It’s completely bullshit. All I know is that I have to get Iosif away from this man. This man, who simply grins after us, as lazy as a snake.
“Bye!” I manage, nails digging into Iosif’s arm until he moves with me.
We make it about ten feet before I can feel him rearing to turn back. I don’t have to guess what would happen then. In the depths of me, I just know it.
“Nope,” I forbid, and wrap myself around his arm, like it’s enough to anchor him to the spot. “Keep walking, mister. Let’s get out of here. We don’t have to stay.”
“That fucker,” Iosif hisses.
I have to interrupt him before he starts breathing fire.
His chortle sounds maniacal. “You’re ordering me around at a gala now. We really are married.”
“Did you have any doubt?” I quip, like my heart isn’t pounding in my chest. “Either way, you’re going to listen to me because the alternative seems to be your committing assault in front of a few hundred witnesses. Not to mention ruining thisglorious tux with blood splatter. And that would be a tragedy, wouldn’t it?”
Iosif sucks in a harsh inhale and shakes his head at me. But I can see the way the corners of his mouth twitched. I’ve got him.
He lets me haul him to the other side of the ballroom, pulling him out the nearest exit. They open onto a terrace, where the air is frigid, and we find ourselves alone.
We exhale together.
“Okay,” I say after a beat. “You want to tell me what that was about, baby?”
Iosif runs a rugged hand through his dark waves, thoughtlessly ruining poor Ida’s hard work. The unsuppressed fury blazing in his eyes still steals attention. Neither aspect makes him any less sexy, unfortunately. More, maybe. “Viktor Zakharov is a fucking rat. He’s Anton Zakharov’s younger brother. Rival gang. We’ve been trying to pin him for months. He always slips through. Andthat—” he grits out, huffing hot air, “—was him telling me to my face that he knows I’ve been following him. Which means that’s months down the drain, and we’re no closer.”
My stomach drops. “Was he being pointed about me on purpose?” I ask breathlessly. “Did he approach you to tell you I’m—”
“I would’ve killed him on the spot,” Iosif thunders.
I have to reach out and hold him in place all over again.
“What would happen if you went after him head-on?” I prompt him, trying to get him to see reason through his haze of rage. “Walk me through it.”
He’s taken aback enough by the question to still.
“Best case scenario?” Iosif barks an humorless laugh. “It would become a spectacle. He would have the ammo to play the victim. We’d look like the aggressors. It would ruin any chance of getting Anton to believe any evidence we ever do manage to get our fucking hands on.”
I swallow hard. “Worst case?”
“For killing him?” Iosif seems to be asking himself more than me. “A bloody, ruthless war between the gangs. Death, destruction, and some friends.”
I don’t have to point anything out.
Iosif gets there on his own. “Which is what the fucker wants. His mission was to provoke me, and it’s fucking working. If we leave, he’ll know it.”
I step closer, rubbing my chest against his. It’s a cheap ploy, I know, but it always works. I loop my arms around his neck, leaning my weight to the balls of my feet, and brush my lips over his. “Okay, so we don’t give him what he wants. We dance instead.”
“Janella,” Iosif says in an aggrieved growl.
“You can pretend you’re dancing on his grave, if that helps.”
At the very least, it pulls a reluctant grin from him.
Chapter 21 - Iosif
My phone lights up my nightstand, ringing shrilly. Blearily, I look around myself. This isn’t my bedroom. It’s Janella’s.
I shoot out of bed when Trifon’s name flashes on the screen. Right beneath the clock, reading 2:34 AM.
