“I have a knife, Alessandro” she said, and I felt the blade’s edge against my wrist.
“If you cut me, Katya, I will shoot you, don’t test me.”
When I was sure he wouldn’t be coming back, I lowered the gun and turned to glare at Katya.
This. This was exactly why I couldn’t be at ease since that lunch incident.
I’d been here, drinking at my usual table in the VIP section. My eyes had zeroed in on her the moment she’d climbed up to the VIP section with her friends. I’d been watching when she’d gone to lean against the railing to watch the dancefloor.
In that playsuit that showed off her gorgeous long longs, and flawless back, taking my eyes away hadn’t even crossed my mind.
Then I watched her start to survey the VIP section, and my heart went wild with the anticipation of her locking eyes with me.
But she hadn’t. She’d locked in on somebody else, and I’d shaken my head when I traced the person. Because even though he was alone, she wouldn’t, shouldn’t have thought about confronting him on her own.
But she was Katya Petrenko, and she didn’t know how to back down from a challenge. She must have wanted blood for what had happened.
That stopped her from struggling, and I turned around to face her. I intended for her to see just how pissed off I was, but she held her head up and stared right into my eyes as if I wasn’t holding a loaded gun.
“Do you want to die?!”
“Oh please, I had my knife where it needed to be, and if you hadn’t interrupted, his body would have been limp on the ground by now, so thank you for that.”
“He had a gun pressed against you, Katya. What were you going to do after he shot you?” Because he would have.
“Stab him in the lungs. As planned! The gun was aimed at my stomach. I would have survived.”
She didn’t understand the danger. He could have killed her. He could have planted his henchmen all over the club, waiting for a signal to carry off a wounded Katya and do only God knows what.
Roughly, I shoved her against the wall and tightened my hold on her wrist until she hissed and let the knife drop to the floor. Then I pressed my gun to her stomach gently, and she gasped when she felt it, eye-widening just slightly.
“Is the thought of being my wife, so terrifying, Katya, that you’d want to die.”
Katya scoffed, tilted her chin up, and glared. “Don’t flatter yourself, Ales. To me, you’re only slightly more terrifying than an unfed puppy.”
I looked into her eyes for a moment, the both of us filled with adrenaline from our encounter with Maxim. I could hear her breaths, and feel her heart pounding, despite the thumping electro music of the club.
If I hadn’t spotted her in time…if I hadn’t interfered in time…
“He could have shot you,” I said at last.
“And I would have survived it.”
“Really?” I asked with my head tilted slightly to the side, “but that’s assuming the bullet stayed lodged in. What if it came out? What if it passed through you and came out hitting your spine? What if it injured a vital nerve in your spine and left you dead from the neck down? Then what, Katya? Explain to me what your contingency plan is for that situation, I would love to hear it.”
She glared at me but didn’t say a word. Her eyes were still defiant even though she’d clearly just been shown how stupid she’d been.
She dragged her wrist from my hold, and I let it go. Removing the gun from her stomach, putting the safety back on, and tucking it back where it belonged, I didn’t take my eyes off her, or take a step back.
We stood close together, our bodies not touching even though they almost were, just watching ourselves.
Then she crossed her arms and gave me a quizzical look. “And why are you still standing so close?”
My lips teased into a smile. “We will be married soon, Katya, isn’t that exciting?”
She let out a short laugh, it was so damn filling to hear. “I thought I already told you not to flatter yourself, Ales.”
“I wonder if you’ll call me by a pet name, I already have one planned for you.”