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When I look up, Emily is standing at the end of the hall watching me. She’d looked amazing in that dress, but seeing her with a freshly scrubbed face and in nothing but my shirt, holy fuck, it’s the sexiest goddamn thing I’ve ever seen. Her hair is damp, and she shifts her weight on her bare feet as a light blush hits her cheeks. God, she’s way too innocent for all this.
“Come grab a plate,” Vitaly says, waving her over to the table. “Despite Roman’s low view of our manners, there’s plenty of food left.” He gives her a friendly wink. “A brunette, huh?”
She smiles and takes the plate he offers before looking back to see if I’m going to join in. I smile back and walk over, taking the seat next to her. I’m content to drink my supper, but I still want to be close to her. She scoops out some fried rice and sweet and sour chicken before grabbing an egg roll and one of the sweet teas. Taking a bite, she looks around the table.
“You guys are brothers? I don’t really see the family resemblance.”
“Brothers by choice,” Lev says.
Emily takes another bite and then asks, “So it’s just you five? No other siblings or anything?”
The mood shifts at her question, and she feels it because she quickly darts her eyes to mine. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to pry.”
“It’s my turn to ask you a question,” I say, changing the subject. “What the fuck were you doing there tonight? What were you planning on doing?”
“I wanted to find out what was going on.”
“And you thought you’d just march in there in that dress and get yourself some answers?” I ask, trying to keep my anger in check. “Do you have any idea what they could’ve done to you?”
“Well, I do now,” she says, and I can’t help but give a soft smile at her sassy tone. She looks back at my brothers. “What were you guys doing there?”
“Are you familiar with sex trafficking?” Danil asks her.
“Yeah, I mean, a bit.”
“It happens to a lot of young women where we come from, and we fucking hate it. We heard there’s a big sex trafficking ring here, and we’re trying to take it down.” Danil pauses before adding, “It seems your dad is involved in this, so that’s why Roman was at the fundraiser the other night. We were trying to get more information.”
Emily nods, and I hate the pain I see in her eyes. “I knew something was wrong. I’ve always known the men around him were giant pervs. I could tell that just by the way they acted around me.”
“Have any of them ever hurt you?” I ask, gripping my glass a little tighter.
“No, they make me uncomfortable sometimes with the way they look and the things they say, but they’ve never touched me. My parents are pushing for me to date Connor, though. They want to unite the families or some shit like that.”
“That’s never going to fucking happen.”
Her lips quirk up a bit at my possessive tone. “No, it never is,” she agrees, and then surprises me by resting her hand on my knee and giving it a soft squeeze like she’s trying to reassure me that I don’t need to worry about it. I rest my hand on top of her much smaller one, letting my fingers slip between hers.
“What if you’d seen your dad there tonight?” I ask. “Or any of his friends?”
She shakes her head. “I don’t think my dad or his friends would ever be caught there. They could never be associated with something like that, and there’s way too much of a chance that one of those men might let it slip that they’ve seen the mayor hanging out at the Red Viper. It’s too risky, and my dad’s a lot of things, but he’s not stupid. He knows how to cover his ass.”
“I agree with that,” Danil says. “I’ve already hacked into his computer, and it’s clean. Not a trace of anything suspicious.”
“Not even of his mistresses?” Emily asks. “He’s had several over the years.”
“Nothing. It’s clean, suspiciously clean,” Danil says.
I take another drink and run my thumb over the back of Emily’s hand while I think about everything. I ask Danil in Russian what he thought of the recording I sent him.
“That’s not fair,” Emily says, turning those pretty brown eyes on me. “I want to know what you’re saying. I’m involved in this too.”
“No, you’re not,” I tell her. “And you’d better learn Russian quickly,” I say before switching languages and asking about the private airports nearby, because no way in fuck are they transporting all these girls on a commercial airline.
Emily cuts in with a “What a bunch of bullshit” that makes Vitaly and Lev laugh. “I’m just as mixed up in this now as you are.”
“She’s not wrong,” Danil says.
“She can help,” Matvey says, joining in the conversation for the first time.
