A baritone groan escaped his lips, nothing like that voice that had haunted methat horrible nightat the party.
With that reminder, my body returned to me. I picked up the glass cup on my nightstand and blindly threw it in his direction.
“Shit,” Jayden said. Unfortunately, it didn’t sound pained.
I groped around frantically trying to find something else. Panic ricocheted through my body when Jayden moved closer to my bed.
Suddenly, the light flicked on, and Dmitri’s rigid body took up the entire doorframe.
“What thefuckare you doing?” Dmitri growled.
Jayden froze. Despite everything, some of the tension left my shoulders.
“Wrong room,” Jayden said with a casual shrug. But the nervous look in his eyes belied the noncommittal movement.
Before I could react and call Jayden out on that blatant lie, Dmitri swept forward almost faster than I could follow. Dmitri’s huge hand wrapped around Jayden’s throat.
Pure fury spread across Dmitri’s face as he tightened his grip on Jayden’s small neck.
“It w-was an accident, I had too much to drink and mixed up the rooms,” Jayden gasped out, his face reddening under the pressure of Dmitri’s grasp.
Dmitri responded by slamming Jayden’s head against the wall. Red blood dripped down the white walls.
“You can’t kill me, I have an agreement with the Pakhan,” Jayden said, a hint of fear tingeing his eyes.
I bit down on the inside of my cheek. Unfortunately, Jayden was right, we couldn’t kill him. The Pakhan had made that order explicitly clear.
“If I snapped your neck, it’d be anaccident.” Dmitri bared his teeth into a grin. “You’re familiar with those, right?”
Even though I desperately wanted to kill the man for daring to sneak into my room while he thought I was asleep, I knew we shouldn’t. I was intimately aware of the consequences of disobeying the Pakhan….
I stood up from the bed, and pressed a hand against Dmitri’s hard shoulder. Even though he was now literally strangling the life out of a man, my lower body was heating up.
“We can’t,” I said quietly.
Dmitri kept his grip around Jayden’s throat while he turned his head towards me. “Kotenok, what did I tell you about giving me orders?”
His eyes flared as he took in my nipples pressing against my nightgown. The heat of his gaze destroyed everything coherent in my mind.
Jayden wheezed. Suddenly I remembered we had an audience.
Rather, we wouldn’t have an audience for much longer if Dmitri didn’t let him go.
With a pounding heart, I stepped up on my tiptoes and whispered into Dmitri’s ear. This close, the scent of newly fallen snow fizzled my brain, but I managed to say, “We’ll deal with himafterwe have the evidence.”
I leaned back with a shaky inhale.
His eyes seared into mine, and I thought he’d snap Jayden’s throat just to defy me.
Finally, he nodded to himself, and released Jayden.
Jayden fell into a heap at Dmitri’s feet, breaths gasping into his chest in gulping inhalations.
“If I catch you in the same room as Alisa again, I’ll feed your body into a woodchipper while you beg me to end you.”
Jayden dashed out of the room still gasping for breath. Thankfully, Dmitri didn’t follow him and finish him off.
“Thank you,” I said. Two years ago those were the last words I ever thought I’d say to Dmitri. And yet, I seemed to be saying it an awful lot lately.
