I should look down, but it’s too late. I’m watching her. I’m holding my breath.
Contrary to what you might think, when somebody first tastes something they find delicious, you’ll rarely see a blissful look on their face; it’s more like stunned horror. I don’t know why people go with stunned horror when they taste something delicious, but they always do.
So when I see her getting that stunned-horror look, I’m stupidly gratified. I lower my gaze like I don’t care, but my heart is a freaking jackhammer.
“Oh my God,” she says. “Who made this?”
“Didn’t I tell you? We kidnapped Wolfgang Puck, too. Got him back there cooking up a storm. I’m gonna buttfuck him with a baseball bat later.”
She snorts. “Come on, Aleksio, be serious.”
I don’t answer. I shouldn’t be trying to give her good things. I should be doing the opposite, that’s the whole point here.
She takes another bite. This time her eyes drift closed.
“Oh wow. Does this have hazelnuts?”
“What are you, a reporter for Gourmet Magazine?”
“It’s delicious.”
I look down at my plate with my heart soaring because I made her feel good. Stupid. It’ll just make hurting her harder.
Don’t let the breaking game break you, Viktor said.
Chapter Eight
Mira
Aleksio has unfairly long, lush eyelashes—giraffe fringes, Mom used to call them—and when he gazes down at his food, those fringes hide his eyes completely. He knows it, of course. He wants to cut me off, shut me out.
He’s not that sweet boy anymore—I know that. He’s no longer my friend. But he held me as I cried—that was real.
The way he told me about his burn felt like a secret just for me.
And the way we felt together—sexually—I’ve never experienced anything like it.
I shouldn’t care about him. He’s the last man I should feel anything for.
I refuse to believe he’ll cut off my finger.
God, he can’t—the shock of seeing my finger could kill Dad—for real. Aleksio doesn’t know it, and I can’t tell him, but Dad gets violently ill at the sight of blood. And that’s the kind of shock that’s dangerous to his heart.
Nobody knows about Dad’s aversion to blood. It’s a secret he guards even from his closest associates. A secret he asked Mom and me never to divulge.
A mafioso can’t have an aversion to blood—no way. It makes him look weak in the world of the Albanian clans, and it’s especially bad for the supposedly fierce leader of the vicious Black Lion clan.
My guess is that he’s been around blood plenty of times in his life, but that he never looks directly at it—he pretends. That’s how he hides it. But if he opens a box with my bloody finger in it? The shock would be too much for his heart. The shock would kill him.
But the film clip could kill him, too.
No—we’ll find the key code. It’s out there somewhere. Their guy tracked down the director already.
Nobody can see that clip.
Except maybe me. What would it be like to watch us like that?
I flash on the way he looked down at me when I had him in my mouth.
He looked down at me like I was the most amazing thing he’d ever seen. Like we were connected in this crazy, wrong way. Aleksio, sitting over me in all his brutal glory, my sweet friend Aleksio grown into a dangerous man.
Moving up Aleksio’s legs felt wrong and good. I liked that I had no choice. It made it hotter.
How twisted is that?
All my life I’ve been trying to get out from under the thumb of men like him, and suddenly I’m crawling up his legs, begging to be used. But that’s the thing about having no choice—you do it no matter what. You do it if you hate it, and you do it if it’s a twisted thing you find out that you enjoy.
It took me by surprise when he grabbed my hair, taking control so violently. My whole body came to attention. His cock tasted of man and secrets and everything forbidden.
All I wanted was for him to push me harder, and he did.
God, the way he talked to me. The names. The intensity of his breath. The way we spun out of control.
His roughness a forbidden gift. Aleksio always went too far. The roughness felt…familiar.
I know you, I thought.
And then he turned it into something ugly with the camera and the gun.
I sigh and twirl my fork.
He doesn’t have his suit jacket on; just a loose tie over his white button-down shirt. All that white in contrast with his chocolaty hair that’s a little too long. He went on a run earlier, and he apparently shaved after; his cheeks are smooth and clear, making him look deceptively innocent. Angelic.
“We’re showing it to him as soon as he wakes up.”
“It’ll kill him.”
He stabs his fork into the greens. “You should pray we find the key, then.”
“It’s just a matter of time.”
He cuts a bit of frittata and holds it up, examining it. “How does a spoiled princess who does international shopping as an extreme sport know about anatomization keys or whatever?”
My pulse races.
Aleksio is exactly the kind of person we don’t want knowing about my real life.
I shrug. “Are you telling me you never picked up any useless information in life?”
If he realizes I’m answering a question with a question, he doesn’t show it.
I take another bite of the best meal I’ve eaten all year, not that Aleksio seems to care.
Little Vik comes out. Whatever he has to say, it’s bad.
Aleksio sees it, too. “What?”
He shakes his head.
Aleksio stands and pulls his brother away. I sense trouble, chaos. Doors slam inside the house. Guys moving out.
I stare at Aleksio’s phone, still on the table. His phone.
I look from Aleksio and Viktor to the phone and back to Aleksio. I could grab it and delete the video—this is my chance. He may have backed it up, but I have a feeling he didn’t, considering how busy he’s been.
He’ll be angry. And it’s a gamble, but I don’t believe Aleksio will take my finger in the end.
I won’t believe it.
I snatch the phone. I find the file, hit delete, confirm delete. Just like that it’s gone. I set it back down and pick up my fork.
Aleksio comes back and grabs his phone and suit jacket. He swings it on and fixes his shirt cuffs.
Blood whooshes in my ears. I hope I made the right choice. “What’s going on?”
“Ligne is dead.”
My jaw drops. “Frankie? Frankie Ligne?”
Aleksio nods.
“Are you sure?”
“Most certainly dead, yes,” Viktor says.
“He’s just a sweet old man. Why would you—”
“We didn’t kill him,” Viktor spits.
“Who?”
“Bloody Lazarus,” he growls.
“Why would Lazarus kill somebody from his own organization? My father’s confidant…”
Viktor gives me a jaded look. Like, really? Two of the Russians come out, all suited up and holstered.
It can’t be true. “Lazarus wouldn’t kill Ligne. They’re on the same side.”