đź–¤ Leonardo
I looked around the open restaurant one last time, still feeling the uneasy about having the meeting here. This was the final dinner, the last political formality before the wedding on Sunday, and Russians had insisted we had it In an open restaurant.
On a normal day, I would have refused but became I had felt the urge to see her again after the engagement, I agreed without thinking about it. Yet she had come in without even acknowledging me. I kept my denials on a high loop in my head: It meant nothing. It was pure release. She was tempting, and I took it. That was all. I wasn't bothered by the way she had shoved me off her bed, or the murderous look on the guard's face as the door closed. I certainly wasn't bothered by the two days of not seeing her after it and wondering what she was thinking or doing.
Yet, here we were, seated opposite each other at the massive restaurant table, and she refused to even cast a stare my way. Not once. She acted as though I were a structural pillar, necessary, but entirely invisible.
I watched her subtly, tracking every movement. Her posture was too rigid, her back too straight. Something had happened. Had the guard told her father? Had she been ordered to stay away from the Italian scum? The idea that some old Russian general could dictate who she spoke to, after she had been screaming my name beneath me, made my jaw clench.
She excused herself from the table, claiming she needed the washroom. Five minutes passed. The air felt stale. I pushed my chair back, an action that pulled every eye in the room to me but I ignored them all and followed her. I didn't know if I wanted to have her locked up somewhere only I knew or pin her against the wall and demand an explanation for the silence. Probably both.
I saw her standing at the entrance to the washroom corridor. She was talking to a guy.
My blood ran cold with immediate, feral possessiveness. I started to stride toward her, ready to rip the man's skin off and send him back to whatever he came from, but the conversation ended before I reached them. The guy turned and walked away, He was wearing a ridiculous white apron and a bow tie. A waiter.
A fucking waiter. She would rather give her attention to a disposable servant than meet my gaze?
She finally turned, spotting me. She didn't flinch. She just turned to walk away, as if I were a piece of furniture that had suddenly been moved into her path.
I reached out and grabbed her wrist. "Where do you think you're going?"
She yanked her hand free with violent strength, her eyes flashing black fire. "What is your problem? Why are you trying to hold me back?"
"What is your problem?" I shot back, keeping my voice low, I didn't want her to know how much this whole thing angered me. "You've ignored me for the whole night. Did someone say something?"
"Why would someone say something? There's nothing to say." She spat the words out like bullets.
I looked at her, searching her face for the cracks, the guilt, the fear. "Stop the performance, Nicole. What is this all about?"
Then she hit me with the one line that cut through the fury and landed squarely on my denial.
"You are my sister's fiancé, not mine."
I felt a nasty, triumphant smirk twist my mouth. "Ah. This is what it is, huh? You're jealous."
Her expression froze. I watched the frantic internal battle, the desperate effort to hide the truth.
"I don't even like you," she said, her voice strained, but steady. "So there's nothing to be jealous about."
Something snapped. Her casual dismissal of what we had shared, her willingness to pretend it was nothing while her body had been screaming my name, ignited a cold, inexplicable rage.
"That's right," I spat, leaning close, forcing her to inhale my breath. "It was a fling. A hot, angry moment. And we can keep having flings, Nicole. It doesn't matter who the hell's fiancé I am, people have flings every day. There's no more to it, it didn't mean anything, so stop acting like an emotional fuck. I hate emotional fucks."
The insult landed. I saw the raw hurt flash in her eyes, the momentary, devastating break in her composure.
She raised a trembling finger and pointed it at my chest. "Stay the fuck away from me."
She turned to leave. I reached for her wrist again, the possessive urge to drag her back and pin her against the wall overwhelming. Just as my fingers brushed her skin, I saw a flicker of movement from the far end of the corridor, a pair of eyes, quickly averted. Someone was watching, so I let her go.
She walked away, head held high, and I stood there, shaking with unspent rage, watching her retreating back.
I returned to the dining hall, the tension suffocating. I leaned toward my father, my voice a quiet rumble over the clinking cutlery.
He nodded, his expression remaining neutral, I settled back into my seat, picking up my wine glass.
And then it happened.
The next moment, the entire room changed.
A man lunged out from behind a column with a knife.
Another came through the back entrance.
A third tried to sneak behind my father.
But we were ready.
Before anyone could scream, Dimitri shot the first man in the skull. My father flipped the second over the table. I rammed my elbow into the third's throat and slammed him against the wall. Marco shot at the fourth man and pulled Grace to the ground with him.
We were ambushed. Professionals.
I dropped to the floor, pulling a weapon from my ankle holster. Fours figures in black tactical gear were already down, thanks to us. We were always alert. We were always ready.
But then, out of the corner of my eye, I saw him. A fifth man and my mind flashed to Nicole. He hadn't been aiming at the Dons. He had bypassed the primary target entirely.
He had a gun pressed hard against Nicole's temple , holding her frozen just outside the kitchen entrance.
"NO ONE MOVE!" he yelled, his voice cracking. "Drop the weapons! Or I pull the trigger!"
Dimitri raised his weapon, aiming steadily at the man's head but he didn't shoot, Nicole was too close. As for Nicole she looked utterly terrified, her eyes wide and blank, staring at her impending death.
I felt something cold and foreign slam into my chest. I tried to keep it in check so I laughed.
It wasn't a chuckle; it was a loud, mocking, mirthless sound that cut through the silence and turned every eye, including Dimitri's turned to me. Dimitri looked ready to kill me himself for laughing when his daughter's life was on the line.
The gunman, bewildered, tightened his grip on Nicole. "You think it's funny?" he spat. "I should kill her right now."
I slowly stood up, my gun still in my hand, taking my time. Trying to sound as lazy and unbothered as I could but deep down I knew what I was feeling was fear.
Fear of him pulling the trigger, for real. A pathetic, unfamiliar emotion I refused to name.
Actual fear.
I'd never felt it in my life.
"You and your men are here for the Italians. You are here to stop the alliance. Why are you pointing your gun at the girl?"
The man blinked, confused by the logic. "It only makes sense! You care about her! She's the one you're marrying! If I kill her, end of alliance."
Her eyes locked onto mine.
My pulse slammed painfully once, twice, maybe because of what I was about to say. Maybe it was trying to stop me before I said it. But I went on and I held her gaze as I spoke.
"I don't care about her."
It sounded like a lie to me, even if it wasn't supposed to be. Her eyes bore into mine, Something flickered across her face, hurt? Disbelief? Breaking? I couldn't tell. The only emotion I could disperse from her at that point was fear, and only that was already fucking killing me. That she was scared of someone killing her when she wasn't even scared of me.
I looked away from her and stared directly at the gunman.
I leaned back in my chair, smirking.
"Not like I care, But you have got the gun on the wrong sister."