Page 48 of Shattered Empire (Shattered World)

Poor man. The waiter’s gaze shifted nervously between the two of us as he scribbled down our order. Well, Crunchy Jr.’s order. It sure as hell wasn’t mine.

“I can order for myself, thank you.” I put on my best Kendra smile. Fake and plastic. “I’ll have the Bourbon Chicken and Shrimp with fondant potatoes, please. And your best top-shelf whiskey.”

Conrad sneered. I caught the look out of the corner of my eye. If he thought I was the same level of bimbo as his previous dinner dates, he would be sorely mistaken.

“Don’t you think you should have something lighter?” he asked, taking a sip of his wine as I tucked into my dinner. The man hadn’t shut up about my eating habits the entire time it had taken the waiter to bring out our food.

“Well,” I smirked, taking a sip from my glass of whiskey and eyeing his bloody steak, “if you don’t have to watch your figure, why should I?”

Oh, he didn’t like it when a woman fought back.

If looks could kill.

“You’re rather hostile for someone who needs to do business with my company,” he sneered. “I was rather surprised at the dinner offer, honestly. Had I realized I was meeting with the company whore instead of the CEO, I would have suggested we skip dinner and go straight to my hotel room.”

Vas said I can’t kill him.

Vas said I can’t kill him.

“Oh, honey.” My laugh was low, sensual, and full of the promise to do bad things. “I’m no one’s whore. I am the CEO. Maybe you should have paid attention when they told you my name.”

That had him slack-jawed and silent for a moment.

“Yeah.” I wrinkled my nose at him and smiled. “Should have thought about that before popping off at the mouth. And as for my company’sneedto do business with yours? There is no need. In fact, from the look of things, you need my company more than I need yours.”

“We don’t—”

Holding up a hand, I interrupted him. “Now, now. There’s no need to lie, Mr. O’Neill,” I assured him, injecting as much condescension in my voice as I could. “Your shares are dropping, and your investors aren’t happy with you overspending your budget every quarter.”

He went to talk, but I didn’t give him the chance for a rebuttal.

“Must have something to do with the fact that you’ve been doing some naughty side jobs.” Taking a sip of my whiskey, I continued. “I wonder what the FBI would think about the money you’ve been shunting through an illegal account that has been funding the Aryan Nation, a well-known domestic terrorist group.”

His grip tightened on the wineglass in his hand, his face turning a rather fetching shade of purple. Like Violet Beauregarde inWilly Wonka, just angrier.

“I mean,” I chuckled breathily, “if that isn’t enough, I’m sure that the CIA and Interpol would be ever so interested in the many items you’ve acquired and moved for your clients. Or how about the Department of Defense? Do they know you were helping Knightman Security move all that lost cash through the Middle Eastern ports? That one took me a while to figure out, but I do have one of the best hackers in the business.”

“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” he hissed, but sweat was beading down his immaculately botoxed forehead. “My company is perfectly above board.”

“And I’m Cindy Lou-Who,” I scoffed. Wiping his mouth with a white linen napkin, he threw it down on the table in a huff and went to stand. But I wasn’t finished with him yet.

His high-pitched scream was music to my ears as my steak knife slid like butter through the middle of his hand, embedding itself into the wooden table beneath the silken cloth. People were staring, but that didn’t matter. Let them see what happened when you crossed a Dashkov.

“Did I say you were dismissed?”

“Fucking psycho bitch,” he spat angrily, tears rolling down his face.

“Heard worse,” I admitted casually. Leaning in, I whispered, “But we’re not here to discuss me. We’re here to discuss you and your sick fuck of a father who started your little company with the blood money he got from suppressing my mother’s case.”

“That’s what this is about?” he asked incredulously. I swatted his hand away when he went for the handle of the knife that was still buried in the table. “Get over yourself. It was a long time ago, and from what I heard, the whore deserved it.”

He paled, his eyes widening in fear when he saw the fury of storm clouds etched across my face. I tsked, shaking my head in mock remorsefulness.

“Wrong thing to say, Crunchy Jr.,” I scolded him. The restaurant was silent. All eyes were still on us. No one moved. Or breathed. Not that it mattered if they did. The only people in this restaurant that weren’t Sully’s or mine were the staff, and they’d been well compensated for their trauma.

I mean time.

Circling the table, I let my fingers graze over the soft tablecloth before clutching the hilt of the knife. Conrad hissed at the contact, the serrated edges digging further into his skin.

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