What?
“I’m not going anywhere,” she said again in case he misunderstood her.
“I believe you, Miss.”
She opened her mouth then closed it and seethed in silence. Yuric was zero help because he matched her silence, moment for moment.
It could have been an hour or three before she cracked.
“I need to pee,” she said haughtily.
“Of course, Miss. This way, please.”
She really wanted to not like Yuric but that was impossible to do and it just made her madder.
She followed him into the magnificent house and their scent, that distinct scent of their cologne, of themselves, wafted through the air and latched onto her. They seem to be everywhere around her even in their absence. Inescapable. And yet addictive.
Once she was directed to a bathroom that was a bit too ridiculously big but furnished with a master hand, she had to give herself a chance to escape and made a beeline for the phone. But no matter what buttons she pressed, she couldn’t connect to anyone.
“The phones aren’t working,” she said to Yuri as soon as she exited the bathroom.
“Only for you, Miss.”
“Of course,” she said with false sweetness.
Yuri suggested she would be more comfortable in the library and within moments of depositing her there, a tray of refreshments was brought up to her.
She paced the floor instead. She couldn’t be alone with them. They were already in very bad moods, with the whole thing that went down with Anton Kozlov and she had just shot their reputations to hell with her viral shenanigans. It would be impossible that they weren’t aware of it because, well, Roland had emailed them all directly.
“Where is she?”
The sound of Damien’s thundering voice vibrated around her and she sprang up from the sofa on which she had been sitting for no more than a few minutes.
They were going to kill her. And they brought her here so they could easily dispose of her corpse. And she still had her cousin’s bachelorette party to host. She was too young to die. And yet the commencement felt like arousal. The heat under her skin climbed and covered her whole body. Her nipples, which had already been annoyingly tight and aching, swelled even more. Wetness coated her pussy lips and she was maddeningly aware that she was soaking her panties.
The door flew open and for the second time, they made a roaring entrance.
Except for this time she was in their lair.
Chapter Thirteen
It had required an insurmountable amount of control not to squeeze the life out of Anton Kozlov. The man was lucky Damien and his brothers didn’t give in to the need to end him.
Anton’s whole approach had been to aggravate them into acting rashly. They wouldn’t. They didn't get to where they were because they acted out of emotion. And there was still that peace treaty that their father had signed with Anton’s father after the Kozlovs had suffered a devastating defeat by the Shlykovs.
The Kozlovs had been humiliated and humbled and their chief had begged for their lives to be spared. Their father soon declared that no Shlykov shall take the life of a Kozlov, something that Damien and his brothers upheld to this day. But their father always had a weak spot. He was easily swayed especially by women and that was why by the time he died, the Shlykov Bratva were on a slippery slope to becoming extinct in the world of the Russian Mafia. Damien had made sure that never happened. He brought his family name back to where it belonged. At the top. And he gave up alcohol and women to do that.
When Anton’s brother, the one who kept the peace, had died and Anton took over he promised he would be the one to overthrow the Shlykov Bratva through sheer territorial domination in retaliation for the humiliation their family had suffered.
They weren’t going to remove Anton from the face of the planet permanently, even though he was a colossal dick, but he had become a nuisance and they were going to cripple him so severely he would be worth nothing in the end.
They needed Merring Street and they needed it yesterday, except there was a stunning, infuriating dark-haired girl standing in their way.
The utter anger that had run through his veins when they heard she was in the company of Kozlov was nothing compared to the wrath raging through his entire body at the sight of Kozlov touching her.
He couldn’t understand the range of the fury which engulfed him and how he couldn’t get a handle on it. But one look at his brothers and he knew they shared the same feelings. For crucial moments they forgot their father’s peace treaty with the Kozlovs. He saw the same things that filled his mind in theirs. Images of them breaking Kozlov apart into tiny pieces for daring to touch her.
At that moment he knew he had to stay away from her.