3. Ares
Ares
AWhitehall bartender I recognize struts from a breakroom in the back corridor. She stops when I block her path.
“Can I help you, Mr. Zervas?” Selya greets me with respect.
“Restroom.” I gesture toward the ladies’ room door and take out my wallet. “Pink dress. Blonde. Steal her purse. And bring it to me. Make a scene of it.” I hand her two one-hundred-dollar bills.
“Sure thing.” Selya takes the cash, slides it into her tight blouse, and spins on her heels to do my bidding.
Thirty seconds later, she emerges from the women’s restroom and tosses me a gray leather clutch with a silver chain.
A holler from inside the bathroom steadies me for the confrontation.
“Thank you,” I tell her. “Don’t mention to Kirill that I paid you to steal from one of his customers.”
“Not if I want to keep my job by helping the God of War.” Selya winks and melts into the background of my night.
With blonde hair flying all around her face, my obsession rushes from the bathroom, eyes wild and cheeks flushed.
She stops short when she sees me. Our eyes lock, and a small amount of disappointment rushes through me.
I hoped that my eyesight had suffered from some temporary malfunction.
That the immediate attraction was some kind of mistake. A glitch in my brain.
No. No. And fucking no.
Up close, her features are sharper, but it’s the same conclusion I had before.
She’s beautiful, but in a classic, less made-up way. She appeals to a hidden desire I didn’t even know I wanted. Or needed.
And I’ve never wanted a woman in my bed more.
I lift the purse for her to see. “Are you looking for this?”
“Yes. That’s mine,” she says in a voice that I immediately hear moan my name when I fuck her and fuck her hard.
She waits for my response, but looking at her lips, my mind momentarily goes blank.
“I saw a man running out of the women’s bathroom,” I improvise badly. “I was able to wrestle your purse from him before he ran off. I’ve alerted the pit bosses to take care of him.”
“Him?” She blinks. “I thought I saw a woman. She just reached under the door and—”
“You’re upset.” Jesus fucking Christ, I’m already not thinking straight around this woman. I’m so transfixed.
The blonde studies me and then glances down at my hand where I’m still holding her purse. The lines of her face make sense together in a way perfection never does. There’s a tension to her beauty.
She was forged. Not born.
Finally, she exhales. “Thank you,” she says. “I panicked.”
“Understandable,” I reply. “Are you here alone?”
Doesn’t matter if you are. Whoever you’re here with is already dead. He just doesn’t know which part of him will stop working first.
Her brows knit together. “Um. No.”
“I’ll walk you back to your party,” I say, waiting for her to admit that she lied.
“I… I needed to be alone,” she says, her eyes focused on her purse.
Still in my possession.
“You’re a beautiful woman. I don’t feel comfortable with you wandering around this kind of place alone.” I hand her the purse. “Come and sit with me in the VIP lounge. I’ll buy you a drink.”
She takes the purse and hooks it over her shoulder like she means to guard it now with her life.
“I don’t know.” She runs a hand through her hair, and the scent of roses it gives off nearly brings me to my knees.
“Please, I insist. It’s the least I can do after what you’ve endured.”
She sneaks a look through her lashes and shifts from side to side. “Okay.”
“I’m Ares,” I say and lean in. “You’re safe. There is no need to be nervous around me.”
Until I’m fucking you to within an inch of your life.
She swallows, and after a moment, she says softly, “I’m Lourdes.”
Lourdes.
Her name sears into my chest like a brand. It’s all I want to know right now. Later, I’ll need her full name for the contract I intend to make her sign.
When she reaches out to shake my hand, a rush comes over me. I look down at her fingers in a way that makes her pull back.
“Do you have a problem with being touched?”
“It’s not that. If I touch you right now…” I say quietly. “I might find it too hard to let go.”
Her fingers curl back slowly as confusion flickers across her face.
Even before I know her last name, I’m trying to figure out which family she’s tied to. If I take her, will it start a war? And with who? The Bratva? She’s in their club. The Italians, perhaps?
I’ll burn down whatever house thinks they can claim her. If she belonged to Kirill Volkov, she would not be wandering around the gambling floor alone.
“The lounge is this way,” I say, my arm extended to steer her in that direction.
She moves but hesitates when we get closer to the velvet rope.
“I… I don’t think I belong in there,” she says.
I stand over her, ignoring how I feel like a predator. “If I didn’t think so, I wouldn’t have suggested it.”
She eyes me, her gaze longing for this all to make sense to her. “One drink,” she says. “Then I’m leaving.”
“Of course,” I reply.
You’re not going anywhere.
I hold the door open for her, watching her ass in that tight, pink dress. Now that I know she’s real and not some aberration or mirage, I’ve concluded that I must see these feelings through.
The VIP bar is bathed in soft amber light.
There’s an intimate black granite bar with leather stools.
More velvet sofas and polished wood cocktail tables are tucked in the back.
The bartender does a double take because I don’t usually come in here, and I certainly don’t parade women around this club.
I steer Lourdes toward the sofas, and she sits carefully, gracefully. Back straight, her legs tucked under and to the side. She was taught to sit like that. And I’m not sure how to feel about someone hardwiring her brain on how to sit, how to talk, how to…
Submit.
Fuck.
“What would you like to drink?” I ask.
She studies me, fingers tapping the top of the purse. I clock the rings and other jewelry now that I’m closer. Cheap crap. That will change.
“I don’t usually accept drinks from strangers,” she says softly.
“Smart woman. And don’t accept one from me.” I remove a one-hundred-dollar bill from my wallet and hold it out to her. “Go to the bar. Order it yourself.”
Her eyes flick to the bill. “And if I don’t come back?”
“Then I’ve misjudged you.” I lean in. “That’s not who you are, is it?”
That makes her smile, and now I’m feral to see it again. Every word out of my mouth to this woman is unexpected.
“I’ll be right back.” She reaches for the money.
I don’t release the bill, tugging it until our eyes lock. I want to read what’s in her head. What is she thinking?
“Order two drinks,” I say, letting go of the money.
She exhales sharply. “I don’t think I can drink two—”
“One is for me.”
“Oh, right,” she chirps. “What do you want?”
You. On your knees. Tied up and sucking my cock.
“Order two of whatever you’re having. I trust we like the same thing.”
She nods, and I watch her sashay to the bar, cataloging every curve. The straight line of her spine. The way she doesn’t look over her shoulder to see if I’m watching.
I take a seat on one of the sofas and wonder if Kirill is looking for me. Does he know I blew him off for not waiting for me? What would he think about me having a drink with a woman in his club?
The man is a territorial psycho.
Minutes pass, and Lourdes is gone longer than I expect. I’m calm and wound up at the same time.
She walks back to me holding two drinks in low tumblers, each frothy with a lime wedge. I’m thinking they’re margaritas, and if that bartender used cheap tequila, I’m bringing him to the roof and throwing him off.
Lourdes looks unsure where to sit. I’d love for her to straddle me and writhe against my hard cock, but I doubt she’d agree to that.
Tonight.
Seated next to me on the sofa, she sets one drink in front of me, the other in front of herself. Our knees brush briefly, and my heart goes offline.
Seeming unaffected, she hands me the change from the hundred.
Another test that she passed.
“Keep it,” I say.
“No. I can’t. And I’m not for sale,” she replies, calm but absolute.
“Good,” I affirm. “I don’t intend to buy you.”
Now I intend to make you beg for a contract with me.
When she sips her drink, bracelets shift, drawing my eyes to a tattoo on the inside of her wrist. A faint alarm bell goes off in my head.
Ink over veins is not a decoration or a trend, and from my experience is not chosen. But forced.
Branding.
Anger flashes, hot and quick. My jaw tightens, but I say nothing about it.
As I drink, her shoulders loosen just a fraction. When her eyes stray to look around the room, I notice a butterfly clip in her hair.
Small. Enamel. Wings spread.
“That is a beautiful ornament in your hair,” I remark.
She reaches up without thinking, fingers brushing it. “Thank you.”
“Why butterflies?”
“I have a thing about them.” She shrugs. “The clip is cheap. But I thought it was pretty.”
“What is it you like about butterflies?”
“They don’t survive by staying the same,” she says. “They change completely. Not just how they look. Everything transforms.”
That’s when I know I’m already in trouble. She doesn’t sound like the woman she’s pretending to be. The dress, the makeup, the cheap jewelry, and the teased hair are not her. So why is she here looking like this?
I grow warm as her tongue flicks against the salt-rimmed glass. I’m about to bring up the contract when her eyes cut to the door, and she suddenly puts down the glass.
“What that fuck are you doing in here?” a man who is about to die says, approaching us.
But he’s not talking to me.
“David!” Lourdes goes breathless, getting to her feet. “You were gone for so long. Someone stole my purse. This nice man got it back for me.”
David, who has some kind of claim to her, looks at me with a flicker of recognition.
A dark-inked tattoo on his neck peeks out from his jacket collar. I recall the tattoo gun buzzing noise I heard in Kirill’s office. I make it a point to know every dog in every house’s pound. This man doesn’t look familiar.
“We’re leaving,” David says and yanks on her arm.
My hackles rise, and I shoot to my feet. “Watch how you handle her.”
“She’s my fucking wife. I’ll handle her however I want.”
Hearing wife, my stomach does a violent turn.
She’s different now. She doesn’t smile for him. That steadies my pulse into a lethal rhythm.
“David, stop it.” Lourdes puts her hands on his chest. “It’s nothing. I’m sitting here out in the open.”
“Your damn dress is so short, he can see your fucking pussy.”
“You told me to wear this,” she snaps.
His eyes widen. “Did you just talk back to me?”
“Mr. Sinclair,” Drago bellows from the bar and struts toward us. “Keep your voice down. Or leave. Right now.”
Sinclair. David Sinclair. Lourdes Sinclair. Got it…
“You know what this means.” Sinclair grips his collar, flashing the neck ink. “Who I work for. Back off, Drago.”
The enforcer actually steps back. What the fuck?
Sinclair yanks his wife’s arm, dragging her toward the door, but she looks over her shoulder at me. The fear in her eyes has me spiraling and the room spinning.
I take a step forward, but the enforcer stops me. “I wouldn’t do that.”
“What’s got you bowing to whoever the hell that is?” I ask, shoving my fists into my suit jacket.
“Kirill wants it that way. For now. Can I have your tab taken care of?”
“No.”
I can’t do anything to stop her husband from touching her tonight and the next. That’s until I come up with a plan to not only separate them but also his head from his body.
“Kirill will see you now.” The enforcer gestures for me to follow him back to the offices.
“Too late.” I walk past him without another word.
After dropping a huge tip on the bar, I leave the VIP lounge and then Winterhall altogether. I don’t even bother going back to Club Wicked.
Lourdes Sinclair.
Drago can tell me to stand down all he wants.
That woman stirred my blood to molten lava. I’ll never let another man keep a woman like that from me.
Not without deciding exactly what kind of torture it will cost him.