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“Yes. Yes, she is.”
“Do you want to eat in the dining room, or should I ask the staff to serve the food in here? There’s a wedding reception in the ballroom, so it might be busier than usual in the bar tonight.”
At one time, I’d have broken out in hives at the thought of a private dinner with a man like Nico Belinsky, and the fact that I didn’t start sweating at the suggestion made me oddly proud. Plus I knew Emmy would never knowingly put me in a position where I could be in danger. A melon baller… She probably kept it in her desk drawer alongside her Walther PPQ and her dick guillotine.
Nico tilted his head to one side, studying me. “We’ll eat in the dining room. Yes, I think you’d be more comfortable with that.”
“I—” Oh, thank goodness. I focused on the tapping against my wrist. Taptap tap tap, taptap taptap taptap, taptap tap, tap. Morse code for DONE. “Yes, the dining room works for me.”
Nico rose gracefully to his feet and motioned toward the door with a hand. “After you, milaya.”
Milaya? Was that Russian? I gave him a suspicious glare as I tucked my notepad, pen, and digital recorder back into my purse. “Are you still being a gentleman?”
He winked, and his polite smile turned the tiniest bit dirty. “Absolutely.”
2
NICO
“Ladies first.”
Nico’s gaze dropped to Hallie’s ass as she walked out of the restaurant ahead of him. Ladies first. It sounded so polite, so chivalrous, but he suspected some horny old fucker in the sixteenth century had come up with the concept as an excuse to check out the goods.
As asses went, Hallie’s wasn’t bad. Nico considered himself something of a connoisseur when it came to the female form. He’d studied women the world over, and he wore his hard-won reputation as a womaniser with pride, because better to be considered a smooth-talking playboy interested in nothing but a good time than risk curious acquaintances digging below the surface. Even now, the darkness still bubbled up on occasion.
A little gift from his late father.
And Hallie was more curious than most. Nico had seen it in her eyes, heard it in her voice as she ran through her questions. That little tilt of the head as she listened. The copious notes she took, even though she was recording the conversation. He didn’t doubt that she’d run a thorough background check on him before she set foot in the hotel, but he was also certain that she didn’t know his whole story. Life in Russia had been hell, but it had been a very private hell. Sure, there was speculation, but when the whispers were about Lev Belinsky, even the wildest rumours had only scratched the surface of his depravity. Nico shuddered at the memory of his father’s pets—the pair of sharks and Tunguska the Siberian tiger in particular. After the old svoloch’s death, one of Nico’s first moves had been to rehome the menagerie to sanctuaries where they could be fed a more appropriate diet.
Fuck, he’d hated that life.
Hated having to kiss up to the thugs that ruled Russia, hated having to dirty his hands and do his father’s bidding, hated being trapped in a cold world where all that mattered was power. Not that he’d let on at the time—back then, indifference had been a shield. A survival mechanism. Indifference mixed with a hint of arrogance. If dear old Dad hadn’t believed that Nico was toeing the family line, the fragments of authority Nico had been amassing like uncut diamonds would have been crushed under the weight of his father’s influence.
Instead, he’d bided his time. Waited. Strategised and formed long-term goals. Prove his loyalty. Convince his father that the global arm of the growing Belinsky empire needed personal oversight and Nico was the man to provide it. Get the hell out of Russia. Simply walking away hadn’t been an option.
In Lev Belinsky’s world, DNA only got a man so far, as Nico’s older brother had found out all those years ago. Officially, the fall from the rear door of the limo had been an accident, a faulty door catch, but eight-year-old Nico had been squashed into the corner of the back seat when his father shoved Yakov out into traffic. The crime? Yakov wanted to study sociology at an American university rather than taking his place as heir. Instead, he’d spent three years in a coma before finally succumbing to the inevitable.
Something stirred in Nico’s gut: guilt. Guilt and a memory of Yakov’s funeral. He should have been sad, but the sadness had passed by that time, and his overriding emotion had become envy. Envy that Yakov was with their mama now while he was stuck with a cruel father and the mudak’s second wife. In those days, Nico had spent as much time as possible in his room, watching YouTube via a VPN, learning how an eleven-year-old boy would act if he weren’t being raised by a psychopath.
Waiting.
Biding his time.
In truth, he’d expected to wait a lot longer than he had.
But she came.
At first, he’d assumed she was just another pretty blonde from the long line of hookers who frequented his father’s bedroom when the fourth Mrs. Belinksky was out doing whatever twenty-five-year-old gold-diggers did, but she’d turned out to be an angel in disguise.
Oh, sure, Nico had made all the right noises about pain and retribution, but in truth, if he ever met the woman who’d killed his father so efficiently, he’d kiss her fucking feet. But she’d disappeared as mysteriously as she’d arrived, a pale-haired ghost with a great ass, an athletic figure, and a rose tattoo on one thigh. And he’d begun dismantling the empire his father had created and building his own. Out with the darkness, in with the light.
None of that could right past wrongs, though. Renée La Rocca’s death had been a tragedy. As death went, defenestration was a quick and relatively painless way to go, but Kaylin was left alive to suffer. No, Renée hadn’t been the best mom in the world—her disturbing lack of judgment in getting involved with Lev Belinsky was testament to that—but she’d been all Kaylin knew.
There was that guilt again.
Guilt by association.
Guilt that half of his DNA had come from a monster.
