Chapter Two
Igor
[PRESENT DAY]
The night is cold, dragging an icy breeze through my hair as I march toward the car in the private parking lot. I hear brisk footsteps just before Ruslan falls in step beside me, with creased brows and a deep frown on his face.
“We’ve gotten the situation under control. Most of the customers ran out after the raid, and I have things moving again like nothing happened. It’s also confirmed that someone tipped them off.” He tucks a burner phone into the pocket of his dress shirt. “And Joaquin—”
“Isn’t pleased,” I finish for him. “Yes, I know.”
Ruslan keeps his gaze on mine, silently communicating more than words can say. He looks as pissed as I am. “Igor, there are doubts. They’re second-guessing the alliance. And frankly, I have questions, too. It’s too much of a coincidence that this happened tonight.”
I take a moment to readjust the buttons on my suit jacket before I lift my eyes up to my brother’s.
“You know I don’t believe in coincidences. Someone tipped them off, and I’m going to find out who. Until then, keep the Mexicans in check. We need to regain their trust, and they won’t respond well to duress. It’ll give them more reasons to withdraw, and a war is the last thing we want right now.”
Ruslan nods once, and I know he understands completely.
Faint bass from the nightclub vibrates through the damp concrete beneath the soles of my shoes, thumping in matching rhythm with the cold anger ticking in my chest.
I glance around the empty lot, then raise a brow. “Where’s the girl?”
Ruslan opens his mouth and, as if on cue, Sergei and two of my other men emerge from the rear exit of the building, dragging Audrey between them.
They have her by both arms, their grips unyielding. With a synchronized grunt, they shove her forward.
She stumbles into the open space, her heels clicking sharply against the pavement before she catches her balance.
Sergei and the boys immediately fall back, taking up their stances a few meters behind her, with their hands crossed and their eyes on alert.
They leave her to me.
I step forward, closing the distance between us, and corner her against the wall.
The light from the club’s sign spills faintly into the alleyway, cutting through the darkness. It catches the edges of her hair, haloing her in a glow that brings back memories of the time I approached her in Cascade’s corridor.
I don’t let the thought linger. I invade her personal space until I can feel the warmth radiating off her skin in the cool night air.
I reach out, roughly grabbing her chin with one hand, and force her face up.
About a year ago, she would have shrunk under my gaze. But not tonight.
“I warned you, didn’t I?” I growl. My thumb presses hard against her jawline. “I told you never to show your face again around me or my clubs. So what the fuck do you think you’re doing here?”
Instead of flinching, she lifts her chin higher, leaning into my grip rather than pulling away. She stares back at me defiantly, as if she completely belongs in my space.
Something has shifted. Audrey is different now—harder, entirely composed, a far cry from the amateur bartender who once mistook my attention for tenderness. The vulnerability I admired is completely gone.
“Trying to work? Because that’s what I was doing before your goons came to grab me like I’m a piece of meat.”
I tighten my grip on her jaw, pulling her closer. “Don’t do that shit with me, Audrey. Don’t fucking play dumb. You’ve done it once, remember? You thought you could ruin me by bringing down Cascade.”
Audrey smiles. It’s quick and wide, but it doesn’t reach her eyes. “Oh, that one, I did. I accept it wholeheartedly. Too bad you’re a corrupt asshole who paid his way out of facing the consequences.”
I narrow my gaze. “That smart mouth could get you into trouble, you know?”
“No, I don’t know.” She smirks. “Unlike you, I’ve got clean hands. I don’t have truckloads of skeletons hidden in my closet. I know you like to believe the world revolves around you, Igor. Newsflash: it doesn’t. I’m not here because of you.”
I try to read her eyes, but they’re guarded.
My annoyance sparks, growing more intense by the minute. “So it’s a coincidence that you end up working the bar during the grand opening of Velour? You think I’m stupid?”
“You really want me to answer that?”
“Audrey.”
“I didn’t call the police, Igor,” she says.
Her voice is calm. There isn’t a single tremor in her tone, no pleading, and no tears in her eyes, unlike before she stormed out of my hotel room one year ago.
And now, her utter composure unsettles me far more than her panic ever could.
“I’d suggest that you and your boys go figure out who ratted you out, because it certainly wasn’t me,” she says, and makes a move to step past me, to break the suffocating proximity, but I don’t let her.
My hand drops from her chin and slams against her hip, my fingers locking down to keep her from walking away.
But as my palm keeps her in place, my thumb betrays me, pressing into the curve of her waist possessively.
I leave it there much longer than necessary, and the fabric of her jeans shifts under my skin.
It doesn’t matter that Ruslan and my men are standing just meters away, watching everything.
In fact, I welcome it. I’m doing this for two reasons: to humiliate her and remind her exactly who dictates the rules, and simply because I can’t resist.
Damn it all. From the very beginning, I’ve found myself unable to think logically whenever she’s around. She ruins my focus and scrambles my instincts.
I lean in, closing the final inch between us, until my mouth brushes the shell of her ear.
My breath is slow and hot, a sharp contrast to the cold breeze blowing against her skin as I murmur, “Lies taste sweeter when whispered this close, Audrey.”
Her sharp inhale shatters against my chest, a sudden, ragged gasp that breaks her perfect facade.
For a second, the air between us thickens, turning heavy—too intimate, charged, and dangerously familiar.
She trembles. It’s a slight, violent shiver, but I know her body well enough to know it’s not purely from fear.
I feel the reaction ripple straight through her body and bleed directly into mine, sending a jolt of tension up my spine.
Unbidden and without permission, the memory of how she used to respond to me resurfaces.
I remember how easily her breath would hitch at my presence, how instinctively she used to lean into my touch, no matter how brief it was. She always melted in my arms and smiled in a way that warmed my heart right before I dove in for a kiss.
I tighten my jaw, grind my teeth until they ache, and forcefully push the memory back into the dark.
I refuse to let nostalgia get to me.
“I’m not lying,” she whispers. “I never have, and I won’t start now. You might not have noticed, but…I’m not scared of you, Igor.”
The words spark a flare of pure adrenaline in my veins.
I slide two more fingers beneath her chin, forcing her gaze upward, and look down at her, studying the defiance burning brightly in her eyes.
I know she’s trying to provoke me, to prove she’s unaffected, but all it does is draw me deeper.
I lean down.
Our mouths hover inches apart, so close that our breaths mingle in the space between us.
If I make one slight movement, the space between us would vanish entirely and my lips would fall on hers.
Like I want them to.
My grip on her waist tightens. My knuckles turn white against her hip, like I’m physically fighting to hold myself back.
I want to close the distance. Every instinct I have begs me to reclaim what once felt like mine, to take her mouth and burn away this new, cold composure she’s built.
The tension stretches thin, crackling like a live wire.
Ruslan clears his throat beside me, and the sharp sound snaps the moment cleanly in half before I do something stupid. I look at him with an arched brow. He rolls his eyes and makes a sharp gesture toward the rear exit of the building.
The heavy scuff of leather boots echoes down the lot.
I pull back just an inch, barely glancing at her as the heavy footsteps approach.
More of my men hurry into the faint light. Two of them stand behind Sergei, breathless and grim-faced, and when they’re done whispering, Sergei’s expression is grave.
“What’s the problem?” Ruslan asks.
Sergei doesn’t hesitate before dropping the hammer: apparently, Emiliano followed our movements after the cops interrupted the event. He reported back to Joaquin that I’d apprehended Audrey.
Now, somehow, the entire cartel believes Audrey is both my informant and my lover.
“Bullshit!” Ruslan growls, then gives a deadly side-eye to Audrey, who doesn’t seem fazed by the accusation. “He would never stoop so low.”
Audrey snorts and stands there, perfectly still, looking even more annoyed that I won’t let her go.
I begin racking up different ways we could handle this news before it gets out of hand. It’s bad enough that the Mexicans are doubtful of our agreement, but I can’t have them peddling wrong information about Audrey informing the cops on my behalf.
I glare at her.
Ruslan is right; I wouldn’t stoop so low.
There are better ways to sabotage the delivery than calling in a police raid, ways that wouldn’t implicate me, and Audrey is the last person I’d think of hiring for that job.
Think, Igor. Damn it.
If I kill her right here to prove she’s not a Russian ally, the cartel will view it as a cover-up for a betrayal, which would risk an immediate, bloody war.
If I simply release her, it will confirm their suspicions that she’s working for me, making me look compromised.
My men start a murmured argument, but their voices fade into background noise.
I look back down at her and the stubborn lift of her chin.
“Are you going to let me go now?” she asks.
“No.”
“This is silly. You have nothing on me!”
“Didn’t you hear what they just said? Or are you fucking deaf?” My voice booms louder than I intended, and the lot falls quiet.
“So?” she fires back. “We both know those accusations aren’t true. I’m neither your informant nor your lover. I have nothing to do with this. Let me go.”
Logically, I should release her. I should find a way to end this cleanly, to disassociate from her before things blow up.
But a nagging voice at the back of my mind protests at the thought of watching her walk away from me again.
There’s another downside: Joaquin won’t let her go. Releasing her would be like letting a zebra into a lion’s den. They’d tear her apart piece by piece without listening to a word she says.
A ruthless solution forms in my mind. It’s reckless and irrational. My brother won’t agree. Sergei will raise a finger, respectfully. None of my men will understand.
Hell, I don’t either. But I’ll do it anyway, because I can.
I look Audrey dead in the eyes as my thumb traces the sharp line of her hip one last time.
I’ll marry her publicly.
Either she’ll die bound to me by law, or she’ll live carrying my name, forever trapped under my control.
Or maybe I want to do this because I simply don’t have the courage to let her get away again.