Velvet Devil: A Russian Mafia Romance (84)

I turn to leave before I can say anything else I might regret. I’m not expecting him to stop me. So when his hand clamps down on my arm and he swings me back around to face him, I feel a sharp sense of whiplash.

“You can leave when I fucking dismiss you,” he growls, his face only inches from mine.

“I’m not anyone’s lapdog. Especially not yours.”

He pushes me against one of the moss walls surrounding the smaller alcoves of the garden. “No, but you are my wife. And if you don’t start listening, then I’m going to have to break you in.”

“I get it,” I snarl at him. “We all fucking get it: you’re the big, strong don who never loses. But if you expect me to be your obedient little wife, then you picked the wrong girl. And if you think you can ever tame me, then you’ve got another thing coming.”

“What do you think you can do to me, little kiska?” he taunts cruelly. “What power do you think you have?”

It takes only a split second before it occurs to me exactly what tools are at my disposal. The same thing that started all of this, six long years ago.

I jam my hand into the space between our hips and grab his cock hard through his pants.

“I’m more than a match for you, Isaak Vorobev,” I say You may be the don here, but you don’t know who you’re dealing with.”

I undo his zipper and free his length into my grasp. He’s throbbing hard and hot. His eyes roll momentarily before snapping back into place.

“You may be able to control the world, Isaak,” I whisper to him. “But I won’t let you control me.”

I start stroking. A low, guttural groan sounds from deep in Isaak’s chest. His eyes flutter closed as he plants both palms on the wall behind me and lets his head hang low.

Then he raises his gaze to meet mine.

And I realize that I haven’t won quite yet.

“You’re right. I can see that now,” he says. “You’re much too good at manipulating the men around you.”

My hand freezes on his cock. His cold blue eyes stare back at me unapologetically.

It was all a mirage, my so-called upper hand. There is no winning with Isaak Vorobev. He’s played every game out there, broken every rule, and he always comes out ahead.

He knows my weaknesses and he’s just proved that he’s not above using them to put me back in my place. I have to bite down on my tongue to stop the tears.

I thought I could make him see me as his equal. But I was a fool to think that I could make him see me as anything other than a pawn on his board.

He’s not a man who wants anyone standing next to him.

He’s built to survive alone.

I shove him off me with an angry cry. He steps away easily, tucking himself back in his pants.

“Your father trained you well,” I tell him. Then I’m running up to the manor before my tears can betray me.





33





Isaak





“Is there anything I can do for you, Mrs. Murphy?” I say into the phone.

“No, nothing. Just… just bring my son back where he belongs, Isaak.”

Her voice comes through faintly, but that’s because it’s weighed down with grief.

I’d met the woman a few times early on in my newfound friendship with Lachlan. His mother was everything my mother wasn’t: warm. Friendly. Outward with her love, with hugs, with kisses on the cheek and warm mugs of tea.

Not that I’d know what to do with a mother like that. I wasn’t really the hugging kind of son. It was something that Mrs. Murphy had clocked early on during my first visit to their quaint farmhouse in rural Scotland.

“Hugging helps you live longer,” she had told me.

“I’ll keep that in mind,” I’d drawled.

Of course, I’d forgotten about that moment until right now. Hearing her voice jogs my memory, pulls out little scraps that I’d pushed back into the recesses of my mind.

“I will,” I tell her. “I’ll bring him back myself.”

“Thank you,” she says faintly.

I hang up a second after Bogdan walks in. He’s been quiet since the fight, but I know he’s been dissecting every single thing that occurred from the moment we set a collision course with Maxim.

Bogdan processes things through analytical thought. The objectivity helps distract him, orient him. It forces him to look at things clinically so that he doesn’t have to face the emotions head-on.

He did the same thing when Otets died. Although I’m willing to bet there had been considerably less affection where our father was concerned.

“How are you doing?” Bogdan asks.

“Fine,” I say curtly. “Just got off the phone with Mrs. Murphy.”

“Fuck. How’s she doing?”

“How do you think?”

“Pretty fucking broken up, I’d imagine. Lachlan was her youngest.”

“Does it matter?” I ask. “Youngest or oldest, a child is still a child.”

“I don’t know,” Bogdan says with a shrug. “I doubt Papa would have cried over either one of us.”

I snort. “You’re right about that.”

“Actually, he might have cried over you.”