She’s worth it.
Hell, she’s worth more.
I close my eyes and see her again. This time, I focus on the way her cheeks turned that gorgeous tint of pink when I told her how beautiful she is. Perfect. My mind drifts to the way her thighs trembled when I pushed inside of her. Then the way she looked at me afterwards, dazed, sated, and so fucking conflicted that it made my chest tighten in a way I wasn’t ready for.
She thinks I’m a monster.
I don’t blame her.
A knock at my door pulls me back into reality.
“Come in.”
The doors open and Amanda Reed steps in.
She’s dressed in a charcoal-gray skirt suit, her dark hair pulled back, heels clicking against the hardwood. Professional and polished, Amanda’s the kind of woman who belongs in boardrooms and courtrooms.
But not my bed, not anymore.
“We need to talk,” she says, closing the door behind her and locking it with a click.
Part of me wants to scold her for not at least sending a text to let me know she was coming, but I push the thought away, as it would only prompt a fight that I’m not in the mood for.
I gesture toward one of the chairs across from my desk.
“By all means.”
But she doesn’t sit. Instead, she leans on one of them with her arms crossed.
“You brought her here,” Amanda says sharply, “into your home, Gabriel. What the hellwere you thinking?”
“I was thinking she’d be dead by morning if I didn’t.”
She sighs, shaking her head. “So you put a target on your back instead? On all of us? Kolya Sokolov wanted her, and you outbid his lieutenant in front of half the city’s Bratva. Do you have any idea what kind of message that sends?”
“That I don’t take orders from Kolya fucking Sokolov.”
“No. Wrong. Always thinking like some cocky general in the middle of a goddamn war. It sends the message that you’re protecting her, that she matters to you.”
“Or it sends the message that I saw a woman I liked and spent the money to buy her.”
Another shake of her head. “This isn’t like you, Gabriel. You’re more strategic than this. Sokolov is absolutely not going to think that you splashed a million just because you liked her smile. He’s going to find out that she’s more than that to you, and when he does…”
“He won’t.”
“You don’t know that.”
I take my feet off the desk and stand, then walk over to the window. The office is on the fourth floor, high enough to see over the hedges and gate, to the sprawl of the city beyond. It’s gray and indifferent, as always.
Somewhere out there, Kolya is plotting, circling, waiting for me to slip.
Maybe I already did.
“Thirty days until the council,” I say, my eyes on the towers of Midtown in the distance.
Another sigh. “God, are you really doing this?”
“I’m removing him, yes.”
