Page 7 of Unveiled

I stare at him and don’t respond. I expected anger, outrage, a scathing remark—anything but this cool, collected indifference.

“I’ll allow your disrespect to go unpunished this once,” he says coldly. Holding up a hand, he gestures for someone in the back, who immediately rushes forward to refill his drink. “If you tell me the truth, please. It wasn’t your brother who texted me, was it?”

I shake my head.

“So you lied to me,” he states, his cold voice dropping a few degrees. I swallow hard and stifle a shiver.

“I didn’tlieto you. I texted you from my brother’s phone.”

“Pretending you were him, knowing full well, I wouldn’t have disclosed my location to you.”

My temper flares. The goddamnnerveof the insensitive prick. “Because I’m a woman? Because I don’t deserve to be in the presence of men like you?”

“No,” he says without a trace of dishonesty. That’s one thing about Semyon—he never lied. To a fault, even. Sometimes it hurt that he didn’t. “Because I would never have allowed you to come out alone into a dangerous place like this unaccompanied. You ought to know that.”

I can’t help but scoff at him. “As if my safety’s any of your concern.”

He lost that privilege alongtime ago.

He rises slowly. I swallow. Semyon’s bigger than I remember, bigger than when he was a boy. Stronger. Taller. Even from here, I can see the corded muscle at his neck, the veined strength of his hands. The room falls silent as he draws himself to his full height. He wears a black button-down shirt. Even in my fear and anger, my eyes are drawn to the way his rolled-up sleeves reveal the dangerous mark of the Bratva, every deliberate movement like the clanging of a warning bell.

“You’ll see very soon that it’s of my utmost concern.”

What?

I don’t understand what he’s saying—it’s incomprehensible, infuriating. The anger that simmered like molten lava inside me as I stormed up here erupts, scorching through reason, and the final thread of self-control snaps, as fragile as fishing line pulled taut under heavy weight.

I somehow find myself standing inches away from him, unaware of how I got here, fueled by desperation and fury. I’m blinded to the danger around me, only dimly aware of six strong men who rise to their feet and Semyon’s flip of a palm that holds them all back.

“You,” I seethe, a flash of memory causing tears to well in my eyes. My mother, thin and frail, pleading with Semyon at the worn table in my kitchen. “You pretend as if you care anything about me… as if you didn’t turn your back on my family. As if my mother’s death isn’t your fault!”

I jab my finger at his chest.

He lets me.

“You act as if you’re the one in control—as if you need the fucking money my brother owes you—when you own this entire city and half of Moscow. You act all calm and collected whenIknow the truth.” I blink, hot, fat tears rolling down my cheeks. I swipe them angrily away. “You’ve already destroyed the only good things I had left in this world and plan on taking the last of it? You’re amonster,Semyon Kopolov, and the men in this room might lick your goddamn feet to get a crumb from your table, butIremember.” I jab another finger at his chest, irrationally angry that he isn’t stopping me. “I remember when you were still human.”

Something I can’t quite read flickers behind his glasses in his cold blue eyes. Regret? Guilt? I can’t tell, and it doesn’t matter because all that stands before me now is the heartless monster who abandoned my family who loved him for the coldhearted Bratva.

“Just sayin’, I am not licking anyone’s feet,” Rodion mutters, which earns him a few snickers and a sharp backhand to the head from a thick guy sitting next to him I don’t recognize.

I can’t stop seething, can’t stop fuming at him. “I came here to tell you,” I hiss, my voice breaking, “that no matter how much power you have, no matter how untouchable you think you are, I know better.” My lower lip wobbles, and my voice drops. “And Ihateyou. You want my family’s bakery? You want to come in and destroy what’s left of my family? Kill me first, Semyon.”

He wraps his hand around my finger and presses my hand down as he speaks in an unnervingly calm voice. “Finished yet, sweetheart?”

Tacking on a term of endearment? The absolutely condescendingasshole.

Howdarehe?

I ignore the warm feel of his hand on mine.

“Nope,” I seethe because I’m just warming up. “I came here to tell you that no matter how untouchable you are, you’ll never be anything more than a coward who preys on the innocent. You can take everything from me, and you’ll still have to live with that.”

Rodion mutters something under his breath, but the guysitting next to him—I can see it’s his cousin now—smacks him again.

Semyon’s frigid stare rests on me with mild curiosity. “Are you done?”

I stare at him. “So you don’t deny it, then? None of it?”

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