Chapter 30 Dimitri
DIMITRI
The cold Chicago wind bit at my cheeks. I buttoned my jacket, breathing a sigh of relief that the meeting was over.
The governors, senators, and chiefs of police I’d just wined and dined would have given Claude Dupont a run for his money in a contest for the most boring men on earth.
Keeping them happy and in my pocket was worth suffering through an occasional dinner.
Probably.
All of the bastards had commented on my wedding band and insisted I bring my wife to our next dinner. Blyat. By the end of a single meal, Sienna would have them all eating out of the palm of her hand. The thought filled me with a sharp fury I didn’t understand.
Maxim
Leona Byrne is here. Did you know she’s friends with Sienna?
I had a meeting scheduled with the Irish assassin tomorrow to finalize the Boston shipping routes. What the fuck was she doing at my house with my wife?
Twenty minutes later, he’d sent another text.
Maxim
They want to go out. I tried telling them no but it didn’t work
Tell me they’re not out of the house right now...
Maxim
I’m taking Sergey to help me guard Sienna. When you see this message, don’t lose your shit.
That ship had fucking sailed. My knuckles turned white from how hard I was squeezing my phone. I jogged across the parking lot to my car and called Maxim the moment I was inside. Loud, staticky music blasted through my speakers when he picked up.
“Everything is fine,” he said, though I could barely make out his garbled words with the pounding background noise.
“Where the fuck are you?” I demanded.
“Onyx.”
“Blyat!” I swore, slamming my fists against the steering wheel as a red haze fell over my vision.
Onyx was a nightclub. My wife was at a fucking nightclub.
I hung up the phone. My tires screeched as I peeled out of the parking lot.
At least I would benefit from my tedious meeting right away, because keeping Chicago PD under my thumb meant they looked the other way while I drove across downtown at breakneck speeds.
When I finally turned down the street to the club, a line wrapped around the block.
I parked in an illegal spot near the entrance and headed straight for the door.
Onyx was owned by Julian Petrovic, a Serbian.
He wasn’t part of the Bratva, but he had never participated in the skin trade brought in by the Albanians, so I had allowed the business to stay after I took over.
I might not own this place, but the bouncer knew better than to try and keep me out.
He stepped aside without patting me down for weapons.
Good thing. It would make it easier for me to kill Maxim, along with any fucker in this club who had touched, or even seen, my wife.
My jaw ticked as I stepped into the sensory nightmare—painfully loud music that put me on edge, the smell of beer and liquor lingering in the air, and bright flashing purple lights that made everyone look like they were dancing in stop motion.
Someone jostled my shoulder and I whirled around, muscles poised to eliminate the threat.
It was a wasted, red-faced, middle-aged man with glassy eyes. Not worth my effort.
I rolled my shoulders while I circled the huge bar in the center of the room. The barstools were completely full, with even more people standing shoulder to shoulder as they shouted their orders. Sienna was nowhere to be found.
Dimitri
Where the fuck is she?
I shot the text off to Maxim, but I didn’t stand around and wait for a response. A guard nodded at me as I passed him, heading up the stairs to the VIP section.
My face remained blank as I scanned the VIP area, even though inside I was a tangle of pounding nerves and anger.
I ran through my kill list to calm myself down.
First would be Maxim and Leona for bringing my wife here.
Then, all the men in the club. Ronan would declare war on me for killing his assassin, so I’d have to end him, too. And his guards.
That should keep me busy for a while.
Looking over the edge of the balcony, I scanned the dance floor. Leona’s flash of red hair caught my eye first, and then I found her. Sienna was in the middle of the floor. The light flashed across her skin as she moved to the music, her body pure temptation in her outfit.
That. Fucking. Outfit.
Her tits swelled against the top and her skirt barely covered her ass. I vibrated with the need to pull her over my lap and redden her ass cheeks until she begged for mercy and promised she’d never let anyone see her like this again.
Leona was in an equally revealing dress, but I didn’t give a fuck about her. The assassin could do whatever she wanted unless she dragged my wife into it.
Men circled the two women like sharks. The memory of how her body felt against mine in Paris ghosted across my skin, and I snarled.
No one else would ever fucking feel that.
My blood pumped as I jogged back down the stairs.
I came to an abrupt stop and changed direction when I saw my second-in-command half-hidden by a pillar.
Maxim spotted me a split second before my fist collided with his face. He rubbed his jaw and grinned. “Do you feel better now?”
“How could you allow this?” I growled.
His face sobered. “You’re the one who said she wasn’t a prisoner and was allowed to leave as long as she had bodyguards.”
I burned with the desire to hit him again because he was right. I had said that, but I didn’t think it would feel like this.
“We’re fucking married,” I said. “She needs to learn how to behave like the wife of the Pakhan. I can’t have her embarrassing me.”
Maxim made a noncommittal noise. “And that’s the only thing bothering you about this?”
I turned my back on him without responding and pressed into the sweaty crowd. I stood taller and broader than almost everyone, so the throng quickly parted, leaving me with a straight path to my wife.
Leona spotted me first, but instead of showing any fear or trepidation at getting caught, she blew me a kiss.
Sienna glanced over her shoulder and her eyes grew wide when she saw me stalking towards her.
Close up, her outfit was even more…fuck.
A golden strip of skin separated her top from her skirt, which stretched tight over her belly bump.
At seventeen weeks, it still wasn’t very noticeable, but that small curve was enough to make me feral.
I crushed her to my chest. The constant thrum of agony inside me quieted.
Her arms wrapped around my neck and she tugged me down until our cheeks pressed together. Her breath tickled my ear. “Are you here to dance with me?”
For a moment, I was tempted to say yes. The brush of her soft skin against the stubble lining my jaw, the whispers of vanilla I breathed in from her hair, the way she fit perfectly against my body, was all so captivating it drew me under her siren spell.
But then I was brought back down to the hell of our location—the loud noises that set me on edge, the men staring at my wife’s ass, how exposed we were to enemies here.
I entwined my fingers in her hair, giving a hard enough tug to pull a gasp from her lips. “No. I’m here to bring you home.”
Her lower lip jutted out and she tried to shake her head, but couldn’t because of how tightly I was holding her. I didn’t give her a chance to fight me before my arm was under her ass as I carried her away. Sienna struggled, trying to get away, but the movement barely registered.
“I’m not ready to go.” Her haughty tone made blood rush below my belt.
Sergey waited next to Maxim, and they both followed as I headed through a Staff Only door and down a long hallway towards Petrovic’s office.
The exhaustion and boredom that had weighed on me after my meeting vanished in Sienna’s presence.
I set her down and crowded her against the wall.
Without taking my eyes off of her, I grabbed my keys from my pocket and tossed them to Sergey so he could bring my car around to the back exit while I took care of my wife.
Maxim quickly picked the lock to the office. I wasted no time pulling my wife inside and closing the door behind us.
“What are we doing in here? I thought you were taking me back to prison.”
I gripped her chin, holding tight so she couldn’t budge. Her eyes flashed with fire.
“You’re not my prisoner, but I do expect you to know how to behave instead of going out and flaunting your body for attention.”
Her eyes narrowed and she tried to shove me away, but I snagged her wrist and pinned it against the wall.
“Fuck you. I am not flaunting my body for attention,” she spat. “Even if I was, it wouldn’t be any of your business.”
“You are my fucking business,” I growled. “You’re my wife.”
She rolled her eyes. “On paper.”
White-hot rage rolled through my body. “Yes, on paper. You are legally married to me and you will fucking behave like the Pakhan’s wife.”
“I’m not very interested in behaving for you.” She tried to escape my grasp again, but all she achieved was grinding her hot little pussy against my cock. A blush rose to her cheeks, and her eyes widened when she felt how hard I was. “But maybe you like that.”
My skin flashed hot and cold as I tried to claw back control, but this was what she did to me—clouded my mind with her siren magic, making it so all I could think of was her.
I slipped my hand under her tiny skirt—the one I would burn when we got home—and squeezed her bare ass cheek. She clenched her jaw but couldn’t fully suppress her whimper. I smirked with satisfaction. Hatred pulsed between us, but there was something else, too. Tension, desire, need.
“You know what I think?”
She didn’t answer, but it didn’t matter.