Chapter 16
Chapter Sixteen
EDIE
I tell the second cabbie to drop me off on a Little Albania side street a block from the restaurant, just as Bender wanted.
I pay in cash and walk the rest of the way, passing a shuttered shoe shop and a tailor’s storefront that looks like it’s been around for generations—the kind of place guys like Luka probably go to get suits made.
I imagine him standing on a stool like a movie mafioso, squinting into the distance while an old man measures his powerful arms. His squint would deepen as he broods over his dark empire.
His dark brows get these little wings in the middle when he squints, but they stay pointy on the outer edges.
And, of course, his devil-angel eyes would stay wrongly gorgeous.
The restaurant turns out to be on one of those below-the-first-floor spaces where you have to go down a couple steps. There’s no sign, but it’s clearly a restaurant, judging from the red canopy and candlelit interior.
I head down and pause in front of elegantly carved dark wood double doors. There’s a menu posted on the side window above a picturesquely drippy candle.
I clutch my small pink purse in both hands .
I ate two packs of ramen noodles before I left so I wouldn’t be hungry. I’m going to just be fake and smiley and not even give Luka the satisfaction of feeding me properly. And most of all, if he thinks he’s getting the scorn, he can guess again.
This date will be unsatisfying to him in every way. Maybe he’ll send me home before anything else even happens.
The door to the place opens, and I straighten. It’s the man who seems like a soldier. Storm, I think they called him.
And then Orton comes. “Gimme the bag.”
I hand over my small clutch, and he goes through it. Phone, makeup, and a small wallet. Mints. He pockets the phone and hands the bag back.
“Hands on the wall.”
“What?”
“Do it.”
I turn and put my hands on the wall. “I’m not armed.”
He snorts like that’s ridiculous. Like, even if I were armed, it wouldn’t do shit. Then I realize he’s looking for a wire. Recording devices. Maybe that’s why he took the phones.
What can they do about the giant recording device between my ears? That’s the one they should worry about. That’s the one Bender is counting on.
He looks hard into my eyes. “I’ve been with Luka over twenty years. He sees everything. Understand?”
I nod.
“You wanna know what happens when Luka sics Storm here on somebody stupid enough to fuck with us?”
I look over at Storm, who glowers at me in his special ice-mountain-man way.
“I’m not up to anything,” I say softly, hoping he doesn’t sense my fear. I’m desperate, suddenly, to get to Luka.
“You wanna know or not?”
“No. ”
“Good answer.” Orton leans in. “Because if you knew, it would fucking haunt your dreams. Let’s go.”
He leads me through a candlelit sea of hushed voices and soft clinks against crystal.
Booths are built into the wall along the sides and the back, all spaced far away from each other and private.
Nestled into the far back corner is the most shadowy booth of all, but it’s not shadowy enough that I don’t see Luka’s impossibly beautiful eyes.
He stands.
I stop some ways away from him, feeling nervous.
He’s in another of his perfectly tailored black suits, shirt brilliant white against the dark fabric—all power and deadly elegance. His heavy gaze slides from my pale dress with the sweet bodice detail to my bare legs and my white kitten heels and back up.
It seems like forever that I stand there. Is this some kind of inspection? Like I’m a piece of meat? I’m overtaken with the instinct to narrow my eyes in disgust, but then I remember.
I’m bland tonight. Nice. I put on a vacant expression. Very Stepford wife.
He says, “Your dress. It’s...”
Hah! He doesn’t like the dress!
But I don’t smile. Instead, I tilt my head like a pleasant little robot. “You don’t like it? You said nice.”
He swallows with seeming difficulty, still staring.
I try to think of something else boring to do, some other way to be the opposite of what he wants. And then it comes to me—I told him my smile was my own the last time we were together.
Be careful what you wish for, mister, I think as I form my lips into a big, wide smile, like I’m pleased to be on display in my nice dress. Like I admire him. Adore him.
His gaze darkens.
I brighten my smile .
Thoughts seem to flow behind his eyes, and then he sits down and crooks his finger. Come . That’s what the finger means.
He doesn’t even say it. Just the finger. Come .
The booth is large and filled with maybe seven guys. And they’re all looking at us.
I force myself to put one foot in front of the other. I stop in front of him, keeping my big, fake smile.
His cruel, beautiful lips twist into something that’s definitely not a smile. “Closer,” he commands.
I step in closer, right between his legs, close enough that I can feel his breath on my neck and the power and darkness that roll off him.
His whisper, when it comes, is unbearably intimate. “Look at me.”
I look down and meet his dark gaze with my big, fake smile, hoping I’m managing to keep the emotion from my face.
“I like the dress.”
My pulse thunders so loudly in my ears that I’m barely conscious of the gentle press of his knuckle against my belly.
Slowly, he draws it upward, my entire being swirling along with it. I’m a melted confection, slowly stirred by his traveling knuckle as it continues up my rib cage, between my breasts, up my neck, and finally to my chin.
He stands again, keeping his knuckle right there.
I clench my sex as he lifts my chin so that I’m gazing up at him.
My pulse is on overdrive. My panties are wet with arousal. I swallow, thinking of all the good guys I’ve dated. The sweet picnics and silly jokes and long talks about classes.
Those are the guys for me—not this awful brutish one.
And he wasn’t supposed to like the dress, dammit!
His knuckle nudges my chin higher. My chest rises and falls under his gaze.
“God, baby, you’re right there for me. I love how you’re right there.” With that, he releases me and pulls out a chair. “Sit. ”
I sit. He pushes it in behind me like the gentleman he’s not and sits beside me at the end of the booth.
“Look alive, buttercup,” he says with a glint in his eye.
I give him a blank stare like I don’t understand.
Boring, boring, boring , I think. I will not be eating. I will not be drinking. I will not be enjoying any part of this night.
A waiter sets down a basket of warm herbed bread with a plate of roasted peppers and feta, and it all smells so good I want to die.
Luka smiles. Like he knows.