Page 36 of City Of Thieves
“Sir, I really must insist you release the young lady’s hand,” the bartender interjects, skating dangerously close to a broken jaw from the man sitting beside me.
Renzo’s fingers tighten, and then he loosens them with a low curse.
I take full advantage.
Grabbing my purse, I shoot a look of gratitude to the bartender, then exit the bar as fast as I can.
I catch the elevator as the doors are closing, cutting off the heavy footsteps that have been tracking me across the lobby. I see the brutally handsome face of my reckoning right before he disappears behind a wall of sliding metal, and it’s enough to make me stumble back in fear.
Exiting at my floor, tears streaking my cheeks, I bolt for my hotel suite, half-expecting him to be lying in wait for me, but the hallways are empty.
Jamming my keycard into my room lock, I burst through the door. A beat later, a rough hand is clamping over my mouth.
Please don’t do this, Renzo. You don’t know what’s at stake.
But the cologne smells different. The hard body plastered to my back is all wrong. There’s none of Renzo’s dirty savage elegance in the way I’m being manhandled.
“I have a message from Moscow,” a voice snarls, before I’m being hurled to the carpet with force. I go down hard, my body a cloudy haze of pain as my wrists and knees bear the brunt of the violence. A beat later, his boot is connecting with my stomach and robbing my lungs of air. “Mypakhanwanted you to have a little motivation for tomorrow, should your loyalties start to waiver.”
Kneeling down next to me, he flicks my hair from my face as I wheeze and gasp for mercy.
“Please.” I try to crawl away, but he grabs hold of my ankle and drags me back. “You don’t need to do this. I’d never—”
“Hush,suka,” his thick voice caresses, before he’s driving his fist into my rib cage. “There is only so much damage I can do. I have strict instructions not to leave any visible bruises…”
Chapter Ten
Renzo
Our gazes lock,the air crackling as tension beats a chaotic rhythm between us. I memorize every inch of her face, branding myself with the image of her wide eyes and frightened expression as the elevator doors close.
There’s an unfamiliar pressure in my chest. Is it an image derived from a fear of discovery or the pride of deception?
Five minutes later, I’m still staring at my reflection in the steel doors.
I have little doubt she’ll be double locking her hotel suite right about now in anticipation of being followed. Had we not called unwanted attention to ourselves, I might have fulfilled her expectation.
I knew what she was doing the moment she sashayed that dangerously tempting ass toward the bar. I indulged her ‘two lies and a truth’ diversion to feed her the information she wanted, then I watched her choke on it. Tatiana didn’t walk away because the game scraped a little too close to the surface. She walked away because it took an unexpected turn.
One useful by-product of being the black sheep of the family is forced self-sufficiency, but it was living in Nero’s shadow and Rosalia’s light that taught me the art of intuition.
When to watch.
When to listen.
And when to strike.
A woman like Tatiana needs to hate me. She needs to believe in monsters and the devil, as she so aptly called me. She needs to convince herself I’m nothing but a vessel for evil, and that's why I handed her the truth. Not to earn her allegiance, but to gauge where hers lies.
And I found it in that tattoo… In those fucking text messages.
This thought clouds my head as I return to the bar, hard logic warring with something else I can’t put a name to.
Slipping back into my vacated chair, I slide my phone from my pocket while motioning for another drink. It’s only after listening to the second ring that I glance up to find the same bartender standing motionless, a scowl on his face. He was one bullet away from losing a hand when he inserted himself into my business five minutes ago. Now, he’s treading in fatal waters.
He glares.
I stare.
