“How do we take them down?” I asked, finally. I was getting tired of him staring at me in such a creepy, satisfied way.
“Since when do you care? I thought all of this was below you, Brother.” Dimitri watched the people around us; none of them cared about what we were discussing or who we were. They were all wrapped up in their own lives and conversations.
I looked down at my lap. “He put his hands on her.”
When I looked up, Dimitri’s eyes were molten, and his jaw was clenched. “What do you mean?”
I didn’t know if I could talk about it without getting upset. I didn’t know if I could replay the events without going to hunt the bastard down afterwards. “He grabbed her face and told her that she was going to be his property.”
Dimitri cracked his knuckles. “Sounds to me like your girl is set up in an arranged marriage.”
I shook my head. “Is that even a thing anymore? I don’t think so. She inherited billions. She could leave. She would leave. She wouldn’t let someone…” She wouldn’t, right?
My brother’s face went grim. “They’re still a thing, a lot more than you would think. Politics and money are what this city is built on, and she’s right in the middle of it. My guess is, that when you took out daddy dearest, her brothersgot scared and started making calls to either protect them or to make them stronger—untouchable.”
Then it would be another thing that was all my fault. I closed my eyes and tried to breathe, but it was getting harder and harder to do so. I should have stayed in the mountains. Poppy would be living the good life and wouldn’t be dealing with all of this mess because of me…
But then you wouldn’t know her—love her, even.That voice was back.
“What doyouwant to do?” Dimitri leaned in to the table and watched me with calculated eyes.
“I want to take my time and make sure he suffers.”
Dimitri smiled with all of his teeth, and his eyes went dark. “I like that idea very much, but you’ll need to be careful. If he goes down, their family will find out who did it. They’realmostuntouchable.”
The waiter approached our table carefully and took out a notepad. Dimitri looked up at him with a completely different expression. He looked docile. “I’ll have the spaghetti and my brother will have the chicken parmesan.”
I raised a brow. “What if I wasn’t planning on eating?”
“Best two things on the menu, you’ll thank me later.”
“What do we do?” I was busting at the seams. I needed a plan. I needed action because if I didn’t get it, I was going hunting, and I probably wouldn’t come out on the other side.
Dimitri took another generous sip out of his wine glass. “You’re not going to do anything. The grannies have plansfor the brothers, and when that happens, the deal will probably be null and void.”
“What if they don’t plan anything until after they’re married?”
He shifted in his seat as he thought about it. “I’ll have a talk with them.”
I rolled my eyes. “Like that will make a difference.”
Dimitri smiled. “I’ll tell them I’m getting Scarlett pregnant and they’ll do whatever I want.”
I scoffed. “Yeah, right.”
He shrugged. “They want all the babies, I don’t think you understand.”
“Whatever works, I’m running out of time.”
Chapter Thirty-Four
Poppy
I didn’t knowif firing Ivan actually worked because I refused to leave my room, except to check on Jane. One thing was for certain: I missed the low timber of his voice and the way he tried not to smile, though I could see the amusement in his eyes. I missed how thoughtful he was, but… He’d said he wanted to kill Donovan. Was that an over exaggeration, or did he really feel that way? I mean… I knew he handled special cases, but what exactly did that mean? Was itjustbeing a glorified babysitter or something more?
The longer I sat alone with my feelings, the more questions I conjured up. If he was something more… did that mean he could possibly know who killed my father?
It was a dead end, and we would probably never have the answers we were looking for. At least that was what the NYPD fed us. I didn’t believe it. I knew how money talked, and it didn’t get past me that my brothers had even hiredextra security. Every time I visited them at their building, the windows weren’t left uncovered, and I could see that they weren’t sleeping based on the bags that collected under their eyes and the pale sheen to their usually tan complexions.
