He lowers his head and gazes at me. “For your information, I’m familiar with box breathing.”
That takes the wind out of my sails. “Oh.” We stare at each other for a moment, until I brighten. “See, it worked!”
“What are you blabbering about now?”
“You’re not mad anymore. You calmed down.”
“How did it work? I wasn’t the one doing all the heavy breathing.”
“I know, but watching me do the box breathing calmed you down. That’s how effective it is. It can even work on other people by osmosis!”
He stares at me for a beat, blue eyes feverish with the urge to commit homicide. His voice comes out thick. “I can honestly say, and I mean this with all sincerity, I’ve never met anyone quite like you, lass.”
My smile could blind a man. “You’re welcome. Oh, by the way, I was thinking.”
“Did it hurt?”
“Look at you go with the snappy comebacks! I’m a good influence on you.”
“If this is you being a good influence on me, I should kill myself immediately.”
I wave that off. “I think I figured out why you keep saying I started a war. And you’re wrong.”
He stares at me for a moment. “I have a feeling I should be sitting down for this.”
I gesture to the nearest chair. “Be my guest.”
“You do recall this is my home, correct? You’re my guest.”
“I’ve been upgraded from captive to guest? Cool.”
He scowls. “No. That’s not what I—oh, fuck. Never mind.”
He drops into the chair and sits there like he’s in Death’s waiting room, praying for his number to be called.
I sit across from him and fold my legs underneath me. When he directs his scowl at my folded legs, I simply smile. “As I was saying. This war you keep accusing me of starting. It all began with a dinner at La Cantina in Lake Tahoe, didn’t it?”
He doesn’t respond.
“Okay, maybe you didn’t know that. Or you did, and you’re just being your usual dazzlingly charming self. Either way, I remember Stavros telling me that a war was brewing. Well, technically, he didn’t tell me, I overheard it. Okay, fine, I was eavesdropping on him and his crew, but the point is, this was only a few days after the gunfight at La Cantina where some Irish gangsters were killed. That part you obviously know about.”
I pause, examining his expression. “Why are you so quiet?”
“I don’t plan murder out loud.”
“Ha. Back to the dead Irish gangsters. They came to our table during dinner and had words with Stavros. Don’t ask me what was said, because it was all in Russian and Gaelic, but the whole kerfuffle started in the first place because one of the Irish guys slapped my ass when I was walking beside Stavros on the way to our table when we first came in. Stavros nearly blew a gasket, but I managed to get him to walk away. But all bets were off when Mr. Ass Slapper showed up again in the middle of dinner.”
Declan leans forward and props his elbows on his knees. He steeples his fingers under his chin and says softly, “Did it ever occur to you that I know exactly what happened inside that restaurant?”
“How could you know if you weren’t there?”
“I know everything.”
I scoff. “So you’re omniscient? Please.”
“The point is that I know you were the reason it all went sideways in the first place. You, swinging that ass in that tiny white dress you were wearing. You, strutting around like you owned the place. You, flashing that smile at a man you passed by, even though you already had one on your arm.”
Anger unfurls like a snake’s coils inside my belly. I sit back in my chair and gaze at him.
“That’s a nasty little manipulation called ‘victim blaming.’ Not that I’m a victim, but the premise holds, and it’s utter bullshit.”
His voice hardens. “Those dead men aren’t bullshit.”
“No, but you mansplaining their deaths as the inevitable fallout from seeing my ass and my smile is. Men pulling guns on each other because a woman smiled in the wrong direction is caused by their infantile egos, unchecked aggression, and overinflated sense of entitlement, not by her.”
We glare at each other. Somewhere in the room, a clock ticks.
Or maybe that’s the bomb he set for me.
Holding his hard gaze, I say more softly, “You know I’m right. And I understand the loss of your men must be hard for you. But people are responsible for their own actions. It’s unfair—not to mention inaccurate—to pin this war on me.”
He closes his eyes. He’s silent for what seems like a very long time. I have no idea what he’s thinking, until he says quietly, “Aye.”
I nearly fall out of my chair.
When he opens his eyes and sees my face, his expression sours. “I could do without the bloody gloating.”
“It’s more like shock. But I’ll try.”
He stands and starts to pace. I watch him stalking back and forth in agitation and decide to let him work off steam without interruption. It looks like he’s brewing something important in that giant noggin of his.
If I’m lucky, it might be to my benefit.
He pulls up short and stares at me down his nose. A ruthless dictator couldn’t look more imperious. He commands, “Tell me everything you know about Kazimir Portnov.”
“First: no. Second: why?”
“Because he’s my enemy. And you’re my captive. And you know him.”
“Yes, I do know him. He’s my friend.”
When that makes Declan’s eyes turn black, I say, “Okay, technically we’re not friends friends. I only formally met him that one time at the doomed dinner. But my girlfriend is madly in love with the guy, and she’s an extraordinarily good person. She’s practically Mother Teresa. If she likes him, he can’t be all that bad.”
“Women in love are notoriously poor judges of character.”
He says that so darkly, with such raw pain behind the words, it makes me stop and wonder. “Have experience in that department, do you?”
He blows right past that and demands, “How did your girlfriend meet him?”
I take a moment to compose myself, knowing that what I’m going to say won’t go over well. And god only knows how Declan will react, considering the mood he’s in. But it has to be said.
There are just some lines that can’t be crossed.
I look him straight in his icy blue eyes. “I say this not out of disrespect for you, but out of love and loyalty for my friend. None of your fucking business.”
When he opens his mouth—no doubt to holler a threat—I talk over him, my voice loud.
“I will never, ever, not in a million years betray Natalie. Do what you will to me. Beat me, starve me, keep me locked up in this room forever, I don’t care. She’s all the best parts of me, and a better person than I could ever dream of being, and I love her like a sister. I take that back—I love her more than my sister. And not in a gay way, before you start in on that again. I just love her. Which means I’ve got her back. Which means I’m not telling you jack shit about her or her man, no matter how much you don’t like it.”