Page 149 of Corrupted Heart

KRATOS

I’m already angry when I arrive at the front door. After I’m kept waiting there for fifteen minutes by Drazen’s men, I’m fucking pissed by the time he finally deigns to greet me in his enormous penthouse.

The Serbian meets me in the foyer in one of his customary dark gray suits. He shakes my hand firmly. But when he sees the icy look on my face, his brow quirks up.

“Is this a friendly visit?” he growls in his deep baritone. “Or should I break out the dueling pistols. Because you look?—”

“You’re fucking playing us.”

Drazen meditates on that for a second, stroking his chin before he turns.

“Why don’t you come have a drink.”

“This won’t take long,” I snap. “We can do it right here.”

“Suit yourself,” Drazen tosses over his shoulder. “I’m getting a drink.”

Glaring daggers at his back, I follow him into his spacious, double height living room with its views of all of New York spread out ninety stories beneath us.

Drazen steps to the bar cart by the fireplace.

“You’re sure you don’t?—”

“I don’t need you to impress me, or glad-hand me, or placate me with expensive whiskey,” I hiss. “That’s not why I’m here.”

Drazen nods, turning to pour himself a drink. “I’ve got shit whiskey, too, if that would make you more comfortable.”

I seethe silently. “What would make me more comfortable is hearing from your own lips why you thought it was remotely okay to fuck with my family.”

He turns back to eye me as he takes a sip.

“You mean my investment in your building.”

“No, I mean you using us as pawns to fuck with your enemy.”

He exhales. “Kratos, all I’m doing is helping your family buy a building. That’s?—”

“Bullshit,” I snap. “You’re having a pissing contest with Boris Chernoff.”

Drazen’s face darkens, his eyes flashing as they pierce into me.

“A pissing contest?” he chuckles quietly. His lips curl savagely in the corners. “No, Kratos. A pissing contest is bidding on the car your rival wants at auction, winning, and then demolishing that car just to be an asshole. A pissing contest is fucking that rival’s woman. What I engage in, Kratos,” he says coldly, his voice venomous, “isn’t a pissing contest. It’s guerrilla fucking warfare. And you haven’t a single goddamn idea of my history with these people, or what goes on in my heart.”

I bristle but stand my ground as he walks toward me and jabs a finger in my chest. “So back the fuck off.”

“And if I don’t?” I snarl.

He eyes me coolly. “Then maybe Ares and the rest of your family would be interested in hearing about your clandestine chats with CIA Agent Amaya Mircari. Who, as I’m sure you know by now, isn’t working for the CIA anymore.”

When I stiffen, he cocks his head, arching a cold brow.

“Don’t mistake me for a blind man, Kratos. It could be fatal.”

“Stay the fuck out of my and my family’s lives, Drazen,” I growl back.

“Gladly, if you rearrange your lives so as not to cross my goals.”

My eyes lock with his. A second ticks by. Then, without another word, I turn and march out of the living room toward the door of his sprawling penthouse.

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