Sevastyan spoke softly again, his body in her personal space. As if his heat reached across the short distance to soothe her, everything in her calmed. “I think you’ve proven a point without killing the man in front of witnesses.” He leaned in to where only she heard his next words. “If you needed someone dead, all you needed was to ask.”
Right. She’d think more on that part later. Right now her mind snapped back to reality and the sudden realization crept up and smacked her across the face. Everything weighed on her so heavily that the one target she knew was guilty of something almost received the brunt of her pent-up rage. Deserved or not, she wasn’t that person.
She held Bjorn’s gaze as he pushed to his feet, a slimy smirk on his face.
“Never mistake my kind smile and size for weakness, slime ball.” Seething with fury, she pelted him with her words like well-aimed daggers.
Someone really did need to take this dude out back for some backstreet hard-learned lessons on how to be human. The more she looked at him the more of an animal she saw, and she almost felt sorry for him.
“Five minutes and I’ll get answers. He has Maya somewhere. I know it.” She had all of zero minutes under the belt of knowing how to get people talking, and she bet this piece of garbage wouldn’t be an easy beast to tame, but she would love to give it a try.
Sure, he could get a few licks in, but this guy was like the bully she dealt with back in prep school before her father pulled her and hired private tutors. Money did provide protection growing up and the best in self-defense lessons. Once all the snooty bitches who thought they were better than everyone else caught wind she was the daughter of one of her father’s many mistresses and left on a doorstep, the torment those stuck-up asses dished never ended. Until one day she found her fists worked better than anything she could ever say. Some people were just that hard-headed. Bjorn was no different. Though money made him above the law in his eyes, there were several forms of law she was quickly learning.
She had to stand up for herself in school then, and she would do it again now since Maya couldn’t do it for herself.
She raked a quick look over the man that stood at the same height as Sevastyan. “He’s all talk and no brawn. He’s proven the truth of it right here and right now.”
Sevastyan kept his attention focused on Bjorn, who wiped at his lip where he apparently bit it when he dropped like dead weight after her knee made an introduction to his ball sac.
“I have no doubt. Your Maya is very lucky to have such a brave friend.”
Sevastyan signaled for security. Each put a hand on Bjorn’s wide shoulders and pushed him forward.
Roman came in behind them and nailed her with a damn-it-woman look that had her brows hitching in unison. She canted her head as if to say, oh well. And she meant it.
“Is there a problem?”
Both Sevastyan and Rhia turned at the sound of a thickly accented voice behind them.
A man with long inky hair pulled tight against the nape of his neck stood five feet from them. He had eyes so dark they looked like pits of tar and a thick beard paired with a bright red suit that screamed look at me. But the gold rings on his hands encrusted with diamonds spoke loudest. He had money and lots of it. What he lacked in height he made up for with bodyguards. And from enough time spent around the kings, she picked up that it wasn’t a flask they carried under those jackets. They were all packing.
Great. More moody fucking mobsters to deal with.
“Please, do not let me interrupt the party.” He gestured with an opened hand toward Bjorn.
Mystery man’s eyes steadily trained on Sevastyan before they found her. They say you can take the crime lord out of Russia, but he was still a crime lord.
On that level, he and Sevastyan were toe to toe.
And this man wore the truth of it like a second suit. Sophisticated and polished never looked so smooth on a man before, but nothing could hide the sinister vibe that snaked around her throat like a vise grip.
She knew him. She’d seen him with her father a few times, but another man had always been with him. Or at least the times that she had seen them. A man with spider tattoos like Sevastyan’s and the one that matched the one drawn on the matchbook. Her mind turned over the dates and timelines, trying to piece together everything she remembered. It had been close to a year now since she’d last seen the man with the tattoo. She had surprised her father for his birthday at the office and walked in on a meeting.
A movement behind him caught her eye and shoved her thoughts into park.
Behind him stood a woman she couldn’t see.
“Come, dear, don’t be shy to introduce yourself.” Mystery man tugged on the leash.
Rhia’s mouth fell open and her grip tightened around Sevastyan’s hand at the sight of a collar and leash. A woman dressed in a short black barely-there dress and heels that made her dark legs go on for miles stepped around the mystery man and raised her gaze until the light from the room highlighted a familiar heart-shaped face.
“Maya?” The name choked her words. “What the hell is going on here, Sevastyan?”