Page 44 of A Touch of Chaos

He took a step back, swallowing hard.

“Watch your back,” he said. “You aren’t among friends.”

“Thanks for the advice,” she said, returning to Leander, who welcomed her with a smile and a fresh drink. After a few moments, she seemed to relax around him, and Dionysus hated that she could not seem to do the same with him.

It took all his power to tear his gaze from her, but he finally left her for the main floor, returning to the bar for a second glass of wine when he was swiftly cut off by a man with a badly bruised face.

His name was Michail Calimeris, and he was the owner of Maiden House, a brothel in the pleasure district.

“Well, if it isn’t Lord Dionysus,” he said.

Dionysus had gone to the mortal at the start of his search for Medusa, but things had escalated quickly when Michail had recognized Ariadne as a cop. She’d ended up killing two of his men.

It was just another reason she should not be here.

“Michail,” Dionysus said. “You’re looking…recovered.”

It was a lie, but it was also the nicest thing he could think to say to a man he loathed.

“I’m on the mend,” Michail replied as if talking to an old friend.

“If you’ll excuse me,” Dionysus said, attempting to step around Michail, but he was stopped when the mortal stuck out his hand.

“You’ll forgive me,” Michail said. “But I don’t think I will.”

Dionysus took a step back and then glanced to his left and right. In the time he’d been with Ariadne, the gallery had been cleared of civilians, and the only people who remained were Michail’s men.

They surrounded him on all sides.

Dionysus held Michail’s gaze.

“To what do I owe this honor?” he asked thickly.

Michail gave a wicked smile. “I just wanted to have a friendly chat.”

“You don’t look particularly pleasant.”

“It might have something to do with the nose job you gave me when you slammed my face into the floor.”

Dionysus shrugged. “An improvement if you ask me.”

“No one did,” Michail said tightly.

There was a beat of silence, and then Leander walked into view with Ariadne. One of his hands was clasped tightly over her mouth, and he held a gun to her head. Dionysus’s fingers curled into fists as he tried to assess how he was going to get them out of this situation.

Fuck.

He shifted his gaze from her to Michail again.

“You should have just let me have the detective,” Michail said.

“She’s not mine to give.”

“It sure didn’t look like that to me,” he said.

Dionysus imagined not, given that Michail had walked in while Ariadne was grinding against his cock, but intimacy did not equal possession or ownership.

“So you’ve decided to take her?”

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