Never Have an Outlaw's Baby (Deadly Pistols MC #3)(86)
Bastard! He was testing me after all, making me sort the truth from fiction. And, so far, I'd been too frozen in his bad boy good looks to be anything more than a toy.
I bit my tongue, pumped my hips to get myself an inch closer to the glass. “Tell me about your regrets, Anton. You killed twenty people, many of them highly respected in their community...”
“Regrets are for civvy f*cks, Sabrina. Not outlaws. When Ivankovs go to war, they don't regret shit. You think my grandpa regretted cutting German throats out at Stalingrad? He personally killed a hundred men defending his country, his family. You can check the records if you think I'm bullshitting, though record keeping in the motherland has always been shit, and I never learned the language.”
I didn't answer. The smile was gone, and now he looked truly serious. His fists hit the table on his side, rocking the wood between us, deafeningly loud with the steel chain slapping wood.
I jumped. I gasped. The second I caught myself, I wanted to hate him for making me crack, but I was too busy fighting the dizzy tingle pure adrenaline pumped into my blood.
He was too good at this. The very second I'd tried to take back a little control, he'd ripped it away from me, and now the ball was in his court again.
“You're a shit interviewer, Sabrina. Look at you,” he said quietly, almost a whisper, voice filled with disgust. “I've got this whole f*cking thing by the balls. I'm asking the questions. I'm steering you like a bitch on a leash. When I got your note asking for this shit, I thought I'd get a young, plucky, hot little thing who's hungry for my story. I was ready. Instead, I've got some chick who can barely talk because she's too f*cking busy trying to put out the fire in her *.”
Asshole! It was my turn to curl fists.
Criminal or not, Ivankov or not, nobody talked to me that way. There was more truth in his words than I wanted to acknowledge, sure – plenty to leave me ashamed for the next ten years – but there was no way I was walking out of here after letting him walk all over me.
“You're an animal, Anton. That's why you're in this cage. I'm a professional. I'm a free woman. I don't think you're ready to tell me any story at all today. This is all just a big joke to you. Guess I can't blame you – prison gets boring, right?” I slapped my notepad shut and stood, pushing in the chair.
His eyes widened. He looked...surprised, as if he couldn't believe I was the one ending this crap instead of letting him screw with me a second longer.
“You gotta be shitting me, babe. You're giving up now? Just when I was ready to get to the good stuff?”
“Start talking,” I hissed into the phone.
The metal felt like it was scalding hot against my ear. But it was just my own blood, heated to boiling point, all the fear and nasty heat he sparked beneath my skin.
“Okay. I'm not as hard as my gramps. I'll tell you that much. Prison's rough. You're right – it's boring as all f*ck. My old man brought us over here when we were just kids. Guess me and my brothers have been in the US of A too long to be as cold as our Siberian forefathers. You wanna hear about my regrets? Just one.” He held up a pointer finger.
I waited. Fighting off another round of shaking knees, I slid back into my seat, pressing the phone so tight to my ear I thought I'd leave a permanent imprint there.
“I'm listening. What is it?”
“I regret ever responding to that f*cking note in the pretty pink envelope. You're young and beautiful, Sabrina. You ought to be writing about fashion and eccentric artists. Shit, maybe slipping on some pretty lingerie and posing for the magazines for some side cash. Not spending a bright autumn day chasing down monsters in this f*cking place. Go home.”
I stopped, stared, and felt my nostrils flare. Before I could say anything, he slammed his phone into the wall and shuffled up. He never looked back once as he walked to the door, slow and steady, moving like a stuffed orange tiger who'd just had a good meal.
You can guess who. Ugh.
He never looked back, not even when I smashed my phone down and ran a trembling hand across my face. I had to fight every urge to pick the phone up and begin smashing it to bits against the wall.
This * frustrated me in all the wrong ways – mentally, physically, sexually. Admitting that last one made me want to try to break through that glass slab myself so I could follow and strangle him.
No, no, no, this couldn't be happening. God damn.
I'd lost my story and my pride in one blow. I certainly wasn't going to write about how I'd just gotten completely owned by the twisted * who'd demolished my Uncle's best bar and lounge to become the biggest terrorist in Chicago's recent history.
I spun, flustered, fighting down the lump in my throat. Charlie the Warden was already standing there with the door open, an apologetic look on his face. I didn't care about making a scene. I hurled the unused notepad into the little waste bin on my way out, stomping past him so quickly I didn't care about the dark, cruel eyes in the dingy cells ogling me as I marched to the exit.
I sat in the Silver Pear downtown, enjoying my second martini on the house. Free drinks at the family's bars were the only perks I allowed myself for being a Ligiotti girl – not counting the fat trust fund dear old dad left me before he ODed one cold winter night half a decade ago.
I was his legacy. I wanted to make him proud, and Uncle Gioulio too. The interview was supposed to do that, and I'd f*cking blown it.