Velvet Devil: A Russian Mafia Romance (64)

“You don’t get to decide that for me.”

“I decide everything in this fucking house.”

She squares her jaw and faces me once more. I catch the excitement in her eyes.

I was right: she gets off on this. Every bit as much as I do.

“Is that why my phone line has been blocked?”

It takes me a moment to realize what she’s talking about. Then I remember—it’s the whole reason she stormed in here.

“It’s blocked because I decided I’d given you too much freedom.”

Her eyes blaze. “Are you fucking serious?”

Her arms cross over her chest again. I fucking love when she does that. It just makes me want to unwrap her. To tear her arms apart and fuck her ruthlessly against the nearest surface I can find.

Jesus, I’m hard already.

“I want to talk to my sister. She’ll be expecting my call.”

“Is that right?” I say, disinterested and disbelieving.

“I am not contacting Maxim,” she hisses.

“So you’ve said.”

“I’m not lying. Not about this.”

I nod. “Very well. You want to talk to your sister?”

“I’m glad you were listening.”

“Then you can do it here. While I watch.”

She frowns. “You’re going to listen in?”

“Take it or leave it.”

“You can’t even give me a few moments alone with my sister? You really have to control every fucking aspect of my—”

“If you’d rather avoid the call altogether…”

“No!” she balks immediately. “No. I… I want the call.”

Her immediate submission has me curious now. Is there more to the relationship with her sister than I first deciphered? Does this have something to do with the secret she’s hiding?

Only one way to find out.

“Great,” I say, striding back around to my desk. “Then it’s settled. Give me her number.”

She blinks at me, looking suddenly nervous. No, it’s more than just nerves. There’s fear there, too.

“Something wrong?” I ask innocently.

She shakes her head, but it’s not convincing. “It’s just that my sister might suspect something if you decide to listen in on us.”

“That’s up to you. If you play your part, dear Brianna won’t need to worry about you.”

She grits her teeth. “You’re an asshole.”

I can’t help but smirk. And in my head, I think, Fuck Lachlan for being right.

I have met my match.





26





Camila





Those eyes. Those fucking forget-me-not blue eyes.

This whole time as Isaak’s prisoner, as his pawn, as his—scare quotes extremely necessary here—“wife,” his eyes have been my undoing. When he looks at me, I just can’t muster up the fight he deserves. They reduce me to nothingness. To impulse. To pure feeling.

And that is very, very dangerous.

Even more dangerous is what his stunning speech to Maxim just revealed. Isaak hasn’t just been manipulating me in some brutal, heavy-handed power play He’s been observing. Watching. Listening.

I should be pissed as hell. And in a way, I am. Who wants to feel like a lab rat in a maze?

But I also feel seen. And for someone who’s lived a lie in the shadows for six long years, that means something to me.

It means that despite the fa?ade I’ve put on, there’s someone out there who knows the real me. Well, a part of the real me, at least.

Of course, it’s never black and white. And I’m stuck in the grey space between both. Because Isaak’s right: I do get off on clashing with him. I am wet right now—and it has everything to do with him.

Not just the way he’s been paying attention, but the way he bosses me around like he has the God-given right to. The way he looks at me like he’s ready to bend me over and fuck me to the next incredible orgasm at a moment’s notice.

No man should have that power over another person.

But Isaak has it over me.

And he’s not afraid to use it.

I watch as he dials Bree’s number. My heart is pounding. How am I supposed to speak to Jo within Isaak listening in? What if he suspects something? What if he hears her voice and instinctively knows?

My palms have started to sweat, but I’ve got to get it together. He’s going to sense my nerves and I’ll end up giving my secret away.

He knows too much already.

“Hello?”

I’m yanked out of my trance by Bree’s voice.

“Brianna!” I say, lurching forward so that she’ll be able to hear me.

She’ll know something is wrong. I never call her Brianna.

“Camila,” she responds in kind.

I can’t help smiling. I love my sister. Thousands of days and thousands of miles of separation between us is brutally unfair—but it hasn’t stopped her from knowing right away when something is wrong.

“Are you cooking?”

“Just finished,” Bree replies.

“Let me guess,” I say, proud of how smooth and natural this is coming off. “You cooked goulash again?”