His jaw tightens. "Perhaps I enjoy watching you squirm."
"I'm not squirming."
"No," he agrees, and there's something like frustration in his voice. "You're not."
A throat clearing from the open doorway makes us both jump to find a guard carrying a tray. Dinner.
It arrives on tacky silver platters with too many flowers to be classy. Alexei directs the guards, who won't meet my eyes as they enter. They set up the small table by the window, silver and crystal catching the evening light. The suite has transformedthroughout the afternoon. What seemed like a prison earlier now feels like something else. A stage, maybe.
Alexei dismisses the guards with a gesture, then turns to me with that cold smile.
"Sit," he commands.
I could refuse, but I'm hungry and curious about this game he's playing. I settle into the chair, noting how he positions himself between me and the door. Always calculating, always in control.
The food smells exquisite. Filet mignon, roasted vegetables glazed with something decadent, wine that even Marco would appreciate. But when I reach for the fork, his hand covers mine.
"No," he says simply. "You eat what I give you. When I give it to you."
The command shoots straight through me, pooling heat in places it absolutely shouldn't. My fingers clench around the silver, but his grip is implacable.
"You can't be serious."
"I'm always serious." He takes the fork from my hand, cuts a piece of meat deliberately. "Open your mouth."
I turn my head away, a last gesture of defiance. He catches my chin with his free hand, forces me to face him. The grip is firm but not painful, his thumb pressing against my jaw in a way that makes my breath catch.
"You can eat from my hand, or you can starve. Choose."
The humiliation burns, but there's something else too. A dark thrill at this twisted intimacy. I part my lips, letting him feed me like I'm something he owns. The meat is perfectly cooked, tender, but I barely taste it. All I can focus on is the way he watches my mouth, the intensity in those pale eyes that seems to strip me bare.
His fingers brush my lips as he pulls the fork away, and I see his pupils dilate at the contact. The sight sends a pulse through me. I'm not the only one affected here.
"Tell me about the night Mikhail died," he says, cutting another piece.
The question catches me off guard, and I glance up at him before speaking. "I don't know anything about that night."
"Liar." The fork hovers near my mouth. "Every detail you remember."
So this is the beginning of the inquisition.
I take the offered bite, using the time to gather my thoughts. His fingers linger against my lips this time, and I have to fight the insane urge to part them further, to taste his skin. My body is betraying me completely, responding to my enemy like he's a lover.
"I only know what I've been told. My father and a lot of his men met with the Morettis, who were close allies of ours, but somebody opened fire and the friendly meeting became a massacre. Almost everyone ended up dead. We blamed them for years, and the Morettis blamed us, but it was you Russians all along, trying to get us to wipe each other out."
Another bite. This time his thumb catches a drop of juice at the corner of my mouth, the touch electric. The sensation shoots straight to my core, and I press my thighs together under the table.
"I'm not interested in hearing your family's propaganda," he says. "I want to know what you remember."
"I don't remember anything," I say, anguish threading through the words. I take some deep breaths, trying to regain control, reminding myself that I'm here by choice, here to find information not share it. Not that I have any to share. Dante tells me I should talk to a therapist about my missing memories, but my sessions at the shooting range are all the therapy I need.
The fork clatters to the plate. Alexei stands abruptly, pacing to the window. The setting sun casts his profile in sharp relief, beautiful and terrible, like an avenging angel.
"He was eighteen," he continues, voice rough. "Had his whole life ahead of him. And your brother carved out his chest because he dared to care about the wrong girl."
The grief in his voice cracks something in my chest. My composure, so carefully maintained, finally fractures. The guilt I carry, the nightmares that wake me at three AM every night, they all rush to the surface.
"I dream about it," I admit, the words escaping before I can stop them. "Every night. The screaming, the blood. I wake up tasting copper and feeling like I'm drowning in guilt."
