Chapter 10
PAVEL
" W hat the fuck are you wearing?" I growled, looking Alina up and down, taking in the trashiest outfit I'd ever seen.
Her tits were practically spilling out of the corset, and her round, perky ass was barely covered by tiny black shorts. I wasn't even sure they could be considered shorts.
She shouldn't be wearing shit like that.
This woman should be wrapped in the finest designer silks, cashmere, and wool. Clothes that whispered status. Power. Claimed.
Instead, every time I saw her, she was dressed like someone disposable.
Her so-called cleaner uniform—black T-shirt and yoga pants—wasn’t just cheap, it was insulting.
A deliberate attempt to disappear into the background like a broom or a bucket.
But a body like hers was impossible to hide.
The fabric clung to her curves in all the wrong ways, like an afterthought that somehow demanded attention.
And then there was this second offense.
This pathetic excuse for a strip club costume. A bartender’s outfit designed to humiliate.
She looked like a walking target.
Cheap. Unprotected.
Like no one gave a damn what happened to her.
It made my blood boil.
Because if she were mine, the only thing the world would see when she walked in a room was that she was untouchable.
The fact that other men could see this much of her, that she willingly put herself on display like this, had my grip tightening around her waist until she let out a little squeak.
Anger burned in my veins, pushed harder by a tinge of jealousy, or maybe possessiveness.
I wasn't mad because she had run, or because I had gone to her apartment and found it empty.
I wasn't even mad that I was forced to track her down like prey through the city.
That part I kind of enjoyed.
I was impressed by the chase she had given my men throughout the night.
She lost an entire team.
The first man she lost when she ran off the bus to the Metro, but the rest were able to follow her for a bit.
Then she darted away, out of their sight, jumping off one train to get on another .
More than once she ran through a train to hop one on the opposite track.
It took all night, but she lost every single one of my men.
Alina was far cleverer than I had originally given her credit for.
She had even lied on her work application, giving a false home address and listing a second job at a rat-infested strip club in a shitty neighborhood. I figured if the home address was fake, the second job had to be too.
It would have been a dead end if only she remembered that part of her onboarding included a background check.
I wasn't pissed about the amount of energy that I had to expel to catch her only to find out that my intel about her second job had been right all along.
No, I was pissed because I should have known better.
I shouldn't have underestimated her.
The girl who fascinated me more than she should have, the girl who stole my gun, stole my time, and stole my fucking patience was standing in front of me wearing nothing but cheap satin, fishnet, and a goddamn corset.
She belonged to me.
She was mine, and where did I find her?
In a trashy, run-down strip joint dressed like a hooker and selling herself to fucking nobodies.
"Answer me. What the fuck are you wearing, Alina?" I growled again, the warning clear in my tone.
"My uniform." Her breath hitched as I ran my hand from her throat down her body.
Clenching my jaw, I let her go so she could scramble off of my lap .
I stood and took off my suit jacket.
Then lifted it up, offering to slide the jacket over her bare shoulders. "Put this on."
She shook her head, her lips parting as she took a step back and glanced behind her at the heavy, dark-red curtain that separated us from the rest of the club.
She was going to run again.
I wasn't about to let her get away from me this time.
It didn't matter how many games of Durak I won, I would never live a second escape from me down.
"I wasn't asking." My warning clear.
Her sweet lips parted as she took another step away from me. "I don't want?—"
Her words fell silent when she turned to look at me and saw the anger in my eyes.
"Don't argue with me," I said, before she could refuse again.
The curtain to the champagne room ripped open and the sleazy manager, Lou something, stormed into the tiny room.
"Alina, where the fuck have you been? The guests need to see your sweet ass out?—"
I barely turned my head before pulling my gun and leveling it at the sweaty, obese rat bastard. The click of the safety was deafening in the cramped space, even with the muffled bass from the music playing on the stage.
Her boss's face drained of color as he skidded to a halt.
"Fuck off," I said.
The man raised his hands, his eyes darting between Alina and me. "I was just looking for?— "
"I'm coming right out," Alina said.
The fuck she was.
My thumb pressed against the hammer, sliding it back with another audible click, and his words died in his throat.
"Go serve them yourself or find someone else. Alina no longer works for you."
"Wait, no. I'm coming right out, Lou, I promise. Everything is okay."
I didn't know if she was trying to convince him of that, or herself. Either way, she was very wrong.
"I. Said. Fuck. Off," I repeated, aiming the gun at a new spot with every word.
He shook as I started at a kneecap, then his groin, then his heart, before landing on his head.
Lou's eyes went wide, and a dark stain appeared on his pants as he stared directly into my gun. Jesus, he was pathetic.
"Now," I added.
He opened his lips to say something, then thought better of it. He practically tripped over himself as he turned to run, pawing the curtain back and forth in a struggle to find the opening.
Despite Alina's wide-eyed protests, he was gone, and now it was just the two of us.
"Please. You don't have to do this."
I tilted my head, looking at her still not wearing the jacket I had offered. I pressed it toward her again and this time she took it, her hands shaking as she wrapped it around herself .
"What exactly do you think I'm doing?"
Her throat bobbed, and she pulled the lapels closer together to cover her body.
I gave her a slow, deliberate once-over.
The jacket was far too big on her frame. It swallowed her, hiding everything that I wanted to see.
"Killing me." Fear filled her eyes, but she didn't look away from me. She was terrified, but brave. Far braver than her boss.
"Well," I said casually, as I sat back down in that cheap pleather chair. "That is certainly one option."
She stiffened and I could practically see her mind race as she tried to figure a way out of this.
"I know there are those who would prefer it if I were to kill you. It would be quick, clean, and you would no longer be an inconvenience."
It was kind of amusing watching her eyes dart around. I could see her heart racing in the vein at the base of her neck and a fresh sheen of sweat made the skin of her brow shine.
"Killing you is definitely on the table, but I am entertaining…other options."
God, taunting her was so much fun.
She stood there shaking as she weighed her options, and I couldn't wait to see what she was going to do next.
"Give me money," she blurted out.
Out of all the things that she could have possibly said, those words hadn't even crossed my mind. Maybe that was what I was so enthralled by with my little kitten. She kept me guessing. It was refreshing.
Everyone else was so predictable. So boring .
"What?"
"I just need enough to leave town. You'll never see me again. I won't be an inconvenience at all. It will be like we never met." The words tumbled out of her lips and slammed into me like bricks.
Never see her again?
Like we had never met?
The idea tightened my chest, my heart beating a little faster.
My teeth ground down, and my fists tightened over the arms of the chair.
That was not a fucking option.
Alina was a loose end. Loose ends didn't survive in the Russian mafia.
I knew this. Killing her was the best option. Her suggestion, the second best…though it was missing an element of mutual destruction.
Still, after what she saw, paying her off wasn't enough.
There was too much at stake, too much damage she could do if she talked to the wrong person.
I could analyze it all day, but I knew that wasn't the real reason I wasn't going to let her go.
I leaned back, spreading my arms along the top of the low chair and kicking my legs out, making myself comfortable. "No."
Her face crumpled. "Please."
"I do so love it when you beg. Maybe I'll consider it. If you dance for me."
She blinked at me, stunned for a moment. "What?"
"You heard me," I said.
The corners of my lips pulling into a sly smile, I gestured to the small, raised stage surrounded by mirrors. "You want me to consider paying you and letting you go. I want a dance. Maybe you'll convince me the world would be a dimmer place without your beauty to illuminate it."
Her eyes widened again, the tops of her cheeks flushed, and her lips parted. Teasing her was just too much fun.
Alina shook her head violently, her brown curls bouncing around her face, the sweet scent of her shampoo filling the room. "No, I'm not one of the?—"
As she argued, I picked up the remote for the sound system off to the side and made my selection. The first twangs of a familiar song drifted from the speakers behind her.
Bruce Springsteen's I'm On Fire .
I gave her a cocky smirk.
She was stuck.
There was no escaping this.
The sooner she realized it, the easier her life was going to be.
I had caught her.
She was mine. That meant she was going to do as I demanded.
"Dance."
Alina hesitated for a moment. Then her eyes flicked down to the gun that was resting on my thigh, my hand still gripped around the base, my finger laying along the slide.
Fear flickered across her features. Her hands trembled at her sides, but she lifted her chin and swallowed before stepping onto the platform .