My stomach dropped, but I didn’t let it show. “To get me back.”
“Yes.”
I took a slow breath. The house felt quieter suddenly, as if it were listening. My father didn’t care about my well-being. He cared about his investments. And God… the thought of what he’d do to me if he found out what I’d done with Dmitry, which “ruined” me in his eyes. I’d be useless to him.
“What happens if you don’t?” I asked.
“Won’t,” he said, hard and so fierce that I knew I wouldn’t be going anywhere. Dmitry turned back to me, his expression now unreadable. “He’ll make threats and start calling in fakes and pulling strings.”
“Like what?” I don’t want him to soften a damn thing.
“He’ll lean on people connected in our organization.”
I knew he meant the organization as a whole. Organized crime that housed all criminal factions.
“He’ll start problems.” His eyes locked on mine.
Even if my father didn’t want me back, this was an affront of all aspects, a stain on his prowess and control. It would make him look weak if he didn’t get me back, so I knew he’d go to whatever lengths to ensure he got his way.
Dmitry’s phone buzzed again in his hand, but he ignored it as he stared at me.
“I want to be there with you when you meet him,” I said.
“No.” The answer was immediate and absolute.
“I wasn’t asking,” I replied quietly, tipping my chin up and hoping he saw my defiance. “I’m telling you.”
He stepped closer, looming now, every inch of him a warning and protection all wrapped together. “I don’t want you anywhere near him.”
“I know, and I don’t want to see him either, but I need to be there… for myself,” I said.
That made him pause.
I stood and closed the distance, chin up, voice steady even though my heart hammered. “You said you wanted me to choose this life,” I said. “This is part of it.”
He stared down at me for a long beat, eyes dark and unreadable, as if he were measuring every risk against every instinct screaming to keep me locked away. Then he exhaled through his nose, slow and controlled.
“You stay in the car,” he said, voice low and final. “Off-site. Out of sight. The thought of him even looking at you again makes me want to put a knife through his throat and watch him bleed out slowly.”
He didn’t soften the threat. Didn’t dress it up. Just let it sit there, raw and real.
I swallowed, fear and resolve twisting together in my chest, but I didn’t back down. “I can do that.”
His jaw twitched once. Then he nodded, sharp and reluctant. “You stay silent. You don’t move. If he so much as senses you’re close, I’ll end him with a bullet, damn the blowback.”
I nodded back, feeling the weight of it settle in my chest. There was fear, yes, but also something fiercer. Something that felt like the start of being unbreakable.
He cupped my jaw with one big tattooed hand, thumb pressing just hard enough to remind me I was here with him. “You’re mine, Zoya. Not his. Not anyone else’s. Ever. And I’ll protect you even if it puts me in the ground.”
Then he kissed me once, claiming every part of me with his lips and tongue until I knew everything would be okay. When he broke the kiss, he rested his forehead against mine for a second, and then turned his attention back to the phone when it rang.
“Andrey,” Dmitry answered on speaker, voice flat and cold like ice.
“Dmitry. You’ve had your fun.” My father’s voice slithered through the line, all smooth and oiled, like he was closing a deal instead of bargaining for his daughter’s return.
My jaw clenched so hard my teeth ached.
“The information was delivered,” Andrey continued. “Everything you wanted. Names. Routes. Accounts. We’re square now, give me back what’s mine.”
