefully. “It’s a modern love story,” she said, and I could hear the strain under the light tone. “Very romantic.”
“I’m sure it is.” Maksim’s gaze flicked between us, all teeth and malice. “Konstantin has always had exquisite taste in… acquisitions.”
Acquisitions.
The word slid under my skin like a blade.
But before I could open my mouth and shove it down his throat, he reached across the table and let his fingers trail along Dani’s wrist. Supposed to look casual. Looked like a declaration of war.
Wrong fucking move.
I leaned forward, let my voice drop into the register that came right before bodies hit the floor.
“Touch her again,” I said calmly, “and you won’t be using those hands for anything.”
He laughed. A little too loud. The sound drew glances from nearby tables; they quickly looked away when they saw my face.
Still, I caught the way his eyes sharpened. Good. He should be worried.
“Still so protective,” he said lightly. “Some things never change.”
No. They didn’t.
The waiter chose that moment to materialize, probably sensing the storm front gathering. I switched to Russian and ordered for both of us without asking Dani what she wanted. Part habit. Part message.
My people understood which conversations were theirs to join and which weren’t.
Food, wine, the flow of expensive liquor—background noise. Men trickled in as the evening wore on, filling our section with familiar faces.
“Konstantin.” Baranov nodded in greeting, his gaze sliding to Dani with open curiosity. “And this must be the lovely bride-to-be.”
Krupin and Kaminsky followed. Each offered polite words to her, respect to me, and thinly veiled assessment to both of us.
“Dani,” I said evenly, “these are men you listen to when they speak. Not because they deserve it. Because I say so.”
They heard the order in that. So did she.
I watched their reactions the way other men read market reports.
Baranov approved. Always did enjoy a bit of chaos as long as he wasn’t paying for it.
Krupin was cautious, eyes flicking between my face and Dani’s, looking for signs this was a weakness or a trap.
Kaminsky was already calculating how to use her if he ever got the chance.
Dani smiled and nodded in all the right places, playing the part better than I’d expected. But I could see her taking them in too: the missing fingers, the expensive watches, the way the men at surrounding tables deferred to them.
“So,” Kaminsky said eventually, leaning back in his seat with forced nonchalance, “where did you two meet?”
Here it was. The question I should’ve prepped her for and hadn’t.
I felt Dani tense beside me. Saw the flicker of panic she tried to smother.
Her brain raced. Trying to find a way to make “I watched him kill a guy in a Christmas tree lot” sound meet-cute.
“Whole Foods,” she blurted.
For one heartbeat, there was nothing.
Silence rippled out to the nearest tables.
Fucking Whole Foods.
Every eye swung our way. The idea of me finding love between organic kale and overpriced granola short-circuited half their brains.
Think fast.
I slid an arm around her and pulled her closer, letting my hand rest high on her bare thigh.
“She was squeezing peaches,” I said, voice pitched just loud enough to carry. “I had to have her.”
The table held its breath for a second.
Then Baranov barked a laugh. Kaminsky’s mouth twisted. The others followed, nodding in that way men did when they recognized a story they liked: saw, wanted, took.
Good.
Let them understand it on those terms.
Lust. Possession. Not love.
Dani’s embarrassment rolled off her in waves, but she kept her chin up. That stubborn streak I’d seen from the beginning showed in the set of her jaw, the line of her mouth.
As the dishes arrived, conversation shifted. It never stopped being assessment, though. It never did in my world.
They watched how she interacted with me. With them. With the space. They listened to what she said and how quickly she caught on.
Some of them already labeled her liability.
“She’s a complication,” someone murmured in English down the table, thinking the general clatter would cover it. “Liability.”
There it was.
I didn’t have to look to know who it was. The tone was familiar. Always a step away from suggesting someone else “deal with” a problem.
Idiots.
They thought she made me weak when the truth was the opposite. I’d always been at my most dangerous with something worth defending.
Dani heard it too.
I felt her go very still beside me. Like a deer in headlights. Then she pulled herself together, shoulders dropping into that careful blankness she’d already learned from watching me.
She was learning fast.
I found her hand under the table and laced our fingers together. Squeezed once.
Reassurance and warning in one.
When she looked up at me, I saw the fear she fought to hide, the dawning understanding.
Someone at this table would be happier if she disappeared.
They’d have to go through me first.
I turned my attention back to my men with a pleasant expression that didn’t reach my eyes.
We were in the middle of discussing shipment routes when I saw it.
Kaminsky’s hand, stretching across the table, “casually” brushing Dani’s bare shoulder as he laughed at something Baranov said.
He wanted to see how far he could push. How much I’d tolerate. Whether this new variable was fragile, stupid, or both.
My free hand slid toward the inside of my jacket.
Then I saw her face.
Dani turned toward the touch, slow and deliberate. Not flinching. Not shrinking.
For a second, her expression shifted. Not fear. Not coy submission.
Something sharper. Like a woman who’d seen a man bleeding out in the snow under Christmas lights and still managed to put one foot in front of the other.
Careful, ptichka.
In my world, the wrong reaction could get you killed. The right one could get people killed on your behalf.
The hand lingered a beat too long before Kaminsky withdrew it, smile smoothing back into place as if nothing had happened.
I smiled too.
Made a note.
There’d be time to deal with him later.
Touch what’s mine, and you don’t get to keep touching anything.