“Your time is our time,pakhan. That is what I am saying.”
I have to fight the urge to cover myself with my arms. This beautiful dress feels like I’m naked. Marat clearly already weighed and judged me, and he found me lacking. Which pisses me off: this old bastard doesn’t know me. He has no clue what I’m capable of, but he talks like I’m a pair of tits attached to ovaries and a pussy and not much else.
“What makes you think you can talk about my wife so casually?” Gabe sounds almost bored. I want to scream at him to do something. How is he letting this old bastard embarrass me? Butthis feels wrong. He was burning with jealous rage when Daniel so much as touched me and spoke a single friendly word. Now it’s like Gabe’s shut himself off, like his emotions have been drained out, and I don’t understand it.
“The girl is nothing. She’s, how does it go, she’s amarionetka, a little puppet.” He mimes making a doll dance on strings. “I know you, Gabriel. People are contracts.”
Gabe leans forward. “And do you think our contract means you can insult the woman I married?” There’s a glimmer of anger in his expression, a sharpening of his eyes, and the room feels like it’s about to explode with tension. Men are watching, most pretending to be disinterested, but we’re the focus of a room filled with violent, hardened men, and the moment’s teetering on disaster.
I don’t know what makes me do it. Maybe I’m tired of the way I’m treated, like I’m nothing but a checkbook. These men don’t know me, they have no idea what I’ve been through, and they sure as hell don’t have any clue what I plan on doing in the future. They think I’m weak, and they should. I’ve spent the night reinforcing their preconceived ideas about me, all because I learned to make myself small a long time ago.
“Actually, Mr. Marat, I have no strings, and my husband does not have access to my bank accounts. If any of you want to fund your conflict with my money, you’ll have to get my permission first.”
The room goes still. Marat looks at me in surprise. His shaggy eyebrows raise. Gabe pulls back, expression unreadable, but he doesn’t seem upset that I’m undermining him. If anything, there’s a strange fascination.
“Are you telling me, Mrs. Kiselyov?—“
“My surname is Russo now.” I raise my chin, heart rate hammering. I’m not sure if that’s officially true or not, but it doesn’t matter. The point stands. “And what I’m telling you is you should be more respectful if you want something from me in the future.”
Marat’s jaw tightens. His grip on his cigar threatens to break it in half.
Laughter shatters some of the tension. Daniel’s head is thrown back as he howls. Several more of the men join him, cheering for their Pakhan’s new wife in garbled, alcohol-slurred Russian, all while Gabe continues to watch me with naked fascination. After a moment, he turns to Marat and speaks quietly, so most of the room can’t hear over the roar of drinking and cheers.
“Speak to my wife like that again and I will cut your throat myself. She is my partner now. You will respect it.”
Marat’s eyes dart to Gabe. He nods once, sharply. “Yes, Pakhan. I see I was mistaken.”
Gabe holds the man’s gaze. There's more going on I don’t fully grasp. But then Gabe whirls away, grabs my arm, and drags me to a side door. More shouts and cries of joy follow and I catch glimpses of shots, cigars puffing, good-natured punches and a few hugs?—
Until I’m dragged into a short hallway and pushed into a cramped storage room. Gabe roughly slams the door, drags a table covered in extra pans and cleaning supplies in front of it, and whirls on me.
“What the fuck was that?” I hiss at him and have to force myself to unclench my fists. My knuckles are white and my head’s dizzy. “You let him walk all over me.”
His gaze is blazing with rage and something else. I should back down. This man isn’t safe.
But I stay where I am, facing him.
“You have no idea what I’m going to do to him for that,kukolka.”
Little doll. I shiver at the nickname.
“I’m supposed to trust some vague revenge? He embarrassed me, Gabe.”
“Right now, I need Marat alive and thinking he’s in control. That’s all you have to understand.” He steps closer. The space is tight, and he’s large enough to fill it. His smell assaults me, spicy and sharp, and the hungry way his eyes raze down to my breasts and back to my lips makes all the anger drain out, replaced by something else, something dark and primordial.
“They all think I’m your toy. You do too. That’s why you’re calling me your little doll.”
His lips quirk. “You like it,kukolka?”
“I hate it.”
“Good.” He reaches out fast and grips my hair. I gasp, arching unconsciously, pressing into him. He pulls me tight against him. “You shouldn’t have spoken out of turn.”
“Fuck you.” But he’s probably right. I don’t fully understand the stakes of the game we’re playing. I should trust him, but I don’t.
“Ah, darling, not yet.” He leans down, pulling my hair, revealing my throat. I push my hands to his muscular chest. His heart’s racing, which is a surprise. “You made my life more complicated, telling them you’re in control of the money… but I fucking liked the way you stood up for yourself.”
“What?” I shake my head, bewildered as his lips kiss along my neck. “You… liked it?! I was trying to give you a hard time.”
