CHAPTER SIXTY-TWO
Tierney
I was the last to enter the dining hall, which meant everyone had the opportunity to have their fill of me as I entered.
Smiling broadly, I swaggered to my seat next to Achilles and plopped down on it. He kissed my cheek softly. “Everything okay?”
“Perfect.” I snapped my napkin open in my lap. “What’s for dinner?”
His gaze halted on my neck. Luca probably left red marks. Since things were already strained, I wasn’t in the mood to share my little talk with his older brother.
“What’s this?” Achilles brushed his thumb along my neck.
I shrugged. “Allergic reaction.”
“To what?”
“Assholes.”
“Did someone—”
“Yes, and I handled it. Don’t worry.”
The menus were brought to the table, and it gave me a second to catch my breath and study the room. I took in Tiernan and Lila, Sofia and Luca, Katya and Enzo, Jeremie…and Alex.
The minute my sight landed on him, his pale blues caught mine in a vise. A ragged breath rattled in the back of my throat.
Lyosha.
Aristocratic and princely, with his blond curls and frighteningly chiseled face. He still looked younger than his years. Like our lifestyle, and all the death in it, couldn’t touch him. Not really.
“Tierney,” he rasped.
“Alex.”
“How have you been?” he asked in Russian.
And though I hadn’t spoken the language in many, many years, the answer slipped past my lips naturally. “It’s been a long, pleasant walk in the park. You?”
He grinned. “Same.”
“Don’t flirt with her,” Achilles barked at Alex, hammering his whiskey glass on the table.
“How do you know I’m flirting?” Alex raised his vodka to his lips, one side of his mouth curling in amusement.
“Your goddamn eyes are an open invitation.”
“Don’t worry, honey.” I patted Achilles’s lap. “I have a strict no-Russian-men policy.” I leaned to kiss the tattoo of my lips on his neck.
Ignoring me, Achilles reached for his whiskey and gulped it in one go. I quirked an eyebrow. It was unlike him not to pace himself, but I guessed everyone was on edge today.
“Where’s that fucker Hale?” Achilles turned his attention back to Alex.
“Running late.” Alex flicked his wrist to frown at his Cartier. “But he’ll be here for the after-dinner drinks.”
“With his mask off?” Achilles poured himself a second glass of whiskey.
Alex smiled leniently. “I suggest you put that whiskey down. You’re not Russian, Achilles. You lack the capacity to hold such a drink.”
“And I suggest you stick to your business,” Achilles retorted in the same pleasant tone. “That’s a nice face you’ve got there. I’d hate to ruin it.”
“What the fuck is Rothwell doing in the club?” Enzo turned to look at Luca, breaking the tension between the other two men. “He said you invited him?”
“I’m trying to recruit him.” Luca handed his menu back to the waiter.
“And you think he’ll bite?” Achilles snapped his head to his brother.
“I think we can’t afford not to try.” Luca cocked an eyebrow. “With Dad out of the picture, we need a new wave of dirty feds to do our bidding.”
The rest of the dinner was relatively pleasant. Or at least, pain free. The food was delicious—bourbon-glazed salmon and truffled salads—and the alcohol was great. Conversation flowed, and I actually managed to relax. Dessert came and went, and still no sign of Hale.
Achilles did hit the whiskey bottle harder than I’d ever seen him before, but I couldn’t fault him for it.
When everyone retired to the bar, Achilles squeezed my thigh and leaned to whisper into my ear, “I’m going to check the security footage. See if Hale is planning a surprise.”
I nodded and joined Lila and Sofia on their way to the bar. The entire length of the way, I felt Alex’s gaze heating my skin from behind. I threw a glance behind my shoulder. He was walking with Luca, Enzo, and Jeremie.
At some point, he broke away from them and joined us women.
“Tierney, may I have a word?” His English was crisp and lightly accented with Russian.
“You may have a few, but I doubt any of them would interest me.” I yawned into the back of my hand.
Sofia and Lila giggled and headed to the bar, leaving us standing at the threshold. Traitors.
He wore a navy suit, the first buttons of his shirt undone, revealing smooth, bronze skin and sculpted pecs.
He looked like a movie star, always had, and never made a big deal out of it.
When I left Siberia at fourteen, he was already a big hit with the girls.
And even though I’d been too busy surviving to pay him my full attention, even I wasn’t immune to his charms.
He was still not my type, though. I didn’t trust men who were prettier than me.
“What’s going on?” I parked my hands on my waist. I didn’t want Achilles to see us together. He’d made it quite clear he was jealous.
“Don’t you think we should catch up?”
“No,” I said flatly. “There’s no reason to.”
“Well.” Alex shifted his weight from one foot to the other. “I still feel the need to apologize for what my father did to you.”
“Why?” I asked, genuinely perplexed. “I don’t feel the need to apologize for what my father did to your mother.”
Tyrone—accidentally or not—killed Lyosha’s mother before Tiernan and I were born. This was why we were kidnapped to Russia in the first place.
“Many of the things you went through happened right in front of me,” Alex said in a clear, confident voice.
He didn’t let my hostility affect him one way or the other.
“And I want you to know that, after a sufficient mourning time when you and your brother escaped, I eventually rooted for you, and I’m glad to see you happy and settled. ”
Finally, a twisted smile curled my lips in distaste.
“Is that what you think I am? Happy and settled?” I turned to him fully, narrowing my eyes.
“Do you know, Alex, that I’ve had thirty-three therapists in my lifetime?
Only the last one stuck. With all the others, I simply couldn’t get there.
The minute they wanted me to seriously open up, I failed.
Someone I’d once been close to advised me to forget everything that’d ever happened to me.
Bottle it in. Turns out it was bad advice. ”
He watched me silently.
He’d meant well and was just a kid himself, but that mattered little. His face, his existence, his last name were still a bitter memory for me.
“Do you know what it’s like to have your innocence stripped from you layer by layer? To reach the brink of starvation and be tipped beyond it? To watch your humanity slip between your fingers and not even know what it means, because you are too tired, too hungry, too beaten to think?”
Alex’s eyes never wavered from mine. “I was there, too.”
“Yes, as the heir and successor. You didn’t go through all the bullshit.”
He nodded. Well, at least he was honest. “I fantasized about saving you sometimes, you know,” he drawled.
“When you were going through those things, I was desperate for your approval. With Tiernan, I had it from the get-go. We were always thick as thieves. But you never gave anyone your trust, your sympathy. Only to Tiernan.” He took his hand out of his pocket and reached for my face, running his thumb over the exact same spot he’d wiped a tear from fifteen years ago.
As though it were still there. “I wanted your affection. Wanted to be seen by you. But every time I tried to come to your aid…”
“I pushed you away,” I finished quietly. “Yes, I know. You were a boy. I didn’t like boys. Boys hurt me a lot.”
He inclined his head. “When I told you to bottle it up, I meant it as a coping mechanism.”
“You were only a child,” I whispered. “You don’t have to explain yourself.”
“Under any other circumstances, I think we’d have made good friends. Don’t you?”
“Sure.” I smiled. “And in a way, we still are, everything considered.”
“Are we?”
I nodded.
“Last we spoke, you wanted me to kiss you,” he reminded me.
“I wasn’t spoken for at the time,” I said. “You and I will always be unfinished business.”
“Well, I’m here now. Let’s finish this fucking business.”
I shook my head. “I’m a taken woman.”
“I know.” Lyosha put his hand on the junction between my cheek and neck, using his thumb to angle my jaw up. “Achilles offered you to me.”
My entire body iced over in shock. “W-what?”
“Achilles,” Alex rasped slowly, dragging his gaze from my eyes down to my lips. His hand a necklace on my throat, loose but heavy. “He told me you were in the market for a no-strings-attached hookup. A one-off in a controlled environment. Something about proving something to you.”
That fucking fucker, I seethed. How dare he confide in Al—
“He told me because I already know too much,” Alex explained, reading my mind. “I’m discreet, can take a rejection like a man, and will never judge you.”
This was why Achilles had been drinking so heavily tonight.
He was preparing himself for what was to come.
My heart cracked open and warmth poured out, giving my belly a fuzzy feeling.
He is killing himself. For me.
While I understood exactly why he’d done what he had, I couldn’t see myself fully going through with the plan I’d weaved myself. Touching someone else—touching someone at all—felt…wrong.
But another part of me knew that if I didn’t put Achilles’s promise to the test, I would forever live in fear of what he might do.
He’d maimed, murdered, and abused every single man I’d tried to be with since he’d taken control over my life, over my future.
He’d psychologically destroyed me and had taken away all of my decisions when it came to sexual partners.
He exhibited complete lack of self-control where my freedom was concerned.
This was my emancipation.
And I knew, as sick as that sounded, that Achilles needed this as much as I did.
The confirmation that he had changed—that he was better.
“You wanna fuck me?” I dragged a nail along his neck, up to his mouth. He captured it in his hot, gorgeous mouth with a come-hither smirk.