Page 78 of The Payback

I miss Igor. He never stares.

“Oh,” I say with surprise. “But I’ve never hosted, let alone planned, an event like that. I wouldn’t know where to even start putting things together.”

Oksana reaches across the table and pats my hand. “Don’t worry. That’s what you have us for. We can pull this all together in months if not weeks. And since Dimitri has hosted nothing since stepping into the role ofpakhan, you can bet people will clamber out of the woodwork for an invitation.”

I gulp. Months? Weeks? This just got a lot more complicated.

“Anastasia, please. Stop rattling your spoon against your cup. Stir the way I taught you,” Oksana snipes at her daughter.

The spoon stills, Ana’s gaze bouncing between her mother and me. Hell, I’d be distracted, too. Watching this woman steer a conversation in the direction she wants with nothing more than quiet and cultured words is an art form.

“Then again,” she continues, “if you’d rather have your name whispered across tea tables and set society on edge, we can simply forgo the event.”

She feigns a shrug, but she already knows my answer. After she just set this up and knocked it out of the park, she knows there’s no way I can say no. She just offers the option as a courtesy.

“No,” I say enthusiastically, throwing eagerness into my voice. “This sounds like a good way to find my footing better. Dimitri can’t be my sole reason for living here in New York. I need more than that, or I’ll go mad.”

Oksana and Sasha nod, twin smiles curling their lips as they study me from across the table. Sasha returns to the small pastry on her dish, but Oksana’s steady stare remains. The others fade into the background as she assesses me, her eyes roving from my sleek hair to my shoulders and stomach. “There will be more to your life if you and Dimitri conceive.”

“Until then, I’ll take your excellent advice and carve out a little piece just for me. You’re right, Oksana. I have no purpose here unless I make it myself.”

“Good.” She claps her hands together and then turns to Sasha, and they murmur about venues, flowers, and tablecloths. It sounds like they’re planning something more lavish than a wedding, but you do it right when you plan a Bratva gala.

Ana mimes lifting a bottle of booze to her lips and getting drunk. Valentina, Maria, and I all chuckle at her antics.

“Elsa, dear. Are you free next week so we can get together and plan exactly what you’d like for the event?” Oksana looks at me expectantly, and I wonder why she even bothered asking. This is a woman used to getting what she wants without a fuss.

“Sure,” I say with a shrug. “You now know the pathetic truth that I have absolutely nothing going on other than waiting for Dimitri to finish work every evening. I am yours to command.”

I’ve only met the woman twice, but from what I can tell, she enjoys feeling like she’s in charge of it all. It doesn’t hurt to stroke her ego and give her free rein to keep her happy and chattering.

She accepts my answer and turns to Ana. “You girls may go if you want to get out of here. We’ve got this handled.”

Ana whoops, covers it poorly with a cough when her mother glares, and stands from her chair. Maria and Valentina do the same. All three expectant gazes fall on me. “Oh, me too?”

Maria rolls her eyes and turns to the table of bodyguards behind me. “We’re taking off. You can stay or go.”

One man grumbles, and Nik stands, walking over to pull my chair out for me. I thank Oksana and Sasha as they begin work on a surprise gala and take a few steps away with Nik dutifully at my side.

“Where are we going?” he asks quietly once we’ve gained some distance. The other girls follow behind with their guards.

“The bar,” I answer.

He groans. “Again? Remember what happened last time?”

Dead Irishmen in the kitchen.

“Yeah, I do. But this time, you’re coming with us. Right?”

He searches my face as he navigates us through the tearoom and towards the lobby. “Never knew a bit of blood to bother you,” he says.

It’s not the blood that bothered me. Not one bit. But I certainly can’t tell him the strength of his corded forearms as he gripped the knife turned me on, how his excessive display of power and carnality worked me up into a frenzy. Then, Dimitri delivered the punishment he’d promised as he bent me over the kitchen island and fucked me raw, not letting me orgasm but leaving me worked up for fucking days afterwards.

“It didn’t.”

“Liar,” he leans in and whispers, causing a shiver to skitter down my spine. “It bothered you in the best of ways, and I’m only pissed it was Dimitri that reaped the benefits and not me.”

I pull away, looking up at his face as the other women and their respective bodyguards trail after us. “Fine. It got me hot. Is that what you want to hear? That it turned me on beyond measure. Watching as you exacted vengeance on my behalf like some Neanderthal? That I wanted to sink to my knees and have you fuck my face until tears streamed down my cheeks and my arousal streamed down my thighs? That even while Dimitri was fucking me in the kitchen, you crossed my mind? Does that make you feel better, Nik?”

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