Page 16
Dmitri’s grin thins. “If I wanted you gone,” he says, “you would not have made it to the diner.”
That should comfort me. It does not.
“Then what?” I ask.
He studies my face. The flush I cannot hide. The way I am breathing too fast. The fact that I am still here instead of screaming for a cop I do not trust.
“You wanted a master,” Dmitri says quietly. “That is why you followed a man you already know is dangerous.”
My mouth goes dry. I have not said that to him. I have barely said it to myself in words that clean.
“You don’t know what I want.”
“I know what you did,” Mackensie says. “I know what I sensed from the moment I saw you.”
Nearby, Mackensie shifts his weight. A car passes. Somewhere a siren starts and then fades in another direction.
Dmitri leans in just enough that only I hear him.
“You are coming with me.”
It’s not a question.
“And if I say no?”
Dmitri almost smiles. “Then my friend will walk you home and sit outside until morning. And tomorrow you will still see me. And the day after that. I do not like unfinished things, Elias.”
My name in his mouth lands hotter than it should.
“Fine,” I say. My voice comes out steadier than I feel. “But if this is the part where I end up in a trunk, I will make it ugly.”
Dmitri’s eyes gleam. “Good,” he says. “I prefer ugly to boring.”
He turns. Starts walking. Not grabbing me. Not looking back this time either, because he does not have to.
Mackensie waits one beat, then another, until I move.
I fall in behind Dmitri Pakev with my heart hammering and the taste of hot chocolate still in my mouth and the very clear knowledge that I have just promoted myself from nosy Keller’s Club boy to a problem he intends to keep.
I wanted fast.
I wanted dangerous.
I wanted every day to feel like it might be the last.
Be careful what you ask for, Elias the voice inside my head says… because tonight I got it.
The building is the kind of place I used to walk past and invent lives for.
Old stone. Doormen who look through you unless you belong. Brass that has been polished so many times it feels like a warning.
I belong tonight only because the man beside me says I do.
Dmitri does not touch me on the way in. He does not have to. The doorman sees him and the air changes.
A nod.
A murmured sir.
