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My jaw tics. As if she were to blame for any of this.
“When?” is all I can grit out.
She thinks. “When we first met, I didn’t realize who he was at the time. I’m certain he knew who I was all along. He promised me things like connections, jobs to dance in, and introducing me to a different circle. I thought he was kind and saw potential in me.”
The fork bends beneath my grip.
“But that fantasy came crashing down very quickly. Before I knew it, I was a possession. Property. And it was already too late; I’d unknowingly been isolated after two years. But I supposed there were signs along the way. A man of that power and influence had tell signs, just as you do.”
“Don’t compare me to him,” I grit, and she flinches under the harsh tone. “I’m sorry.” Because scaring her is the last thing I want to do. I refuse to be anything like him. “Did he touch you?”
Silence. She’s looking into her hands beneath the table. Tears begin to spill, and all my fiery rage and fury tug on me to burn this entire building to the ground. To find some type of destructive release. But all I see is her crying amongst my own raging storm. I go to stand, an incidental wince escaping me as I’m reminded of my ribs.
“Dmitri?” she says concerned.
“It’s nothing,” I say as I kneel in front of her and wipe away her tears.
“I’m sorry,” she sobs. My jaw tics because I want to know every place he touched her, but I’m also aware if I have that knowledge, there’s no coming back from it.
“I know he’s using me to get to you. When he told me he was moving me back to New York, I was relieved but confused about why. The only connection he had here was you. Everything he does is just a big game.”
I have eyes and ears everywhere looking for his movement, but not once had he stepped back into the city after the Italian mafia ran the last of his cousin’s operations out, who just so happened to be head of the Bratva almost twenty years ago. Now, only a few businesses run, but nothing so grand as to what they control on their home soil in Russia. “Do you see him still? Does he come to New York?”
She attempts to ease the crying, but that stubborn resolve slowly returns. “I haven’t since coming here. But he will.”
Every fiber in my body tightens. “When?”
“I don’t know. I never know what he’s thinking or what he’ll do.” She leans into my shoulder, and I hug her, holding her so tightly, terrified that she might just go up in smoke. Her trembling and tears break me from the inside. I should’ve never let her go in the first place.
He’s taken so much from her. And I had to be the asshole to pry because right now, she’s the only connection I have to him. And I refuse to use her as bait. But if I can learn anything, I’ll figure out a way to end this finally.
“He mentioned you often,” she says as she wipes at her tears.
My blood runs cold.
I have no doubt, considering how I’ve slowly pried his influence out of New York over the years. Anything that he touched, owned, or so much as pissed on—I claimed as mine.
Except this.
She wasn’t property.
Elanee takes a shaky breath and pulls back. Her lips are close, and her hot breath flushes against mine.
My body’s rigid as I fight every ounce of control.
I want her.
I always have.
Most likely, I always will.
But she made it clear it wasn’t mutual, and I’d be an ass for making a move on her now.
She was the only one I’d felt this type of restraint for.
The only one—
Her feather-light lips are moist from tears when they brush against mine. And it snaps the tiny thread of control I’ve ever had around this woman.
