Chapter 8 – Nik
I sat at the head of the table, watching her closely as she ate in silence. The soft click of her cutlery filled the room, the aroma of grilled chicken and red wine mingling in the air.
Her brown hair spilled over her shoulders tonight instead of her usual messy ponytail. She kept her eyes fixed on her plate, her jaw moving in a smooth, poised rhythm. Her skin shimmered under the chandelier’s soft light, and she tightened her grip on the cutlery just a bit.
My eyes roamed over her body, drinking in every little detail I could capture. I noticed the freckles across her nose that hinted at how much time she used to spend out in the sun.
She was beautiful and feminine. No doubt. However, the texture of her skin told a different story. She had bruises—scars that predated the most recent injuries she sustained during the auction. And considering her violent nature, it was clear that she was no ordinary girl.
Her fingers were bare and unmanicured, suggesting a non-feminine lifestyle—one far from delicate. She had the hands of someone who’d faced war and come out alive, someone who didn’t just handle a weapon but knew how to use it expertly.
However, that could’ve been caused by being held hostage by her kidnappers for so long—a period that somehow changed her appearance. Perhaps captivity had shaped that roughness, carving traces of endurance into what might’ve once been soft.
Whatever the case, she was no ordinary girl. She was tough, rugged in more ways than one. The girl was slender but strong, with a dancer’s grace and a soldier’s posture. I had no idea who she was, where she had come from, or why.
At first, I didn’t want to ask about how she got entangled with human traffickers. But my curiosity got the best of me. I needed to know, even though I had a feeling she might lie and not tell the entire truth. That’s what I would do if I were her.
I reached for my half-empty glass of wine, lifted it to my lips, and took a sip. “Tell me,” I began, my voice low and even. “How did you end up with those men?”
Her fork hovered halfway to her mouth. Moments later, she lifted her eyes and met my gaze with quiet intensity. “Wouldn’t you like to know?” she said, slipping a piece of grilled chicken between her lips.
I ignored the sass in her tone but gave her a stern look—one that said I wasn’t asking.
Her silence was an indication that she was trying to dismiss the question. However, the hard look on my face wasn’t something she could ignore.
Quietly, she set down her cutlery, dabbed her mouth with a napkin, and sighed. “I was in the wrong place at the wrong time,” she answered, placing her elbows on the table.
“That’s oddly vague.”
Her brows drew together by a whisper, but her expression remained blank. “As you know, people—girls have been going missing around the city,” she said, holding my gaze. “A few weeks ago, a friend of mine went out to get some groceries but never returned.”
A glint of pain flickered across her face, accompanied by a flash of fury.
She continued, “So, I decided to look into it since nobody was willing to do so. I received an anonymous tip about a warehouse where some shady business was going on. I found the place, hoping to take some pictures and use them as evidence.”
I watched her swallow her words, her chest heaving with slow breaths. “Let me guess. That’s when you got caught.”
Her jaw tightened, and her scowl deepened.
“Why didn’t you go to the cops?”
She raised a brow. “The cops? Are you for real? You and the other monsters control more than half of the precincts in Chicago.”
I paused for a second, watching the rage simmering beneath the surface. “True,” I murmured to myself.
Her story sounded legit, but I’d been in the game long enough to distinguish between the truth and what only sounded like it. The best lies were those that had traces of the truth embedded in them, and she obviously was familiar with that psychology.
“I guess she was sold off to some Mafia monster. Just like I was,” she said, her voice lower than average. “Isn’t it ironic that I landed in the same trouble I was trying to get her out of?”
As she spoke, her voice never wavered, and she didn’t even blink. Not once. Her emotions were under control, and she maintained the same expression throughout. Blank. Her voice was steady, and her breath was controlled.
This girl had trained herself to lie convincingly, and with her skills, she might just beat a lie detector. I knew she wasn’t telling the whole truth, but I couldn’t prove it, and I wasn’t mad either. Rather, I was impressed—couldn’t help watching her with unsettling amusement.
“Do you have a sister?” she asked me.
Silence.
She continued regardless. “If you had one, how would you feel if someone abducted her and sold her off like some piece of property?”
Again, silence.
“Imagine it happened to your daughter sometime in the future, what would be your reaction?”
At this point, my jaw locked, and anger coursed through my blood. Not because of what she said, but because the mere thought of my daughter in the hands of those pigs infuriated me.
“With the kind of power and influence you hold, I’m sure you’ll burn the world down looking for her,” she said, her eyes boring into mine. “I have no doubt that you’ll find the men who took her and make them regret their decision.” She paused, letting her words sink in. “Tell me I’m wrong.”
She wasn’t. That’s exactly what I’d do if that ever happened to my future daughter.
“You’re not wrong,” I answered, cradling the glass in my hand.
“Then why do you and your kind do such monstrosities?”
I leaned back in my chair, still holding her gaze. “Hate to break it to you, Dikaya. But the Bratva doesn’t deal in such crimes.”
“Yet you were there at the auction. You participated and bought me,” she shot back.
I went silent for a moment, observing her from across the table. “Believe it or not, I wasn’t there to be a part of the auction. My presence at that gathering was for a different reason.”
“Then why did you spend a million dollars to get me?”
“Because you were the only one who stood out and caught my attention.”
Her breath hitched, almost like she wasn’t expecting my response to strike her the way it did. She took her gaze off my face, her eyes dropping back to her plate.
My lips curled into a sly grin as I watched a delicate flush spread across her cheeks, warm and fleeting.
To mask her faint blush, she cleared her throat after a moment of awkward silence. “Dikaya,” she said, meeting my gaze again. “That’s what you called me earlier. What does it mean?”
“Wouldn’t you like to know?” I answered, gently stirring the wine in my glass. I’d just used her line against her—tore a page from her own book.
Her eyes squinted, a small grin playing at the corners of her lips. “I see what you did there,” she murmured, holding my gaze.
I took another sip, savoring the flavors on my tongue. “It’s Russian for ‘wild one.’”
Her brows rose instantly, a glint of surprise flickering in her gaze. “Wild one?”
“Don’t look at me like that,” I said, “I don’t know what to call you.”
She stared at me in silence, her lips parted, but no sound came forth.
“Do you have a problem with the name?” I asked, my gaze unwavering.
Silence.
At this point, I rose to my feet, and she swallowed hard, her throat bobbling. I strode toward her with slow, calculated steps, then halted before her, a hand buried in my pocket.
“I’ve watched you take down men twice your size,” I began, looking right into those stormy green-gray eyes of hers. “You hurt them badly—fought like a tigress—like you’d rather die than be a pawn in their games.” I let the words sink in for a bit. “Tell me that’s not the behavior of a wild one.”
Her chest was rising and falling, but this time it wasn’t because she was furious. It was because I’d leaned too close to her by now. I could feel her breath warm against my skin, and in her eyes was a glimpse of fear and something darker.
She clenched her jaw as if to brace herself. “I have a name.”
“I know,” I answered, my voice low and husky. “But I don’t suppose you wanna tell me what it is.”
The air between us was charged with the kind of tension that quickened her heartbeat. I could tell from her ragged breaths and the way she struggled to hold my gaze.
“Dikaya will do just fine,” she said, wearing a blank expression to mask the mixed emotions coursing through her blood.
This was a game now, and I was ready to play it to the very end. She’d proven to be a worthy opponent—one smart enough to spice things up.
At that moment, she stared at me, caught between irritation and something I was yet to name. This closeness felt dangerous—almost intimate even. The longer we remained in such a compromising position, the harder it became for her to hold my gaze.
Was it just my imagination, or could I hear the sound of her heart hammering in her heaving chest?
Restless, she shifted in her chair, the legs scraping softly against the floor. She placed her hands on her lap, fingers fidgeting as she pressed her knees together. Finally, she looked away from me, her foot tapping a quiet rhythm against the leg of the chair.
It felt good watching her misbehave under the weight of my stare. A shallow breath left her lips, and her eyes wandered the dining room for a moment.
The silence between us stretched on forever, and I still wouldn’t take my gaze off her.
Unable to stand it anymore, she sprang to her feet, fingers casually scratching the back of her head. “Please, excuse me,” she murmured, stepping away from me.
I could’ve stopped her. But I didn’t. I let her go. However, she was only a few paces away when I called out, telling her my name. “It’s Nik, by the way.”
She paused in her tracks but didn’t look back.
“Nikolai Tarasov.”
After a moment of hesitation, she picked up her pace and left the dining room.
My lips curved into a mischievous, self-satisfied smirk, knowing that I was starting to crawl under her skin. As good as that felt, it was also unsettling because she was crawling under mine as well.
Perhaps it was nothing more than just fascination on my side. Deep down, though, I worried it might be something else—something darker, more obsessive. And considering how rapidly it was creeping in, it was only a matter of time before something crazy would unfold right in front of us.
I hadn’t admitted it yet, but this girl was gradually becoming something I couldn’t ignore, no matter how hard I tried.
And that…was the problem.