I stormed out of the coffee shop to confront the Russian bratva’s pakhan.
The relief that crossed Sloane’s face when she saw me eased the turmoil of anxiety raging in my chest that she would choose to leave with him.
“Stay away from her!” I roared, hurrying across the street to Sloane’s side and shielding her from Kirill.
The Russian usually had two expressions on his face. Cold disdain and boredom, but in the few instances when it came to me, he was finding malignant amusement. The corner of his mouth hitched up into a mocking smile, but his eyes remained cold. “De Lucci,” he drawled. “I wondered what foxhole you’d disappeared off to.”
“I was taking a vacation,” I snapped. “How did you find me?”
Kirill scoffed. “It’s Miss Scott I am here for, actually.”
“You hired the person who sent me away?” Sloane asked from behind me.
“Hired?” The continued humor in his tone aggravated the fuck out of me. He knew something I didn’t. I could tell by the arrogance stamped on his face. “No. But she did tell me where you were.”
“Why?”
“Because you can help me.” Kirill cast me a brief glance. “And I can help you.”
“Fuck off. We’re done.” I gripped Sloane’s hand and dragged her away.
“Dom.”
“Not a word,” I growled.
“I’ll call you, De Lucci,” Kirill called out.
I shot him the middle finger with my free hand.
“Do you know what’s going on?” Sloane asked. There was slight resistance in her steps, but maybe it was because I was walking too fast. I packed her into the Escalade, rounded the vehicle, and slid into the driver’s side, gunned the engine, and sped away from town.
I mounted the phone on the dash and called Trevor.
“Yeah,” he answered on the second ring.
“Send pickup.”
“Now?” There was surprise in his voice.
“Yes. Now.”
“I need to check which plane is available.”
“I don’t care if you have to charter a new one. I want that bird wheels up within the hour.”
“Sounds urgent.”
“Kirill showed up here.”
A muttered “fuck” crackled over the line with a half second of dead silence, before he said, “On it.”
I ended the call and made another one to Lucy.
“Bro!” she singsonged.
“Have the housekeeper get the spare bedroom ready.”
“You convince Sloane to come to Manhattan?”
“Just do it.” Because I hadn’t, and I could feel the outrage blasting at me from her direction.
When I ended that call, Sloane cut in, “Before you call someone else…what the fuck?”
“You know what the fuck is,” I growled. “You have a don and a pakhan of New York organized crime vying for your attention. Let that sink in.”
I could feel her burning stare on my face, but I was trying to remain calm amid my rampaging thoughts. I’d been trying to deny that it was her, but Kirill showing up here confirmed my suspicions.
“You can’t just kidnap me!” she snapped.
I cast her a brief glance. “In case you forgot, baby, I’m mafia. Snatching people off the streets is part of the job description. Unless you prefer the Russian alternative.”
“No.”
“What I thought, and it’s a moot point, because it would be over my dead body that I will let that motherfucker touch a hair on your head.”
“You passed our exit,” Sloane said woodenly, but I had a feeling she knew we were heading straight for the airport.
“I’ll have my men come down here and empty the beach houses.” I had my laptop with me and I didn’t leave anything of value unattended when I traveled. “You might want to throw out the tracker.”
Sloane kept it in her purse.
“So, we’re letting whoever paid me to stay away from New York know we found the tracker?”
“I already know who it is,” I said. I had had suspicions for a few days now, but seeing Kirill here cemented my theory. It wasn’t his mother, Irina, but it was her best friend, the matchmaker to the rich, powerful, and depraved.
“Who?” Sloane asked.
“A woman called Margo Winthrop.” I checked my rearview mirror to make sure Kirill wasn’t planning to ambush us away from town. “You know her?”
“No.”
“She’s someone with connections to business, politics, and criminal organizations.”
“But why was she interested in helping me?”
“No idea.”
I hesitated too long in my answer. Sloane scoffed her disbelief. “I don’t believe you.”
I vented a resigned sigh. It was heavy with the weight of how my choices affected Sloane, which made me more determined to make it up to her. “She and my mother were discussing an arranged marriage.”
“With Kirill’s sister, right? Aralina?”
“Yes.” I wasn’t surprised Sloane knew the family tree of the Russian bratva. It helped facilitate discussion. “It’s not a good match. Ma was insistent because that was the only way we could get the properties back.”
“And that was why you were trying to get them back through Grigori?”
“Yes.”
“She’s too sweet for you,” Sloane said.
“You did some research on her?” I asked, slightly amused.
“No. I wouldn’t dare do that. I’m sure the bratva has someone monitoring anyone looking into them. Lucy told me.”
“Fuck, I hope my sister isn’t nosing around again,” I grumbled.
Sloane fell into a contemplative silence. I caught her looking out the window in my peripheral vision.
My phone flashed Trevor.
“Hey,” he said when I answered. “The plane leaves Teterboro in an hour. It’s cleared with air traffic control.”
“Thanks.” It would take us more than an hour to get to Norfolk airport, anyway. I wondered if Kirill arrived via chopper.
After I ended the call, Sloane asked, “Why not Lucy?”
I wasn’t sure what she meant? “Why not Lucy what?”
“For an arranged marriage.”
Saliva snagged in my throat at Sloane’s outrageous question. “Lucy?” I choked her name. “Who would she marry? Kolya? Kirill?”
“Well, Kolya is in jail, but Kirill is single.”
“Lucy has an aversion to overbearing men and the methods of the mafia. And she doesn’t consider herself part of the crime family. I love my sister, and you’ve seen Kirill. They would kill each other before the wedding. And let’s not forget, even if it was Grigori’s crew who killed the lawyer, Lucy still blames the bratva.” That was why we needed the truce brokered by Margo, but with Kolya in jail, Kirill must have gone to her to call off the agreement. “Didn’t you get that idea with all your video calls yet?”
“She’s like me…”
“Has a problem with authority?”
Sloane laughed lightly. I missed that breathy laugh.
“She said she couldn’t wait for this shit to be over so she could return to DC.”
Yeah, my sister was going stir-crazy. She’d been griping to me that Ma had been dropping by constantly. Whenever they had to leave my penthouse to go to a restaurant, their security could rival the security for a head of state. Pop grumbled he had to close an entire restaurant just so the two could have mother-daughter time. I was sure that was Ma’s way of trying to reach Lucy. And Pop would move heaven and earth just so his two favorite girls would reconcile after all these years.
As for me, I was relieved Lucy came to me with her problems instead of relying on her “I know this guy…” mentality.
“I’m not sure if staying at your penthouse is a good idea,” Sloane said. “What would that do to all my progress? It’s like I’m back to square one.”
“Would it make you feel better if I moved out?”
She emitted an incredulous laugh. “You can’t be serious.”
“I’m dead fucking serious.”
“What would your mother say?”
“I don’t give a shit what she says.”
She exhaled a frustrated breath. “You still don’t get it!”
“What don’t I get? I’m putting you first.”
“And have your mother resent me?”
I gripped the steering wheel. An ache started throbbing in my right temple. Maybe I’d been clenching my teeth too hard since the time Kirill showed up in front of the coffee shop.
“I’m not giving you up.”
“See, I’m not yours to give up, Dom.”
“But I’m yours,” I seethed. “I’m not letting you go. I’ll find a way so you can trust me.” I stared ahead. “We leave sex off the table until you do.” Fuck, that was hard to get out, but I was desperate. The temptation to bend her to my will was a constant inner battle. “We can start small. Like the coffee dates. We don’t have to be anything. I can just be your friend for now.”
“Friend. So it’s okay if I go out on a date?”
Her unexpected question punched me in the gut. I glowered at the white line that separated the lanes of the asphalted highway.
At my silence, she scoffed, “Just what I thought. Sera told me about the fine print in her divorce papers, with Matteo saying she couldn’t date for six months. Is this the same thing?”
“You really want to date someone else?” I gritted out.
“You expect me to answer that with that thundercloud on your face?”
My jaw tightened. The throbbing in my head intensified. Sloane Scott’s middle name was frustration, but an inner voice taunted me that I deserved it. “Just the idea makes me want to break this steering wheel in half.”
“What’s with the double standard?” she scoffed. “I endured your dates with other women.”
“The difference is,” I enunciated, “there was no romantic entanglement. It was simply business. I wasn’t taking them out in the hopes of a relationship.”
“You could say the same of what we had.”
“Keep lying to yourself, baby,” I muttered under my breath and resumed glaring at the highway. I had no defense. Instead of answering her, I growled, “Fine, but no sex.”
I could feel Sloane’s gaze on me when she said, “That’s fair.”
I relaxed a bit.
“I’ll let you know when that changes.”
Christ. I tamped down my desire to snap at her. Sloane sure knew how to torture me.
“I still think I shouldn’t be staying at your penthouse,” she ventured.
“Nonnegotiable.”
“Excuse me?”
“I’ll move out.”
“Dom, we’re going in circles here. I’m not putting you out of your place, but it’s going to be awkward if I go on a date and you happen to show up.”
Oh, you bet I’ll be lurking around the corners, baby. “I won’t.” The thought of making her date have an “accident” appealed to me. It might actually be therapeutic. Getting rid of men interested in Sloane seemed like a good sport in order to work out my frustrations with the added benefit of her finally realizing I’m her only and best option.
Her fated option.
“Why are you grinning?” Suspicion crept into her tone.
I schooled my features and glanced at her, pasting on a practiced smile that probably belonged on a serial killer’s face. A serial killer whose main trigger was anyone interested in Sloane.
“Because I can’t wait for you to stay at my penthouse,” I lied.
“I don’t trust that smile,” she muttered.
My face fell. Fuck.
This woman was going to keep me on my toes.
But a grin threatened to form again. I was up for that challenge.
No pleasure without the pain.
