"Take my warning seriously," he says, voice dropping to danger. To the register that makes my pulse race and my thighs clench despite the fury rising in my throat. "This is not a game, Victoria."
He releases my chin as abruptly as he grabbed it, but we keep staring at each other. The air between us crackles with tension that's part anger, part desire neither of us wants to acknowledge.
His gaze drops to my mouth for half a second before snapping back up.
"You've lived a sheltered life," he continues, and each word lands like an accusation wrapped in pity. "Protected. Spared from real hardship. But if you'd lived my life, or my brothers' lives, you'd understand why you do everything possible to avoid bloodbath battles. Because once you're in one, the only way out is to survive by killing everyone else. Every single person becomes an enemy or a corpse. There's no middle ground. No negotiation. Just blood and bodies until one side stops breathing."
He leans closer, and I can smell his cologne mixed with tension and controlled violence.
"Do you understand what I'm telling you?" he asks. "Are you prepared for that? For watching people die because you couldn't control your tongue for one evening?"
Silent fury rises in my throat, bitter and hot.
He has no idea. No concept of what I've lived through, what I've survived, what I've built from the ashes of violation and abandonment. No understanding of the battles I've fought in silence and shadow while he was building his empire on violence he admits to openly.
"You know nothing about me," I say, voice low and precise. Each word a blade "Nothing about my life or the battles I've had to fight. So don't presume to lecture me about hardship,cupcake."
The endearment is deliberate. Mocking.
His jaw clenches. Fury flashes in his eyes. Or desire, or both tangled together until they're indistinguishable.
The SUV slows. We've arrived.
The tension between us is thick enough to choke on, heavy enough to collapse the space between the leather seats.
The vehicle stops completely. Through tinted windows, I see Ramiz Krasniqi's house. A sprawling estate that screams new money and old violence. All ostentatious columns and unnecessary balconies, the kind of architecture that costs a fortune and still looks cheap because it's trying too hard. Lights blaze from every window. Music pulses faintly through the walls, bass vibrating the ground.
The driver opens Maksim's door first. He exits without looking at me, without acknowledging the bomb that just went offbetween us, his movements controlled and precise like nothing happened.
Then my door opens, and it's Alexei standing there instead of the driver or security.
His expression shifts the moment he sees my face. Green eyes sharpen with concern, and his usual grin falters at the edges.
"Everything okay?" he asks quietly, voice pitched low enough that only I can hear.
"She's fine," Maksim answers before I can speak, his tone flat and final. "She knows her part for tonight."
I want to scream. Want to tell him exactly where he can shove his condescension and his warnings and his assumptions about my sheltered life. Want to list every scar I carry that he can't see, every wound that healed crooked, every battle I fought alone while he had brothers to bleed beside him.
Instead, I take Alexei's offered hand and let him help me out of the SUV.
His fingers squeeze mine once. Brief, grounding, a moment of connection that steadies the spinning in my chest, before releasing.
Zakhar emerges from the second vehicle, and the three of them form a loose triangle around me as we approach the entrance. Protection. Possession. Both at once, and I can't decide if it makes me feel safer or more trapped.
Ramiz Krasniqi himself opens the door before we reach it.
He's shorter than I expected. Stocky, with slicked-back hair that gleams with too much product and an expensive suit that still looks cheap on him. Like putting silk on a pig and expecting it to pass for a racehorse. Rings gleam on every finger. Gold and diamonds and rubies that catch light like warning signals.
His smile is too wide, showing too many teeth. The expression of a predator who's decided to be friendly for now but could change his mind at any moment.
"My friends!" He spreads his arms with exaggerated enthusiasm, voice booming across the entryway. "Welcome, welcome! Come in, come in! So happy you could join us tonight!"
The house is filled with people. Music plays, driving bass that vibrates through the marble floor. Groups cluster in corners, glasses of expensive liquor in hand, conversations that rise and fall in waves. Laughter that sounds more like dominance displays than joy.
And just like Maksim warned, the guests are segregated.
Women by the pool in the back, visible through floor-to-ceiling windows. Silk dresses and expensive jewelry, cocktails in hand, arranged like decorations around the turquoise water scattered with floating candles.
