by Bethany-Kris
Violet let out the breath she’d been holding.
“Shortly,” he added with a cold smile.
Wonderful.
The man jerked his head to the side and said, “Take them to my office, and we’ll go from there.”
Violet didn’t get the chance to ask what he meant before someone was grabbing her arm from behind and separating her from her friends. She chose not to fight against the bull-like man wearing all black as he pulled her along through the curious crowd that had suddenly quieted and was watching the show.
At least they were getting their money’s worth for the entrance fee.
After a short walk through a back hallway, Violet and her friends were shuffled into an office that was far bigger than what she was expecting, considering how it looked from the outside. There was a couch along the back wall, two stuffed armchairs, and a large mahogany desk that dominated the space. Bookshelves were built into the walls with rows of books and tombs on various subjects lining them. Though the decor was understated, there was definitely a masculine feel to it.
The man who had stopped them earlier waved at his counterparts, and the three men who had escorted the girls into the space disappeared before the office door shut. Amelia had been placed on a couch, and Nicole moved to sit beside her.
Violet figured her friend had Amelia handled, so she faced the man who wouldn’t let them leave.
“I—”
“Quiet,” he uttered. “What did she take?”
Violet clenched her teeth. “I don’t know. That’s why we were leaving.”
“Does she need a hospital?”
“She needs a bed and water,” Nicole interjected.
“You need stitches,” he said, glancing down at Nicole’s arm. “You’re bleeding all over my couch.”
Nicole just glared.
Violet held back her grin, knowing it wasn’t the time.
“We’re really sorry,” Violet said, hoping to appease the guy so he would let them go without any more trouble. “We just wanted a good time—this club is supposed to be the hottest thing on Coney right now, and someone must have spiked our friend’s drink. We don’t want problems. We really don’t want the cops involved, so if that’s what you’re worried about, don’t be.”
The man’s lips drew into a thin, grim line as he looked the girls over. “I will make sure you all get home safe and sound.”
Violet didn’t like that idea at all. She could still hear her father in the back of her head, repeating his warnings. Keep out of Coney Island, don’t go too deep into Brooklyn, and stay the hell away from Russians.
It was more likely that whoever this guy was didn’t have anything to do with the kinds of Russians her father demanded she stay away from, but Violet knew where the lines were drawn with Alberto Gallucci. She often tested them, occasionally even jumping over them when her father wasn’t looking.
Russians were not one of them.
“We can take a cab,” Violet said. “We took one here.”
The man didn’t look all too impressed with that idea. He opened his mouth to speak, but the office door opened from behind Violet, stopping whatever he was going to say.
“Everything good, brat?”
Violet turned fast on her heel at the new voice.
And froze.
He was tall—over six feet—and built like he ran a ten-K every day. The black suit he wore hugged his frame, but the jacket was left unbuttoned, showcasing a white silk dress shirt that was pulled taut across his chest.
The man was cut.
Violet swallowed hard and met the man’s stare.
Gray eyes, like the other man’s but more intense, looked her up and down with a slow, predatory fashion. His face was framed by a strong jaw dotted with a couple days’ worth of scruff and sharp cheekbones. His lips, full enough to draw in her attention, curled up at the edges into a grin of sorts.
She thought it looked more like a smirk.
He raised a hand and ran it through his short, dark hair that was tapered at the sides but a little longer down the middle.
But it wasn’t so much the action that caught her attention, but the black ink marked on his hand. An upturned spider that looked to be crawling up under the sleeve of his suit jacket rested upon a web.
Her gaze cut back to his when he dropped his hand back to his side.
He looked familiar. She was sure that she should know him, but in her semi-drunken state, she was coming up with nothing.
The man’s smirk quickly faded into a mask of cool, calm nothingness. He looked past her to the man behind her and said one word that chilled her entirely.
“Gallucci.”
“Someone’s on the wrong side of the bridge,” Kaz said casually, almost smiling at the way her mouth twisted. Turning his attention to his brother, he switched to Russian, ensuring that the Gallucci girl and her friends wouldn’t understand. “What’s the damage?”
“Fuck the damage,” Ruslan returned in the same tongue. “She needs to leave. Now. I have enough problems without having to worry about who else is going to show up at my door looking for her.”
He had a valid point. There was a reason for the lines that divided their two organizations, and Kaz didn’t doubt that she knew where those boundaries lay—she was the only daughter of Alberto Gallucci after all. There was no doubt that the Italian boss wouldn’t look too kindly on his daughter and Kaz being in the same room together.
Glancing over at her, he had to wonder if that was what she’d wanted by coming here tonight. There was always the chance that she hadn’t known who this club belonged to, but what were the odds of that?
And if she did … well that made her a little more intriguing to him. It made him wonder what other lines she was willing to cross.
“Don’t worry, brother.” Clearing his throat, Kaz switched back to English. “Nathaniel is going to take you …” He gestured to the girl with the bleeding arm who was actively scowling at him.
“Nicole,” Violet supplied quietly.
“Right. Nathaniel is taking you to the hospital.”
Before Kaz could go on, Violet interrupted him. “We don’t—”
He silenced her with a look and whatever she’d thought to say, she swallowed it back. “Ruslan, get the other one home.”
The one needing the stitches—Nicole—looked to Violet then, an emotion in her eyes that Kaz couldn’t read, but he didn’t expect an answer from her, he waited for the Gallucci girl to explain.
“That’s unnecessary. Like I said, we can catch a cab.”
Now it was Kaz’s turn to scowl. “That’s not how we work. Take a look,” he said pointing to her friend. “She can barely hold her head up. Do you really want her out in a cab where she can’t protect herself? My brother wouldn’t touch her.”
He waited for another argument, or at least another excuse, but when she remained quiet, he went on. “Address.”
Hesitantly, as though it was being forced out of her, Violet rattled it off. Kaz nodded to Ruslan, giving him the go ahead. He didn’t argue, but he did send Kaz a look before he helped the girl to her feet and called Nathaniel for Nicole.
When it was just Kaz and Violet left in the office, he studied her, admiring the way she kept her chin tilted up, as though she was looking down her nose at him though he was a good few inches taller.
She was a pretty girl, beautiful really, with wide expressive eyes a shade of green that lightened toward the pupils. With a dainty nose, and pouty lips that were currently turned down at the corners, she was perfectly fine with letting her irritation show. Blonde hair that looked soft to the touch tumbled down around her shoulders in waves, and if not for the fact that he knew the legacy she came from, he might have thought her benign.
But looks were deceiving. He knew that better than anyone. Kaz hadn’t been sure, not at first. He hadn’t anticipated anything more than to find three drunken girls way over their heads waiting in his brother’s office. The last thing he had expected, or even wante
d, was Violet Gallucci standing there staring him down.
“And me?” she asked breaking the silence stretching between them.
Pulling his keys from his pocket, he held them up for her to see. “Looks like we’re taking a ride to Manhattan.”
Somehow, in the span of a little more than thirty minutes, Violet’s night had turned to shit in the worst way. This was supposed to be her night, the one where she could be free, forget about the carefully controlled life she lived, but not anymore.
Not when she was about to climb into a car with the one person she knew she really shouldn’t be around. But what other choice did she have? It was only a matter of time before her father found out where she had been, especially with Nicole on her way to the hospital.
The man who’d walked right in and taken charge was leading the way out the back and around the side of the building toward a monstrosity of a car that was parked there. While she might not have known much about cars, she could tell that this one was expensive just off the brand alone.
She might not have liked him, but his car was another story.
The lights flashed as he unlocked the door, and though she had expected him to climb into the driver’s seat, he surprised her as he came to her side first and opened the door, gesturing for her to climb in with a tilt of his head. It was unexpected because she hadn’t thought of him as a gentleman, not in the slightest.
When she was safely inside, and he’d closed the door, rounding the front of his side, she took in the sleek interior. All black leather, chrome detailing, and while it was only a two-seater, there was plenty of space to stretch her legs out.
There was a moment as he climbed in—inserting the key and starting it up, the blue lights of the dash cutting through the darkness—that she became all too aware just who she was seated beside.
And that she didn’t really know him at all.
“It’s a good hour and a half, maybe a little more, of a drive back to Manhattan,” he said, his tone gruff. “Settle in.”
Violet tossed him a look from the side, admiring his profile. “You seem to know a lot about me, but I don’t know a thing about you.”
He flashed a smile—white teeth and sinful in a blink.
“Shouldn’t that be something you learn before you get into a car with a man?” he asked.
“You didn’t give me a choice.”
“You had a choice.”
Violet’s brow furrowed. “I don’t think so.”
Not the way it played out, anyway.
“You did,” he assured, never taking his gaze off the windshield as he pulled the vehicle out onto the road. “That choice, Violet, came for you when you came this deep into Brooklyn and made your way to Coney.”
Well, then …
Violet looked away when he cut her with a hard look. “I wasn’t doing anything wrong.”
“Yes, you were.”
“No, I—”
“How old are you now, about twenty-one, yes?”
Violet blinked.
He knew her name.
Her age.
That she lived in Manhattan without even asking.
He knew.
She ignored the drip of panic slicing through her middle. Despite the darkness that colored up his aura, he didn’t scream entirely bad to her.
And Violet knew bad.
“Turned twenty-one today,” she admitted.
His hands tightened around the steering wheel, drawing her attention to his tattoos again. It was only when he spoke that she finally tore her gaze away from the spider and its intricate web.
“I am sure there are far more places in Manhattan or Brooklyn for you to enjoy your birthday, other than my brother’s club,” he said. “No doubt, your father has made it perfectly clear where you are and are not allowed to go in New York, Violet.”
She liked the sound of his voice, and the way his r’s rolled a little harder than his brother’s had back at the club.
But she really liked the way he said her name. It came out a little differently than how most people said it. Instead of just the “i” following the “v” in her name, he said with a hard “o” following the “v”.
She shouldn’t have liked it at all, but she did.
Violet chewed on her inner cheek. “It’s not fair that you know my name, but I don’t know yours.”
“You know it,” he said, smiling in that way of his again. “But I’ll remind you.”
He held out a hand, palm up, while keeping his other hand firmly on the wheel. Violet glanced between his hand and his face, unsure of what he wanted her to do.
“Shake politely like you’ve been taught,” he urged.
She glowered at him. “No, thanks. Only civilized people shake hands.”
He cocked a brow. “And what does that make me, a savage?”
Violet couldn’t have missed the heat in his tone even if she tried. Deciding she had pushed her luck enough for one night, she slid her smaller hand into his waiting palm, and ignored the way the heat of his rougher skin seemed to siphon straight into her smoother flesh.
His fingers circled around her hand before she thought better of touching the man, and squeezed just hard enough to make her look up at him.
“A savage man—one not like me—wouldn’t have bothered to get you inside a car, krasivaya,” he said, his timber dropping to a lower note. “He would have done what he wanted when he had you alone in an office.”
Violet tried to tug her hand out of his grasp, but he held tight.
“Kazimir Markovic,” he said, squeezing her fingers once more. “But I prefer Kaz. It’s very nice to meet you again, Violet Gallucci.”
Finally, he released her hand. Violet sat back in the seat fast, confused.
“Again?” she asked.
Kazimir—Kaz, he’d said—resumed driving like nothing had happened. “We met once, a long time ago.”
Violet didn’t remember that at all.
“When?”
“A long time ago,” Kaz repeated quietly. “You were helping me to find the sun that day, if I remember correctly.”
He was talking in gibberish.
Violet was sure of it.
Then, she had a more pressing realization. It settled hard in her gut, thick and heavy. She knew the surname Kaz mentioned only because of who she was, and who she was supposed to stay away from. Occasionally, that name was whispered between men at her father’s dinner table, but never discussed for very long.
“Markovic?” she asked. “Like the … Brighton Beach Markovic family?”
She thought better of saying Russian mafia, but just barely.
Kaz didn’t take his gaze off the road as he chuckled. “Ah, she finally understands.”
“Answer my damn question.”
“We prefer to call it Little Odessa,” he said. “But yes, one and the same.”
Oh, God.
Violet went from being pretty sure she had fucked up, to knowing she was in such deep shit there would be no digging her way out of it.
“Drop me off at the next intersection,” she said quietly.
Kaz laughed. “What?”
“I can’t be in this car. So you need to let me out so I can call a cab and go home.”
“No,” he said simply.
Violet’s mouth popped open. “No?”
“That’s what I said, Violet. No. You made your way down to Coney, knowing that you shouldn’t be there, and now I’m going to make sure you make your way back to Manhattan and you stay there.”
Her father was going to kill her.
Violet’s frustration boiled over in a slew of words. “How do you even know where I live? Do you realize how creepy that is?”
Were the Russians watching her or something?
Her family?
Did her father know?
For a brief moment, Kaz’s indifferent, handsome mask cracked and he frowned. “I am not so different from you, Violet, despite the culture shock.”
�
�Can you stop talking me in circles for five fucking seconds?”
“You’re awfully combative for a woman who grew up in the house of an Italian mafia boss,” he said.
Violet glared. “My father didn’t raise a doormat.”
“But I suspect he did raise a lady.”
Ouch.
Point taken.
Violet tampered her rudeness for a second. “What did you mean when you said that you’re not so different from me?”
Kaz tipped his head in her direction, and a small smile played at the corner of his lips. “I know where I should and should not be going, Violet. I grew up being told where it was safe to play, so to speak. I don’t suspect your raising was much different, which is why finding you on Coney Island was such a shock.”
“I know what they say about Coney,” she mumbled. “It’s nobody’s land.”
“Maybe so, but the fact remains, it’s too close to Odessa.”
Violet didn’t bother to argue. She knew he was right.
“But that still doesn’t explain why you know where I live,” she pointed out.
“Quick girl,” he murmured.
Violet ignored the way that sounded like he was praising her. “So explain.”
“If there are places I am not allowed to go being who I am, then there are reasons for those rules.”
Reasons being people.
She understood his unspoken words.
“It took me a second to recognize you,” Kaz added, “but you can’t exactly hide who you are to someone who makes it his business to know all that he can about a certain family that doesn’t like us all that much.”
“What, like safety?” she asked.
“If you want to look at it like that. Let’s put it this way, Violet. There are places that I can go, but I know I’m toeing a line. Then there are places I can go and while it’s probably safe, I still shouldn’t be there. And then there are other places, like Manhattan, where it’s a goddamn death sentence.”
Oh.
The territory lines had never quite been explained to her in that way before.
Maybe if they had, she wouldn’t have went down to Coney Island.
“I still think you should drop me off and let me grab a cab,” she said. “To be safe and all that.”