Chapter 8
Chapter Eight
Viktor it stayed.
"I'm not giving anyone a second chance."
I checked my watch. Twenty minutes left. If I left right then, I might've caught half the night.
But that ambush hadn't wrecked my body—it had wrecked my mood.
I stared at the enemy blood still caught in the lines of my fingers. The violent hunger in me hadn't cooled yet, but the second I pictured Hailey waiting in the restaurant, my head went weird. Unsteady. Like something in me didn't know where to land.
"Yes." Yuri stepped closer, trying to look me over. "Pakhan, your injury—"
"I'm fine." I snapped my arm away.
I understood the problem better than he did.
That hadn't just been an assassination attempt. It had been a challenge. A test of my authority. That meant cracks had opened inside my own power base—and those cracks had to be sealed fast, sealed hard.
In the center of that storm, I could take bullets.
Hailey couldn't.
She was a star I'd ripped out of an ordinary life with my own hands. If I let her show up in my enemies' line of sight, they'd tear her apart like tissue paper.
"Yuri, clean this up. Don't let those old bastards see a goddamn thing they shouldn't. Everything that happened tonight has to rot in the dark with tonight."
I turned for the Maybach, its paint scored by rounds, and moved clean and final.
I had to go back to the manor and handle this. Because she didn't just need a well-dressed lover.
She needed someone who made her feel absolutely safe in a world like this.
"As for the rest," I said, starting the engine, tires slicing a black streak through the wet asphalt, "you know what to do. Anybody who starts shit on my ground, I want them gone. No ashes to find."
Hailey
I stood outside the restaurant and looked down at my dress for the third time, making sure I hadn't put it on backwards.
I hadn't. It was still the same black dress, the same neckline that wrinkled a little no matter what I did. In front of a walnut door that had to be ten feet tall, with heavy brass handles, my dress looked pathetic. Like something I'd dug out from the bottom rack at a discount store.
Warm gold light leaked through the seams. Somewhere inside, a piano played so softly it barely counted as sound. I caught the smell of truffle and some rich sauce I couldn't name.
I took a breath and pushed the door open.
"Good evening, ma'am." A man in a crisp tailcoat stepped in front of me. He looked around fifty, hair slicked not a strand out of place, chin tipped up. His eyes did that thing—priced me from head to toe—and they paused on my outfit for half a second.
I saw the faintest curve at his mouth. Not friendly. More like: sure, honey.
My face heated. "Hi. I-I have a reservation."
"Under what name?"
"Uh..."
He hadn't told me that.
I hesitated, then said, "Maybe... Mr. X?"
The words flipped a switch.
I watched the arrogance drain out of his face in a heartbeat. His back bent so fast it was almost ninety degrees, hands folded in front of him.
"Ms. Woods." His voice jumped up a pitch, suddenly syrupy. "We've been expecting you. Please, this way. Tonight you have the top-floor panoramic private room."
I froze.
He knew my name. I'd only given an alias, and somehow he still knew I was Woods.
I followed him through the dining room. The carpet felt like stepping on clouds.
Booths on both sides held people dressed like money—men in suits that cost more than my monthly rent, women with diamonds that threw candlelight back in hard little flashes.
The manager didn't stop at a single table.
He led me straight to a private elevator at the far end.
The elevator rose to the top floor. When the doors opened, I stepped into a room wrapped in floor-to-ceiling windows. Manhattan spread out under my feet, a spilled box of diamonds.
"Your seat." The manager pulled out my chair, then personally draped a bright white napkin over my lap. "Our sommelier is at your service at any time. Tonight, the entire floor serves only you."
The entire floor. Only me.
I sat stiffly, staring at the gleaming silverware—so many pieces I couldn't have named half of them. My throat tightened.
Something about this wasn't right.