Page 64 of The Pakhan's Captive
“Is this enough?” she asks when she is finally done dressing, her voice tight.
I stand and walk toward her. I don’t stop until the heat of her body is a physical pressure against my chest. I reach out, my fingers grazing the bare, goosefleshed skin of her shoulder. I feel the tremor go through her — a violent, traitorous jolt of electricity.
“Almost,” I murmur, leaning down until my nose is hovering just above her skin. She smells like fire and desperation. “You’re shaking,zayka. Your body is screaming for me to touch you, even while your mouth tells me you hate me.”
“I do hate you,” she breathes, but her eyes are hooded, her lips parted.
“Then hate me in the car,” I say, my hand sliding down to the small of her back, the friction of my palm against her bare skin making my jaw lock. “But when we walk through those doors, you will play the role of the devoted, lethal wife. Understood?”
She stares at me, her gaze darting to my mouth and back to my eyes. For a second, I think she will slap me. Instead, she just swallows hard, her hand fluttering to the golden chain on her hip.
“Understood, Pakhan.”
The Neon Serpent is a tomb of bass and expensive cologne. As we enter, the crowd doesn’t just move—they recoil, clearing a path as if we are a contagion. I keep my hand anchored to the small of Lena’s back, my thumb hooked into the silk, making sure everyone sees exactly whose mark she bears.
At first, she is a statue. Cold. Rigid. Bracing herself against my side as if I am a blade held to her throat. She is trying to maintain that bravado, but I can feel the tremor in her spine.
I lean down, my lips brushing the shell of her ear. “Smile,zayka,” I command, the words a low, dangerous vibration. “Unless you want them to think I’ve lost my edge. And we both know what happens to a man in my position when people think he’s gone soft.”
Lena goes still for a heartbeat. I feel her swallow. The defiance is still there, buried deep, but for the sake of the room, she leans into me.
Her hand slides up my chest, her fingers curling into my lapel, playing with the fabric. She looks up at me, her eyes heavy-lidded and dark with a calculated, predatory heat.
“Whatever you want, my love, and I do hope…” she purrs, her lips curves into a dazzling, fake smile that fooled everyone in the room but me.
She leans in, her breasts brushing my arm, and presses her mouth to my jaw. She doesn’t just kiss me—she lingers, her tongue flicking out to taste the skin there for a fraction of a second. I feel the growl start deep in my lungs. She is mocking me with her own body, turning the role of the seductress into a way to bleed me dry in front of a hundred men.
“We will revisit this later,zayka,” I promise, my hand tightening on her waist until my fingerprints will surely be left behind.
She looks at me then, her eyes flashing with a sudden, sharp glare—a moment of genuine hesitation, as if she realizes she has pushed too far—before she masks it back into that sickeningly sweet smile.
I have to leave her side for five minutes. Five minutes to settle a shipment dispute in the VIP lounge. I leave my shadows behindher, but Mikhail Borodin is a man who lives for the moments when shadows fail.
When I step back into the main room, the atmosphere has soured.
Borodin is standing in Lena’s personal space, his face flushed with vodka and a misplaced sense of immortality. He is leaning in, his hand hovering inches from the bare skin of her back.
“—shame for a woman like you to be wasted on a man who’s probably forgotten how to use what he has.” Borodin is sneering, his voice loud enough to draw a circle of silent witnesses. “Volkov is a relic, darling. You need someone with a bit more…stamina.”
He reaches out, his thick, greasy fingers snagging the golden chain on her shoulder, pulling her an inch closer.
I don’t waste breath on a shout. I move through the crowd like a shark through water, the silence following me like a shroud. By the time I reach them, Borodin’s eyes are just beginning to register the shift in the light.
I catch his wrist. I don’t just hold it. I squeeze until I feel the radial bone start to bow under my grip.
“Mikhail,” I say. My voice is a dead thing, cold as a Moscow winter. “You seem to be under the impression that your life has value tonight.”
“Pakhan! I-I was just complimenting?—”
“You were touching my property.” Stepping into his space until our chests nearly touch, I can smell the rot on his breath. I don’t care about his words—I care about the fact that his filth is withinreach of her skin. “I’ve killed men for far less than looking at her. Imagine what I’ll do to you for putting your hands on her.”
I reach for the serrated blade at my back, my pulse steadying as the familiar itch of the kill takes over. I want to open him up right here, to let his blood ruin the floor he stands on.
Suddenly, Lena’s hand is on my chest.
“Razvan,” she says.
I don’t look at her. “Get out of the way, Lena.”
