“I don’t have anything against your cousin.” I can feel my heart racing in my chest, a dullthump-thump-thumpagainst my ribcage.
“And yet we have a problem with you.”
He doesn’t sound particularly bothered by that, as if he already has a solution in mind. Possibly more than one. And call me crazy, but I’m not sure I’d like any of them.
“I’m going to tell you something, sweetheart, and I want you to listen closely, because it’s not a suggestion.” He takes a single step forward. “You are fucking with the wrong family.”
I swallow around a dry mouth. “Why are you telling me this?”
“Because you’re cute.” His face splits into a wolfish grin. “And you’ve left a mark in there. I can respect that. I, too, am fond of leaving marks.” His eyes travel hungrily down my figure, nodoubt picturing all the places he’d like to “leave a mark”. It makes me shudder from head to toe.
Not in a good way.
He takes my silence as an invitation. One more step, and he’s right in my face.
He starts lifting a hand to my cheek, and I turn the other way, desperate to find an escape route that isn’t blocked by his body?—
Suddenly, the door bursts open.
Tristan jumps back just before a drunken Maverick notices anything.
Jesus, is no one just enjoying the party?!
“The air is thick tonight,” he calls out with a grin. Then he spits what looks like saliva but smells like bourbon.
It lands near Tristan’s feet.
“You better watch it, half-blood,” Tristan grits out.
“Let’s be real, I am no blood at all. And yet, I’m still more liked in the Bratva than you are, my friend.”
“Not your friend.” Tristan shakes his head once as a warning.
Maverick stumbles right in front of him, wasted as fuck but still sober enough to keep up with a Chadovich threat.
“Pity. I so prefer friends to enemies.”
I consider running back inside. This is not somewhere I should be. Not that I want to be in there, either, but it at least seems safer. Less likely to end in immediate bloodshed.
But before I can go through the doors, two more Chadovichs come out: Yury and Daniil, Tristan’s younger brothers.
Shit.
“What do we have going on here?” one of them asks. He’s still a kid, maybe around Gianni’s age, but is strutting like he’s a grown man.
“Just having a conversation with your brother here about friendship,” Maverick answers with a lazy smirk.
“Again, we aren’t friends.” This time, Tristan punctuates his words with shoves.
Maverick falls on his ass.
Tristan’s brothers burst out in mocking laughter, but it’s short-lived.
It takes all of two seconds for Maverick to get up and lunge at Tristan, taking him to the ground. They roll once before Yury and Daniil grab Maverick and peel him off their brother, holding him while Tristan stands up.
Shit.
Shit, shit, shit.
