“David Sinclair was?—”
“A wife-beater who crossed a line and started trouble at Zervas’s club.”
Elias’s mouth ticks up. “Are you really Fallon’s boyfriend?”
“No.” The word hits my tongue like acid, but I say this to protect her. “She walked in on the Sinclair hit. She needed a date for a few holiday events. We worked out a deal.”
If he even smells what she means to me, he’ll rip us apart.
“Interesting.” His right eyebrow lifts.
“I can’t have a girlfriend,” I go on, each syllable cold and practiced. “You know who I am. What I am.”
Except, I’m not the same man I was a month ago. Not since I fell in love with his daughter. Not the way she drives me crazy in my bed like a woman. Not the child her father seems to think she is.
“I do not want Quinlan Empire as my enemy,” Blacksays, pacing. “Especially with their new alliance with the Albanian Brotherhood. But the Greeks are another matter.”
“Ava ZervasQuinlanwill stand with her brothers. We will stand with her.”
Black’s smile sharpens. “Not when they learn what Ares Zervas has done.”
My stomach coils. “And what’s that?”
His eyes glitter like cracked ice. “None of your business, assassin. But he’s hiding a sin that will come out eventually.”
I veil the look of shock on my face. It’s best to act bored, so I keep my face flat and turn into a cold, heartless bastard again.
I’m alone. I can’t call for help and put my brother and the enforcer team at risk without knowing exactly what I’m dealing with here. I have to keep playing disinterested to get out of here alive.
Thenbring back an army to level the place and rescue my Fallon.
Black’s eyes sweep me from head to toe. “Be in the dining room in fifteen minutes.” He starts toward the door, but then turns around. “Oh,” he adds, voice softer now. “Your charade ends tonight. After tomorrow, you will never see Fallon again.”
I mask my expression even though his threat tears me apart inside. “She’s my neighbor. There’s no way to avoid her.”
“She’s not going back to Manhattan,” he says, his voice icy and detached. “Fallon is promised to another man.”
I consider how to respond. I can’t look like I let myself walk into a trap, but my dignity has no price if Black will punish Fallon for dragging yet another man here to defy his wishes.
I act surprised. “Promised?”
“She has a fiancé. An arranged one. He’s reliable. A man who understands her needs. Who keeps her routine intact.” He smooths a hand down his tie, voice even and calm.
Heat spikes through my blood. Fallon is not marrying someone else. Drugged and caged until she forgets her own name.
Tone flat, rage claws at my ribs. “She hasn’t mentioned him.”
“Because she doesn’t get to choose her husband,” Black hisses. “Ido.”
“She can make her own decisions,” I argue, because I can’t help it. “You don’t know her.”
He smiles. Slow. Cruel. “After tomorrow, she’ll be back on her meds, and she won’t remember you, assassin.”
My stomach flips, and I picture a red beam on the back of his head where I would really love to fill with bullets.
In shoes I warmed up in the oven as best I could and a fresh pair of socks, I step into the dining room. Elias Black sits at the head of the rectangular table and points to a man who pulls out a chair next to Fallon. She tugs me down into the chair on the other side of her and clamps her hand in mine.
She tries to make small talk, but I keep my eyes clocked on the six men standing guard at the entrances. They will drag me out of here if it looks like I plan to make trouble and take Fallon with me when I leave here tomorrow.
