Chapter 3 #2
“Good,” Callie glares at me. “That was seriously fucking stupid. And again, I want us all to appreciate that this is me saying that.”
I sigh, but then drag my eyes back across the table to Dahlia. “Okay. You’re forgiven.”
She visibly relaxes as I pluck a square of baklava from the plate.
“But only because of this.”
She grins. “Best in the city.”
“Pfft,” I shrug, nodding my chin at Callie. “Her grandmother’s is better.”
Callie’s lips twist. “I dunno. Tough call, actually.”
Dahlia smiles at me. “You’re really not still mad at me?”
“Nah, we’re good.”
She exhales as she stands, shouldering her bag. “Thank you.”
“Off to class?”
She nods. “Yeah. Venture capital risk analysis.”
“Wow, sounds like a blast,” Callie drawls.
Dahlia leans down to give me a quick hug, then she’s out the door.
Callie and I stay and each lunch, mostly talking about the grand re-opening of The Banshee—our Irish pub in the West Village that was blown to smithereens on its soft opening night.
The building itself took a ton of damage in the attack, and we’re now in the process of buying the entire property piecemeal from the condo owners above the bar, who have obviously all moved out.
Our new plan involves using all four stories of the building for a bar, a small venue stage, and a restaurant.
But it’s going to mean a lot of time and paperwork before we can even start that rolling.
After that, Callie brings up the subject of her impending arranged marriage, which she usually hates talking about since her betrothed is Luca Carveli, a disgusting troll of a west coast mafioso who’s also thirty years her senior.
But as it gets closer and closer to her twenty-first birthday, when “the arrangement” comes into effect, she and I have been discussing the subject a lot more.
So gross.
After we’re done gabbing and eating, Callie suddenly looks around and frowns. “Wow, this place sure cleared out.”
My brow furrows. She’s right. It was jammed when I arrived, and now we’re the only table here, aside from three guys having coffee in the corner. I don’t even see our waitress anywhere. Or any waitstaff, for that matter.
Callie winces as she glances at her phone. “Shit, I gotta go. I’m supposed to meet Elsa to go over our permit applications.”
In addition to being Hades Drakos’ recent fiancée, Elsa Guin is also an extremely hotshot lawyer at Crown and Black who counts our family among her clients. She’s been helping Neve, Callie, and I with the Banshee stuff, ever since we first came up with the insane idea of opening a bar together.
“No problem, take off,” I shrug. “I’m not on a schedule for the rest of the day. I’m going to take my time finishing my coffee.”
She frowns, glancing around at the weirdly empty restaurant. “Still, it’d be really great if we could pay—”
“Cals, I got it. Really. Say hi to Elsa for me.”
She nods. “Okay, okay. I’ll get the bill next time. Oh, and I still want all the juicy details of your escapades as a cat burglar.”
I smile weakly. “Honestly? It was pretty boring. I chickened out.”
She rolls her eyes at me. “Lame. All right, later tater.”
When she’s gone, I sit back in the chair, finishing the last of my coffee.
He didn’t see you.
You had your hood up.
The cameras were disabled.
He does. Not. Know.
I shiver and force myself to take a breath.
It’s going to be okay. I’m going to be—
A clicking sound in the almost silent restaurant yanks my attention to the front door. My face pales.
One of the three guys who was drinking coffee has just dead-bolted the door from the inside. Another one is pulling the shades down over the big front windows, hiding us from the sidewalk outside.
Holy fuck .
My chair crashes over backward as I leap from it and bolt for the side door. But I barely make it four steps before two of the men grab me hard by the arms and yank me back, making me scream.
“Take your fucking hands off her.”
I freeze immediately when I hear the voice.
His voice.
Instantly, I shudder as the same cold sensation from before tickles down my spine. My stomach clenches painfully, my heart thudding against my breastbone as the two men release me. The third man is already locking the side door when slowly, my tongue wetting my lips, I turn.
And I tremble.
Gavan is sitting alone at one of the empty tables, drumming his tattooed fingers on the top of it. His men are in simple black suits. Gavan, however, is dressed like a king.
Or a Tsar .
He’s in an impeccably tailored and fitted three-piece suit—gunmetal gray to match his piercing gray eyes. His shoes are polished and stylish. He’s wearing gleaming silver cufflinks. He’s even got one of those tie-bars across his collar—also silver, to match the cufflinks.
Even if you don’t know who and what he is, Gavan cuts an imposing figure. Well over six feet tall, with long legs and broad, muscular shoulders. The suit tightens across a powerful chest and bulging biceps, and I flush as I stare right back at the cold, calculating gray eyes boring into me.
I tense as I take in the high, aristocratic cheekbones, the jaw that could cut glass. He’s got a dark, swarthy scruff of stubble covering his chin, and keeps his hair longish, but styled.
It is outrageously unfair that a man as terrifying and lethally dangerous as Gavan Tsarenko should be so ridiculously attractive. Heat courses through my system alongside fear as his eyes burn malevolently into me, and as the power almost literally radiates off him.
“Leave us,” he growls quietly, addressing his men even as he keeps staring right at me. Slowly, he raises a hand, two fingers beckoning me in a “come here” motion. I swallow the lump in my throat as the three men in suits file out through the door to the kitchen.
“I thought we should have a little chat,” Gavan murmurs, his eyes still locked on mine.
I see his men leave in my peripheral vision.
Then I’m bolting for the front door. But I barely make it a few steps before Gavan grabs me, and I scream.
His muscular, powerful arms circle me like iron bands, unyielding, lifting me off my feet, my back to his chest as my legs kick helplessly.
He marches back to the table and unceremoniously drops me to my feet again before sitting back in his chair.
I glance sharply at the door again. He just sighs.
“We can play this game all fucking night if you’d like, Eilish,” he rasps darkly. “Or you could simply sit , as instructed.”
I purse my lips and look away.
“Where is everyone?”
“Gone. I own this place.”
I shiver.
“Now— sit .”
I briefly contemplate running for it again. But it’s a stupid idea, and it’s just going to make me look even guiltier, not to mention foolish. So, pulse roaring, I drop into the chair across from him.
“Good girl.”
I simmer. My gaze rips to his, narrowing into a glare. Gavan just smiles a thin, cold smile.
“Do they know?”
I swallow and remain silent.
“Eilish, we can sit here with you insulting me by pretending I’m an idiot. Or we can talk like two adults. Do. They. Fucking. Know .”
I quail under the fierceness of his gaze and the power emanating from him.
“Look, I…I’m sorry,” I stammer. “I am so sorry. I shouldn’t have gone in there.”
“No shit.”
I wince. “It was a stupid hazing thing for this club—”
“I’m well aware.”
There’s a dark violence rippling just beneath the surface. But outwardly, he’s perfectly calm as he sits further back in his chair.
I smile weakly. “Look, I know it’s irreplaceable. But I can pay for it—”
A cold, mirthless laugh rumbles in his chest.
“Oh, I very much doubt that.”
I actually spent an hour last night researching the price of Fabergé eggs. They’re not cheap by any means, but at around forty thousand dollars, which most of them seem to be, it’s doable. It’s going to sting. But I’ve got money in my trust fund.
“No, honestly. I can pay you back. Here…” I twist, reaching over and plucking my bag off the chair next to the one toppled to the ground. I pull out a pen and my checkbook as I turn to smile weakly at the venomously gorgeous and completely terrifying man sitting across from me.
“Let’s settle this, okay?”
Gavan smiles as I open the checkbook to a blank one and pop the cap on my pen.
“If you insist, Ms. Kildare,” he growls with a cruel curl to his lips. “You can make it out to Gavan—that’s two A’s. Tsarenko. T, S—”
“I know how to spell your name.”
“I’m honored.”
I ignore his biting sarcasm as I finish writing out his name before moving my pen to the dreaded “amount” line.
“And the damage?”
I’m ready to write “fifty thousand”, which is ten more than the auction evaluations of most of the Fabergé eggs I saw online, just to smooth things over, when he clears his throat.
“One hundred and twenty-four million dollars.”
My pulse skips. The pen goes still in my hand as my throat closes.
Hold up. Fucking what ?
I raise my eyes to his, swallowing. “It’s not worth that much.”
“It is. It was actually recently appraised at one hundred and twenty-four million, five hundred thousand, but I’m feeling fucking charitable .”
I stare at him, a horrible whining alarm sound slowly rising in my ears.
“I—no,” I shake my head. “No, Fabergé eggs—”
“ Known Fabergé eggs. Yes, they’re cheaper.
But what you destroyed last night like a rhinoceros in a fucking cutlery shop was one of the lost Fabergé eggs.
It’s called the Imperial Shield, and it was commissioned and owned by Tsarina Alexandra.
It was lost during the revolution that claimed her and her family’s lives.
It belonged to my father,” he adds with a venomous hiss in his tone.
My stomach drops straight to the floor. I blink as my eyes go as dry as my mouth.
“I—”
“I would say,” Gavan rasps, leaning forward and steepling his fingers on the table between us, “that the truce between our families is a tenuous one at best. One hundred and twenty-four million dollars is certainly more than enough to go to war over. Wouldn’t you agree?”
I stare at the piercing gunmetal gray eyes in horror.
He sighs, settling back in his chair again as he rubs his jaw thoughtfully.
“But I think we’re fixating on the wrong thing here. This isn’t about the egg. This is about me knowing what you did .”
My pulse jumps again.
“What?”
“Come, come. I know you know what I’m talking about.”
He stands, cracking his neck as I try to regulate my breathing.
“Look, please . My family doesn’t know about last night. I—I can find the money somehow—”
“I’m not interested in your money, nor am I talking about your amateur burglary attempt last night.”
He starts to walk around the table behind me. I twist my head, following him with my eyes, as if he’s a lion or a shark who will move in for the kill if I break eye contact for a moment.
I lose him as he crosses behind me and suddenly flinch as I feel him lean down close. The heat of his breath teases the hairs on the back of my neck, and I tremble as I inhale that same bergamot, wood, wealth, and man scent that I smelled on him last night.
“ I saw you that night, Eilish, ” he rasps darkly. “ And I know what you did .”
“I—I don’t know what you’re—”
His arm extends past me, a small plastic baggie dangling from his tattooed fingers.
A bag containing a bullet casing.
And suddenly, I go numb and the world flips sideways as I stare in abject horror at what’s dangling in front of my face.
No…
“I was very curious as to why you were so eager to pick up all those spent rounds that night. Why you kept going, even after burning your finger on one that was still hot. And even more curious why those rounds in his gun were blanks .”
Oh my God. Oh, my fucking mother of God…
“It took me some time, I’ll admit. But when I pieced it together?”
He jiggles the bag right in front of my face once more before closing it in his fist. Slowly, he moves back around the table to sit in his chair again. He stares at me with hungry malevolence as my entire world starts to shatter and collapse at my feet.
“So, allow me to ask once more, Eilish.” His lips curl in a devil’s grin. “Does the rest of your family know that you killed your father?”
My mouth opens and then closes. It happens again, and a third time, before I realize I can’t speak. I can’t move. I can’t even burst into tears like I want to. I’m simply too numb, and too shocked to do anything at all.
Gavan’s eyes pierce into mine.
“Tomorrow morning at eight, Eilish. Come to my office.” He smirks. “I’m sure you remember where that is, don’t you?”
I’m still utterly silent, staring straight ahead unseeingly as he raps his tattooed knuckles on the table and stands. He buttons his jacket, levels those vicious gray eyes at me, then turns and marches out of the front door of the restaurant.
I’m fucked.
I am well and truly fucked .