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"I can arrange food. Water. A blanket, perhaps." He says it pleasantly. "You only need to ask."

"I'd like to go home."

He smiles. "That depends on your husband."

"My husband is going to give you whatever you want," I say. "And then he's going to spend the rest of his life making sure you regret ever breathing in my direction."

Anton studies me. "You're very confident for a woman in your position."

"And you're very relaxed for a man in his."

"Your husband humiliated me," Anton says. “And I don’t take that very well.”

"You think this ends with you getting what you want?" I scoff.

"I think this ends with your husband sitting across a table from me, signing over Fortune."

"And then what? You let me go, Dante shakes your hand, and you're even?"

"Something like that."

I shake my head. "You don't know my husband at all."

Anton's expression doesn't change. "I know enough."

"No." I hold his gaze. "You don't."

He wants me to see a man who is calm and in charge.

But I see a man who just made a grave mistake.

"Your husband has been very disrespectful."

"Has he?"

"I wanted to play nice, but he made that impossible."

“Don’t take it personal, but my husband doesn’t play well with others.”

“Oh, I took it very personal.”

“So I can see.”

“Dante needs to learn that he isn’t the king he thinks he is. That when Anton Grazalov calls and requests a meeting, he fucking meets me.”

"Maybe he was busy."

"He wasn't busy. He was sending a message." Anton leans forward and pins his icy cold gaze to mine. "He was telling me that I am beneath him. That I don't deserve his time."

“Well, maybe you don’t.”

Which wasn’t the right thing to say, because he slams his palm onto the tabletop, making me jump.

The rage passes as fast as it came. He rolls his shoulders and spreads his hands. "So here we are. He wouldn't come to me. So I took something of his."

I lift my eyebrows, but don’t say anything.

"To him, you're everything. Which makes you very valuable."