Velvet Devil: A Russian Mafia Romance (36)

In the end, though, I’m disappointed. Isaak just shrugs and holds the door open for me.

“After you.”

Feeling slightly deflated, I walk down to the silver, convertible soft-top coupe parked at the end of the gravel pathway.

He opens the passenger door and usher me in. I climb into the seat without a word. It takes all my willpower not to let out a quiet little sigh when I sink into the buttery soft leather.

Isaak slams my door shut, strides around the front of the car, and climbs into the driver’s seat.

“Ready? Good.”

Then he floors it.

We shoot out of the compound like a cannonball. I suppress a scream, although I’m not ashamed to white-knuckle the armrests and pray a little bit to every god I’ve ever heard of.

We rip through the streets, tires squealing at every turn. When he whips one turn especially hard, I yell over the roar of the engine, “You’re gonna get a ticket!”

“I don’t get tickets,” he says coolly. Somehow, he manages to speak at a normal volume and still have his voice cut through the cacophony.

“Because you kill the cops who try?”

“Because they can’t catch me.”

Then he shifts gears, we merge onto the highway, and I realize with a nauseous jolt that the speed we were traveling at before was him being cautious.

This is him being reckless.

Other cars dive out of the way as we tear down the road. I’m pressed back into my seat with the force of the acceleration and my thighs are tingling from the car’s vibrations.

Isaak, on the other hand, looks cool as could be. He steers with one hand, switching gears with the other.

I just close my eyes and wait for the roller coaster to end.

It happens sooner than I expected. One moment, we’re screeching through traffic like a bat out of hell. The next, brakes grind and we pull to a sudden stop outside of a restaurant.

My jaw promptly drops.

I recognize the name. Situated right on the banks of the Thames, this restaurant is one of the most exclusive, most expensive, and most beautiful in the entire continent.

The waitlist for reservations is up to ten months long. A woman could make a reservation, get pregnant, and have her baby before she’d get to sit at one of their tables.

I’m still processing the whiplash arrival when I see the valet approaching my door to help me out. I swear I notice a flash of surprise cross his face when he sees my attire through the car window.

Probably because he, the other valets, the hosts, and every other staff member else I can see is dressed in immaculate suits and ties.

Suddenly, my little rebellion loses all its steam.

“Something wrong?” Isaak asks innocently as he looks over at me.

I rearrange my face instantly. “Nothing at all.”

Another valet steps to Isaak’s door. Isaak rolls the window down, hands over an absurdly thick roll of bills, and says, “I’ll park it myself.” Then he floors the gas again and we go screeching into an empty spot in a shadowy corner.

Once we’re stationary, he turns to me. “Still feeling confident in your choice of outfit?”

I narrow my eyes, feeling adrenaline surge through my body. “You mean they’ll refuse to serve white trash like me?”

“Of course they won’t,” he replies. “You’re with me.”

“Well, then, do we have a problem?”

“Actually, we do,” he says. His tone is calm. Eerily calm. I’m starting to feel a little uneasy. “I sent up a dress for you.”

“I wasn’t in the mood to wear it,” I bite back. “I’m not usually in the mood to be dressed up like a doll. Never, actually.”

“I wasn’t trying to dress you. I was simply giving you a gift.”

I laugh in his face. “You can’t buy me with expensive presents and you can’t impress me with fancy restaurants. None of that stuff works on me.”

“It worked for Maxim.”

The comment takes me completely off-guard. That’s probably the only reason I don’t slap him across the face.

“Fuck you.”

Again, same as earlier when I taunted him as I came down the stairs, I’m expecting a reaction. Anger. Outrage.

I get nothing. Just more of this deadly, icy calm.

“This is what I wanted to wear,” I add, unable to help myself from filling in the silence. “I knew it would piss you off the most.”

“Piss me off?” he asks, raising an eyebrow. “I’m not angry. Maybe I would be if you tried walking into that restaurant dressed as you are now. But that’s not going to happen.”

“Great. Then take me back home.”

“No.”

I frown. Where’s he going with this? “You can’t make me change clothes,” I point out.

The moment the words are out of my mouth, I realize their futility. Of course he can make me. He’s a man who’s built his reputation on making people do things they don’t want to do.

I’m just his latest target.

I don’t even have time to be frightened of what happens next, because I don’t even really see it coming. I glimpse only a gleam of ivory and silver. Then the blade in Isaak’s hand is ripping through my t-shirt from the collar all the way down to the hem.