3

But I will not be doing the same.

If I’m going to be forced to marry, I’ll be marrying for business. Nothing more. I’m marrying to take the heat off my sister’s transgressions. I’m marrying to solidify the Pushkin Bratva as the preeminent force in the American underworld.

Love has nothing to do with it.

A sudden sound from behind me draws my attention. Yasha and I turn as one, conditioned by years of fighting alongside one another to be ready for whatever comes next. It wouldn’t be the first party we’ve attended that ends in gunfire and bloodshed.

But there’s none of that to be seen.

Not yet, at least.

A woman I’ve never seen before is baring her fangs at the drunken nephew of the Greek Genakos mafia don. Stefanos is his name, I think. He’s coarse and sloppy, which matches his reputation. Even now, his eyes are rolling in their sockets, loosened by too much of the free booze on hand. His claws are reaching out toward the girl.

“Keep your fucking hands to yourself,” she spits at him.

“Aw, c’mon,” he mutters through clumsy lips. “I was just tryna be friendly.”

“By grabbing my ass?”

“Tryna appreciate you, too,” he mumbles. “You don’t gotta be a bitch about it.”

Her jaw drops. “I know you did not just call me a bitch.”

“I said you’re bein’ a bitch, not that you are—”

He doesn’t get to finish the sentence before she cracks him across the face with a vicious slap. Those freewheeling eyes of his go blank and he stumbles backwards. He bumps into a wall and wobbles.

Then he rights himself and his unkempt smile twists into something far meaner.

“Listen here, you fuckin’ whore…” He advances on her. Those hands of his suddenly don’t look so limp and harmless. He goes to paw her again. She tries to bat him off, but he’s bigger and stronger than her, so he just swallows her up with his bulk as he backs her into the corner by the bathrooms.

And with that, I’ve seen enough.

I’m not here to be anyone’s white knight. But I’ll be damned if this inebriated moron is going to go around groping unwilling women in front of me.

When I was a boy, I saw my father do far too much of that. I couldn’t do anything to stop him then.

But now? Now, I’m perfectly capable of ripping this motherfucker to pieces.

I cross the distance, find the back of Stefanos’s collar, and rip him to the ground. He shrieks and hits hard enough to shake the nearby sculptures on their pedestals.

A champagne flute crashes to the floor and shatters in a million directions. One of the jagged pieces cuts Stefanos’s ear. His blood starts to pool out onto the white marble.

I plant a knee on Stefanos’s chest and bend down close enough for him to hear every word I breathe in his face. “I think you are the one who ought to ‘listen here,’ my friend. The lady told you no. She asked you to keep your hands to yourself, but you did not. So now, I’m putting my hands on you, and I won’t stop when you ask me to. I won’t stop when you beg me to. I won’t even stop when you scream and plead and cry for me to please God just have some fucking mercy.”

Stefanos’s eyes are wide and still now. His lower lip quivers. The cold fear sweat beading in his mustache disgusts me. “P-p-plea—”

“Shh.” I press a finger to my mouth. “I just told you that begging won’t help.” Then, sighing, I release my weight from off his chest and stand again. I pull my tuxedo cuffs into place as I look down on him from above. “But I don’t feel like getting your blood on my suit tonight. So for now, I’ll let you go. Get the fuck out of my sight.”

He doesn’t have to be told twice. He scrambles away on his hands and knees, leaking blood, until he can gather himself back upright. Then he goes bumbling away, down the corner and out of sight.

When he’s gone, I turn to the girl.

CORA

I’m still standing where that asshole left me backed into the corner. My hair is mussed and sweaty and my jaw is aching from biting down so hard. I’d like to get out of here, but I’m stuck for two main reasons.

One is that the man who just rescued me from Mr. Handsy Douche Bag is currently smoldering down in my direction. He looks like if testosterone had a face. Pure, rippling masculinity. Eyes like preserved honey. Hands that, even now, are flexing and unflexing like they’re capable of doing so much more.

The second reason is that, if I move out of this corner, Prince Testosterone and all the rubber-necking onlookers will get an eyeful of my bare butt.

That’s because, when the douche bag tried to paw at me, he ripped my dress all the way up the back seams. I can feel the cold breeze of the air conditioning blowing where I really wish it wouldn’t.

Not good.

So that’s my predicament in a nutshell: hottest guy I’ve ever seen plus one hell of a wardrobe malfunction. I’m a waitress, not a mathematician, but even I know that that doesn’t add up to anything great.

“Relax,” he rumbles. “You don’t have to worry. I handled it.”

“Yep. Relax. Working on it.” It’s difficult to talk, given how hard I’m trying not to move for fear of ripping the dress further.

I have a delirious mental image of just staying planted right here for the rest of the night. They can use my arms like a coat rack. The clean-up crew will have to get a crowbar to pry me out of the corner in the morning.

“I’d advise you to start by inhaling,” he suggests. “In through the nose, out through the mouth. That sort of thing.” There’s an undercurrent of dark laughter in his voice.

I wrinkle my nose. “Which part of this is funny to you?”

He doesn’t seem bothered in the least by my sharp voice. “The part where you look like you’re about to have an aneurysm if you don’t take a breath in the near future.”

He’s right—I really am clenching dangerously hard. For medical reasons, if nothing else, I sigh and take a big sip of air.

As I do, I feel another stitch in the seam give way.