Chapter 20
EILISH
It’s been two weeks since the mugging. After assuring Gavan I was fully healed, we’ve gone right back to it: hard, brutal, explosive sex that I crave like a drug. Tied up. Bent over his desk. On his kitchen counter. Against the glass wall in his living room, looking out over the city.
There are times that it scares me just how comfortable I’ve become with it. I don’t see Gavan as a tyrant anymore, I see him as—
Well, okay, he’s still a tyrant. But he’s a tyrant that I am, for all intents and purposes, dating .
Kind of. Sort of. Maybe?
I don’t know. It’s confusing. But for the time being, it’s a ride I don’t want to get off just yet. And that’s fine.
Callie gives me a sharp look over the book in her hands when I step into the library of the Drakos family estate.
Okay, even “estate” doesn’t quite give their place the right amount of gravitas.
Though they later moved to London for a while, Callie and her four brothers—Ares, Hades, Kratos, and Deimos—were all born here in New York.
And they were all raised in this massive , breathtaking home on Central Park South that I’ve just walked into—a neoclassical mansion from the British countryside, as in it was literally a mansion in England that Callie’s great-grandfather had moved brick-by-brick and rebuilt on the roof of a forty-story building overlooking Central Park. It has grounds, gardens, and two pools.
It's ridiculous.
Currently, though, with Ares and Hades happy in their own places, and Deimos back in London overseeing the Drakos operations over there, the only full-time residents of the sprawling mansion are Callie, Kratos, and their grandmother, Dimitra.
“Well, well, well…” Callie drawls, glaring at me.
My mouth goes small as I look at my feet. “I’m sorry.”
“For which part, exactly? Disappearing from the face of the earth for the last two weeks—after, I might add, that I took such good care of you after the hospital? Or for not freaking telling me that you were dating Gavan fucking Tsarenko ?” She eyes me up and down.
“Or, wait, is it some other cataclysmically huge thing you’ve decided not to tell your best friend about? ”
I sigh as I cross the room and sink onto the couch next to her. “Okay, I deserved that.”
She pouts. “Yeah. You do.”
“Thank you for taking care of me after I got discharged. Really. I’ve just been so busy with…you know, life?”
“By which you mean screwing Gavan.”
My face heats. Callie smirks.
“ Fine ,” she mutters. “I suppose I can forgive you, on one condition.”
I grin. “Which is?”
Her grin is even bigger. “That you fucking tell me everything right this instant .”
I make a pained expression.
“Oh, come on, Eilish!” she sighs. “I’m not Castle with his overprotective big brother energy. And I’m not Neve with her concerned sister routine—” She stops suddenly and glances at me. “Did she and Ares land okay, by the way? Ares is a dick and never texts me back.”
I smile. “They’re all settled.”
Neve and Ares have just arrived in London for a few weeks so Ares can catch up with Deimos on some business stuff. There’s talk of an alliance with a powerful Spanish mafia family, too, I think.
“Good.” Callie eyes me again. “So. Let’s hear it.”
It’s impossible to tell her everything , because I’m not going to mention the egg, and I’m sure as shit not mentioning what happened in the past that Gavan knows.
So I give a condensed, Cliff Notes version. One where I first connected with Gavan through a “corporate internship program” at school.
“It’s just…fun,” I shrug, blushing. “That’s it. We’re just casual. No high stakes or anything.”
At least, that’s what I keep telling myself.
Callie grins salaciously. “Fun? Uh, yeah , I bet. I mean sweet Jesus, look at him,” she snickers. “That looks fun.”
I blush fiercely. “And, I mean, yes, there’s been some bad blood in the past. But it’s not like we’re at war with the Reznikov family or anything.”
She nods, thinking. “No, for sure. And that’s great that he can move past the bad blood in the past. That’s big of him.”
I frown. “Well, a lot of that stuff a few months ago, including the Banshee, was Leo Stavrin, his old second in command. And he was acting without orders from—”
“Oh. No, I didn’t…” Callie frowns. “I didn’t mean that. I meant from like two years ago.”
My brows knit. “What happened two years ago?”
Callie’s face suddenly pales. “Are you joking right now? Because that’s not very funny.”
“Callie, I honestly have no idea what you’re talking about.”
She sucks her bottom lip between her teeth, gnawing on it as she looks away.
“Callie,” I press. “What bad blood—”
“She means when your family and the Reznikov Bratva almost went to war, Eilish.”
I glance up sharply to see Dimitra standing in the doorway. A small, frail, elderly woman, it would be easy to discount her as just a little old lady.
Which would be incredibly foolish.
Dimitra may be tiny and old, but she’s a hurricane. A force of nature to be reckoned with—and you don’t want to get on her bad side. Thankfully, she considers me as much family as she does her grandchildren.
She smiles sadly, stepping into the library as I frown in confusion.
“I…don’t remember that happening?”
She shakes her head. “No, because it never actually came to that.” Her face darkens. “There were rumblings and rumors. But Konstantin and Gavan backed down from aggression after your father passed just a few months later.”
I frown. “I don’t understand—”
“Eilish, poulaki mou ,” she sighs quietly, her face strained. “I wish you had already known this.”
“Known what?”
Her lips purse. “It’s believed that two years ago, your father killed Vadim Tsarenko, Gavan’s adoptive father.”
Oh my God.
****
I’m not expected at Gavan’s office today. I had a lecture class and an advisor meeting and he told me I was off the hook. But the lecture got out early, and my advisor had to cancel last minute.
Rachel smiles when I walk in. She’s still not exactly my best friend, but she’s warmed to me, given that I’m coming in so often.
I also think she one thousand percent knows exactly what’s going on with Gavan and me. And the fact that she hasn’t ever cracked a joke, smirked, or made a single comment about it whenever she sees me makes me like her even more.
“I think he’s in a meeting, but…” she shrugs. “I’m sure you can go in.”
“Thanks,” I grin, sliding a box with a cupcake from Magnolia Bakery across the receptionist desk to her.
She groans, beaming at me as she shakes her head.
“You’re evil.”
“And you’re welcome.”
Upstairs, I head to Gavan’s office. I’m not going full scandalous today with the trench coat and lingerie deal again. But I am remembering the time a few weeks ago when he fucked me across his desk while on a business call. Because that was outrageously hot.
My face is still throbbing with heat at the memory when I twist the knob and swing the door in.
Instantly I freeze.
Gavan isn’t alone.
His eyes snap to mine from where he’s standing by the windows, a cold, drawn, grim look on his face. I’m not focused on him, though. I’m focused on the gorgeous, dark-haired older woman standing intimately close to him.
With her hand on his chest.
With her lips close to his neck.
A dark, malevolent green mist clouds my vision. My teeth grind tightly, and a horrible feeling knots in my stomach.
The woman turns to arch a perfectly manicured brow at me, smirking coldly.
“What are you doing here?” Gavan growls stiffly.
“I—”
“ You must be little Eilish,” the woman purrs, grinning at me like a tiger. She smirks another haughty, sneering smile at me before turning back to Gavan and patting him on the chest again, letting her hand linger there far too long for my liking.
“Lovely to see you, Gavan,” she murmurs seductively, turning to wink at me. “Let’s not go so long next time, shall we?”
She smirks again as she brushes past me and sweeps out the door. I’m left staring at Gavan, his face darkening as he turns to stride over to the couches.
“You weren’t expected today.”
My lips purse. “Who was that?”
“No one.”
My eyes flash. “No one? She seems to think she’s someone.”
“Let me rephrase: she’s no one you need to be concerned about,” he snaps as he sits heavily on the couch. His gaze raises to mine, full of fire and hot steel as he brings up a hand and crooks two fingers. “Come here.”
I’m still glaring at him as I walk over.
“On your knees,” he hisses.
I freeze, my scowl deepening as I glance down to see the bulge tenting his pants.
Oh, fuck you.
He’s hard. What? From her ?! And he wants me to take care of it for him?
Yeah, fuck everything about that.
“No,” I hiss quietly.
Gavan scowls icily. “Excuse me?”
“I said no.”
I gasp as he suddenly stands, shivering when his hand cups my jaw firmly to jerk my face up to his.
“ That word ,” he snarls. “Is not in your vocabulary when it concerns me.”
“It is today,” I snap.
His eyes turn cold and malevolent in a way I’ve never quite seen before.
“And if I take you anyway?”
There’s a sensual sharpness to his words, terrifying as they are.
“If I take what is mine, regardless of your opinion?” he continues quietly.
I shiver but hold firm.
“That’s not part of our deal.”
“Our deal is that I can—”
“If you want to force me, go ahead,” I blurt coldly. “But it will not be willingly!” I’m shaking as I jab a finger into his chest. “There’s free use, and then there’s this. I didn’t sign up for THIS .”
Without another word, I spin and march for the door.
“What the fuck are you—”
“Discovering I have a spine!” I whirl back and blurt at him. “That’s what the fuck I’m doing! This is me having a backbone and showing some self-respect.”
I slam the door shut behind me. I manage to make it past Rachel and her still-untouched cupcake before the tears start to fall.
Outside on the street, I grit my teeth as I choke back the sobs. I angrily wipe my damp eyes on my sleeve before I look around for a taxi.
“Oh, you poor, poor baby.”
I stiffen, my pulse thudding as I turn. The woman from Gavan’s office is sitting on a bench near the front entryway to the building.
Poised, regal, and—much as I hate to say it—gorgeous.
She’s one of those women who’s probably pushing fifty but looks more like a surgically enhanced thirty-five.
She effortlessly flips a lock of dark hair back from her face, and her full, dark red lips curl as she grins maliciously at me.
“Did you think you were something special?” she laughs coldly. “Get in line, darling. You’re merely one of several. Although I wasn’t aware he was going through a blonde phase these days.
I feel sick. I want to scream at her, or physically attack her.
But that won’t change the fact that what she’s saying is something I’ve been trying to ignore for weeks and weeks now.
Gavan and I are not “a thing”. This isn’t a relationship. We’re not even fuck buddies or friends with benefits or whatever else you’d want to call it.
We’re completing a transaction: his silence for my submission.
And I mean, look at him . The man is beautiful…captivating…just the right amount of dark and broken, insanely powerful, dangerous, and rich beyond belief. And there’s the thing I’ve so desperately avoided thinking about for more than a month.
…There’s no way I’m the only one.
How could I be?
The woman’s brow furrows. “I’m not sure I see what he sees in you, to be honest.”
My heart twists painfully in my chest.
“Though, obviously,” she grins wickedly. “I see what you see in him. The man certainly knows what he’s doing in bed. I mean, he fucks like a god, doesn’t he?”
Her face darkens, her eyes slicing into me as I break inside.
“Oh, and by the way, you’re welcome.”
“For what ?” I sneer.
Her lips curl. “For teaching him everything he knows.”
She starts to laugh. She’s still laughing as I turn and bolt down the street, the tears now flooding my face.