Chapter Sixteen - Dimitri
The study hums with low voices, the steady rhythm of Russian slipping between the walls like smoke. My men bend over the table, fingers tapping on ledgers, coded phrases threaded through every exchange. The air smells of paper, ink, and vodka still sharp in one glass left too close to the edge.
I don’t need to listen closely; I know the patterns, the numbers, the way each man’s tone tightens when talk edges toward risk. What catches my attention isn’t them. It’s her.
Annie lingers at the sideboard, back straight, hair slipping forward as she fusses with files that don’t need sorting.
To anyone else, she looks indifferent, idle. To me, it’s obvious—her head tilts each time a voice drops, her shoulders still when the talk shifts darker. She’s listening. She’s been doing it for weeks, pretending to busy herself, eyes sharp beneath that mask of detachment.
Curiosity like hers is a liability. In my world, curiosity gets people killed.
When I watch her, I don’t feel the usual calculation that comes with deciding whether to cut loose a problem before it grows.
I feel something else—a pull to keep her where I can see her, to feed her pieces of the fire until she learns it burns at my command.
Not trust. Never trust. Control. A leash she won’t even feel tightening.
I let the men finish their sentence, then cut across them. “Enough.”
The room falls quiet. Eyes flick toward me, then lower again. I don’t need to raise my voice; the finality in it is enough. They gather papers, push chairs back, and file out without hesitation. The door closes, sealing the silence behind them.
Annie looks up, startled by the abrupt shift. Her hand stills on the folder she’s been shuffling pointlessly.
I hold her gaze. Calm. Deliberate. “You’re coming with me later.”
Confusion flickers in her eyes, quickly smoothed over with defiance. “Where?”
I don’t answer. Instead, I let the silence stretch, watch her fight the urge to press again, and savor the flicker of unease when she realizes I won’t give her the satisfaction of explanation.
The leash tightens another notch.
***
Rain lashes the windows, each strike a drumbeat against the black glass. The city outside is a smear of neon and shadow, traffic lights stretching into fractured streaks. The car hums steady beneath us, leather seats absorbing every shift of weight.
The driver keeps his eyes on the road. The guard beside him scans the mirrors, hand close to the weapon holstered beneath his coat. Their silence is professional, practiced. The only other sound is the storm, hammering harder with each mile we put between us and the estate.
Annie sits beside me, posture straight, chin angled toward the window. Her reflection stares back at her from the glass—eyes too bright, jaw tight. She wants me to think she’s calm, but every flicker of expression betrays her.
I let my gaze linger, taking in the small tells: the way her throat shifts when she swallows, the faint tremor when she exhales too sharply, the stiffness in her shoulders. I enjoy her discomfort, the way she works so hard to bury it. It means she knows she’s not in control.
Minutes pass before she speaks, her voice quieter than the rain. “Where are we going?”
I don’t look away from her. “You’ll see.”
The words are enough. She doesn’t ask again. She knows refusal isn’t an option.
Her reflection betrays her more than her body does. I catch the twitch of her knee, bouncing once before she clamps it still. Her hands flatten against her thighs, palms pressing hard, like she’s anchoring herself in place. She doesn’t realize I notice.
I see everything.
She thinks silence is safety, that if she holds her tongue and keeps her body rigid, I’ll dismiss her as passive, but her body speaks louder than her mouth ever could.
Every twitch, every breath, every muscle she forces into stillness tells me what I already know: she’s terrified and fascinated at once.
The car rocks slightly as we take a corner, the rhythm of rain shifting. Annie leans a fraction closer to the window, eyes locked on the blur outside. As if the city lights might give her an answer I won’t.
I lean back, silent, letting her sit with the tension. Letting her know that whatever waits at the end of this drive isn’t hers to predict, or question, or control.
Her reflection in the window stares back at her, pale and drawn. She doesn’t notice the way my eyes linger, memorizing every flicker of doubt she tries to hide.
I’ll make sure she learns—her fear, her curiosity, even her silence—they all belong to me.
The car pulls to a stop in front of an unmarked building, rain sliding in silver sheets across the windshield. From the outside, it looks like nothing: a shuttered restaurant with faded lettering, the kind of place most people walk past without noticing. Inside, it’s something else.
I lead her in through a side door. The hallway smells faintly of bleach and old smoke, the light dim, the floor tiled in patterns meant to disguise dirt. At the far end, a door stands open. Voices drift from within, low and heavy, the kind that carry weight even when they’re quiet.
She hesitates for a fraction of a second before stepping forward. I press a hand against the small of her back, guiding her. Subtle, but claiming. My touch reminds her where she belongs, and reminds them before they can think otherwise.
The room is thick with smoke and the sharp scent of vodka. A long table sits under a single lamp, shadows crouched in the corners. Men turn when I enter—associates, partners, a few I wouldn’t trust to sit alone in the dark without sharpening their knives. Their eyes flick from me to her.
“She stays with me,” I say.
Some of them nod, others exchange glances, curiosity sparking. A woman at my side is unusual, but I don’t indulge them with reasons. Their opinions don’t matter.
Annie stiffens under the weight of their stares, but she doesn’t falter.
Her gaze moves quickly, darting across the table, noting who sits at my right, who waits before speaking, who drains his glass too fast. She thinks she’s being discreet.
She isn’t. I see every flicker of her eyes, the sharp edge of her attention.
Interesting.
The meeting begins the way they always do: talk of numbers, shipments, which docks are clear, which streets belong to whom this week. Money passes between hands, agreements made in phrases that don’t sound like agreements at all. Annie keeps her head slightly bowed, but her eyes never stop moving.
Then the tension comes. It always does.
One man, broad and red-faced, leans forward, his voice cutting sharper than it should. “This route is weak. You give it to him, you’ll regret it.” He jabs a finger toward another at the table. “It should be mine.”
The air shifts. Men lean back, waiting. The weight of the room tilts toward me.
I don’t raise my voice. I never need to. I lean in slightly, enough that my shadow slides further across the table. My words are precise, measured, carrying no heat but promising plenty. “It isn’t yours. And you’ll keep your opinions quiet if you plan on leaving here tonight.”
The stillness is immediate.
The man’s face drains, his mouth half open like he wants to argue, but the words die before they can form. The silence stretches, heavy as iron. I watch him fold in on himself, his bravado leaking out into the floorboards.
The rest of them look away. No one else speaks.
Beside me, Annie flinches. I feel it in the faint tremor of her breath, the way her body tightens under my hand. She doesn’t drop her gaze. She doesn’t hide. Her eyes are fixed on me, steady, unblinking, like she’s trying to memorize the shape of my voice when I make a threat.
That, more than the man’s silence, interests me.
She isn’t cowed. She isn’t pretending not to hear. She’s learning.
I file it away.
***
The club hums like a living thing—bass vibrating through the floor, smoke curling thick beneath flashing lights, perfume hanging heavy in the air.
Laughter cuts sharp through the music, edged with the clink of glasses and the low murmur of deals being made in corners. This is one of ours, a Bratva house through and through. Everyone here knows whose name keeps the doors open and the floors clean of unwanted blood.
I sit in the back with my cousins, leather booth curving around us, a bottle of vodka sweating against the table. Milan leans close, a grin tugging at his mouth. He’s younger, sharper at the edges, always watching for weakness to poke at.
“So,” he says, pouring himself another shot, “how’s our little gallery assistant adjusting to her new life?”
His tone is light, but his eyes glint. He wants a reaction.
I don’t give him one. I lift my glass instead, vodka burning smooth down my throat.
Milan smirks. “Don’t tell me you’re attached, brother. She follows you like a shadow. Must be convenient, hm?” He drags out the last syllable, sly. “Or maybe it’s more than convenient.”
The table chuckles, low and knowing.
My gaze cuts across him, steady and cold. “She’s a liability. Nothing more.”
His smirk falters, just slightly.
“I keep her close because it’s safer than letting her run wild,” I continue. My tone doesn’t rise, but the weight of it makes the air shift. “She’s useful under my eye. Dangerous without it. That’s all.”
Milan chuckles again, but it’s thin this time, forced. He lifts his glass in mock salute and lets the matter drop. The others follow his lead.
The music thunders on, lights shifting red and gold across the crowded floor.
Women drift between tables, practiced smiles and painted lips, the scent of expensive perfume clinging to every touch.
One slides in beside me, her dress glittering under the strobe, hand resting lightly on my shoulder.
She leans close, her mouth brushing my ear, breath warm with alcohol and sugar.
Normally, I’d let her.
Tonight, nothing stirs.
I feel the press of her body against mine, the softness of her hand, the practiced heat in her whisper.
It leaves me cold. My mind doesn’t fill with her scent, her touch, her voice.
It fills with Annie—Annie’s breathless gasp in the dark, the tremor in her body when I pushed inside her, the sharp defiance in her gaze when she stood at my side earlier, memorizing every move like she belonged at that table.
The escort’s perfume cloys. Annie’s scent—clean, faint soap, the taste of rain on her skin—burns sharper in memory.
I push the woman away, not roughly, but final. My expression doesn’t shift. Unreadable. She blinks, confusion flickering before she slides off to another man who’ll pay for the illusion she offers.
The others don’t question me. They know better.
Inside, I know the truth.
Annie’s under my skin.
I finish my glass and pour another, the vodka sharp enough to clear my throat but not enough to silence memory. The storm won’t leave me. The sound of her voice, raw and desperate, whispering she was untouched before me.
The feel of her cunt gripping me so tight it burned, the way her nails dug into my shoulders like she couldn’t tell whether she wanted to hold me closer or push me away.
I tell myself again: she’s here for control. That’s all. I brought her into my world to keep her from becoming a threat, to use her, to test her, to remind her she lives because I allow it.
When I close my eyes, it isn’t the escort’s perfume that lingers. It isn’t vodka I taste. It’s her—her lips, her moans, her body breaking open under my hands.
The fire she lit hasn’t dulled. The night only stoked it.
I tip back the last of my drink, jaw tight, and signal for another bottle. I’ll drown her out, if I can.
I already know the truth: there’s no drowning a fire once it’s set in your chest.