Page 4 of Anton

“Hvatit pozoritsya.” Stop embarrassing yourself.

“Maybe you can stay another minute.” She saunters up to him, crouching down, her big brown eyes practically begging me.

“No.” I pull him again. “We have things to do.”

Her full pink lips press together as she rises. “Yeah, I get it.” She shifts her weight, still uncomfortable around me. “You’re, uh…” Her fingers scratch her temple. “A Marinov, right? I remember you from the wedding.”

And there it is. My little target remembers me after all. I’m almost touched.

“I don’t know you. Who are you?”

Her face darkens, practically firing up with embarrassment.

“Thora.” She reaches out her hand. “Thora Whitlock.”

I simply stare at the shape of her small, delicate hand, wondering how many different ways I could break it. When she flinches and pulls her arm back, my eyes flick to her attractive face. I can see why my dog likes it.

“Yes. I know your family,” I tell her. “We’re not friends.”

Blair laughs from behind me.

Thora just shrugs. “You’d be surprised at the kind of people who can become friends, even when the circumstances are a bit tricky.” Her lips snake up at the corner. “Life’s too short, you know? Sometimes you’ve just gotta take the bull by the horns and find friends where you can, or you’ll end up alone.”

“I don’t need friends. I like being alone.”

Her gaze sucks me in until there’s nowhere to go, making the world narrow somehow, but I brush the feeling away.

Far, far away.

“Everyone needs friends, Anton. Even you.”

“I don’t remember telling you my name.”

“You didn’t have to.” She struts back a step. “Your reputation precedes you.”

“Good to know. Now, if you’re done with my dog…” I grip the leash tighter, keeping a distance between them. “I’d like to go now.”

“All right.” Her grin widens. “I’ll see you around…friend.”

“You’re crazy, Thora Whitlock.”

She laughs. “A little crazy might do you some good.”

Then she turns, slides her arm through her friend’s, and doesn’t even look back while I track her all the way to her car, wondering what the hell just happened.

CHAPTER TWO

THORA

“Oh my God,” Blair says as she slides into my Corvette. “That’s the guy you told me about?” She shakes her head. “I guess you forgot to mention the man from the wedding was none other than the sexy baby brother of the head of the Russian mob?”

“Yeah…I guess that part slipped my mind.” I grimace before I drop my head to the back of my seat, my eyes closing as I see him all over again.

His dark brown eyes, staring at me like he was ready to kill me or kiss me—or both. Those few strands of almost-black hair falling past his forehead, the sides buzzed and the top left full enough that all I wanted was to run my fingers through it.

And I sure as hell didn’t miss the ink. At all. The half-skull tattoo covering his right hand, a bleeding rose on the other. His thick neck was inked too.

Blair jerks my arm, yanking me straight out of the very vivid image in my head.