“Then go find him!”
“I will.” His tone is cool, final. “But until I do, the debt stays open. And open debts attract attention I don’t need.”
My voice rises. “What do you want from me?”
He studies me for a moment, the faintest hint of something like amusement crossing his features. “A solution.”
“Stop speaking in riddles! A solution to what?”
He leans against the edge of the table, unhurried. “I have to meet some… partners in Italy. Old alliances, delicate negotiations. They like things traditional. Stability. Family.”
“And?”
“I need a fiancée.”
I stare at him. “You’re out of your freaking mind.”
He shrugs, unbothered. “You’d be surprised how persuasive a little domestic illusion can be.”
I cannot pretend to be his fiancée… can I? “And if I say no?”
“Then I find your brother, and when I do, I put a bullet in his head.”
The words land cold and solid in my stomach. For a moment, I can’t breathe. “You can’t just?—”
“Oh, I can,” he says softly. “You have no idea who you’re dealing with.”
The way he says it makes my blood run cold.
He steps forward again. His voice drops, lower, quieter. “Say yes, and I make sure he lives. Say no, and I’ll make sure you never have to wonder what happened to him,” he smiles cruelly which changes his whole face. “I might even invite you to watch.”
For a long second, I can’t speak. I can only hear my heartbeat, heavy and uneven. Is he… Is heinvitingme to watch my brother get murdered?
“This is insane,” I whisper.
He tilts his head slightly, eyes narrowing. “You’d rather bury your brother than pretend to love me for a few weeks?”
“Pretend?”
“I don’t expect affection, Kira. I’m not an idiot. Just obedience and some good acting.”
I watch him, frozen, torn between disbelief and a sick kind of panic. I don’t know what I’m doing until the words leave my mouth. “If you find him—if you touch him—I swear to God?—”
He turns his head slightly, eyes glinting. “You’ll what? Call the police?”
“Yes!”
He laughs softly, and it’s the most terrifying sound I’ve ever heard. “The police work for me. You’ll need much more than a man in uniform to save you.”
Something snaps inside me. Fear, anger, desperation all blur together.
I stride forward and slap him across the face. The sound cracks through the room, sharp and clean. My hand burns instantly. He doesn’t move. The only sign that I even touched him is the faint red mark on his jaw and the look in his eyes, darker now, hotter.
“Get out,” I say through my teeth. “Get out of my apartment.”
His gaze drags down to my hand, then back to my face. For a second, I think he might hit me. But he doesn’t.
Instead, he smiles. “You’ll regret that.”
