Page 17 of The Chosen Heir

By the time I sent poor Gregory off on his way and made it to Alex’s table, the scowl on his face told me that my five minutes were up. Thankfully, he must’ve seen how hard I’d worked to get Gregory out of his club and chose to take pity on me. Somewhat. His eyes stalked me, promising retribution, as I slunk over to his table.

Taking a deep breath, I slipped into the seat he patted beside him. Nicu gave me a nod of acknowledgement and greeted me with a little smirk, “Hey, Nina. Fancy meeting you here.”

Heat crawled up my throat, and my eyes sped away from him. Mortified, I tried to remind myself that he didn’t necessarily know what happened in the bathroom, unless I outed myself by my own stupidity. Trying to summon up a modicum of maturity, I cleared my throat and replied, “Hey, Nicu. How’s your night going?”

Alex’s arm came and wrapped around my shoulders. Nicu’s eyes paused on it. “Not as well as yours, I imagine.”

I groaned, and Alex gave his little brother a hard stare. The kind of stare I wouldn’t want to be on the receiving end of.

“Sorry, Nina. Didn’t mean to be crude,” he conceded.

“Better,” retorted Alex as he brought me into the warm comfort of his embrace and nuzzled me.

The way he burrowed into my hair felt divine. Taking a possessive hold of my throat, he brought my mouth to his and gave me an all-consuming kiss until I moaned. By the time he broke it off, my head was swimming. I had never felt coveted like this before, and that, along with the lust thrumming beneath my skin, settled the nerves rioting in my belly from the newness of my situation. While I’d known Alex and Nicu almost my entire life, I’d only been around them in the context of their family. I’d never been alone with either of them, much less with both at the same time, and rarely in public. Then there was the fact that I’d just barely finished losing my virginity to Alex in the employee bathroom of his club.

I couldn’t help but think of what Tasa’s reaction would be regarding Alex and me. Hopefully, she was being genuine the times she’d pushed me to admit how I felt about him, insisting that she wouldn’t mind if we were together. I always downplayed my borderline obsession with him around her. First, because my loyalty lay with her, but also because I had little hope that anything would come of it. As much as I missed Tasa, her running away had instigated a wild beginning to a new chapter in my life.

This was a rewriting of the rules of engagement, and I had no idea how to handle it. But Alex’s decadent scent and the warmth of his body heat provided an anchor for the elation rivaling my nerves and anxiety.

It almost felt surreal, but when I shifted in my seat, the slight soreness between my legs was a delicious reality check. That, and the unfamiliar weight of Alex’s arm around my shoulder. With new courage, I edged closer to him.

A large man, swaying on his feet, loomed over the booth where we were sitting. Instinctively, I shrank back, and Alex wrapped me deeper into the protection of his broad chest. Hmm…after years of daydreaming about this, it was beguiling to be nestled in the cove of his embrace.

“Alex,” the man slurred, giving him a salute with a hint of mockery. The whiff of alcohol coming off him was staggering. He could’ve disinfected a toilet bowl with the amount he’d consumed.

With a wobble of his head, he turned to Tasa’s twin and said, “Nicu.”

Gazing up, I blinked as the light from above illuminated the stranger’s face. Cristo. Tasa’s soon-to-be husband. He was a large guy, not unattractive if you liked the football-player-kind of physique. I’d always thought he had a good head of wavy brown hair and nice brown eyes, but wasted was not a good look on him. His normally well-coiffed hair stuck out every which way, his eyes were glassy, and his lower jaw was slack, a bit of drool collecting at one corner of his mouth. A jolt of anger ran through me. Sure, people had the right to party and drink, but he wasn’t worthy of Tasa. In that moment, I was grateful she’d escaped him. She should never have to marry this guy.

“Cristo,” Alex replied with a tone that could freeze a man’s blood. It was clear Alex saw him for what he was. But then how could he have given Tasa over to this man? Some of my indignation toward Cristo was siphoned off and directed toward Alex. What was he thinking?

Cristo squinted down at me, and I ducked my head to avoid his scrutiny. We’d met several times over the last year as the marriage negotiations progressed at a steady clip. He and his parents had been invited to every public social event hosted by Tasa’s family, but he’d always been on his best behavior.

“Nina? That you?” he slurred.

I gave him a hesitant wave. Awkward. I didn’t dare glace at Alex, but I felt the tension in his muscles. Did Cristo or his father know Tasa was missing? Is that why he was drunk? He didn’t seem particularly torn up by the idea that his bride-to-be had run away.

“Where’s Tasa?” he inquired, his blurry eyes roaming around.

Well, that answered my question.

His head swiped left and right as if he expected her to appear at any moment.

Nicu’s jaw clenched, and I could almost hear the grinding of his back teeth, a bad habit he had. Tasa’s twin didn’t do “uncomfortable.” To anyone who didn’t know his expressions, he simply looked stone-faced. Stone-faced blank was his resting bitch face, after all.

“She’s busy at school,” Alex lied, his arm tightening around my shoulder in warning. He didn’t have to worry. I had no intention of saying a word. But listening to them discuss Tasa brought on a fresh wave of yearning for my best friend. It was because of these two men that she was gone. “As you well know, it’s her last semester, and she’s working on some big senior project.”

Good one, Alex. Since Cristo had never gone to college and seemed to care little about Tasa’s life, he’d eat that up. My irritation at Cristo flared brighter. She deserved better than a guy who was so disinterested in her life that it was easy to pull one over on him.

“Never understood why you insisted on everyone in your family going to college. Waste of time, in my opinion. But then again, you are the Lupul,” he sneered.

The Lupul? I recalled Tasa explaining it to me…that it was a form of respect for Alex, as head of the Lupu clan.

“We go to college because we’re not ignorant heathens like the typical mafie crowd. We go to college because we have to face the Bratva, and every one of those bastards holds a PhD in chemical engineering or financial management. That is why we educate ourselves,” spat out Nicu. “And you should know better than to criticize the head of the clan your father so desperately wants join, in holy matrimony no less.”

Nicu had never thought Cristo was good enough for his sister, and while I knew he chafed against Alex’s insistence that he go to college, he’d show a united front to his sister’s fiancé. Like with my mother, education meant a great deal to Tasa’s family, especially since Alex had had to drop out of Columbia University after his father died.

“She must be busy ’cause I haven’t seen her on Insta,” Cristo remarked, dodging the steaming pile of shit he’d just stepped in. “She usually posts every day.”

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