Chapter 3 - The Wolf

❄︎ Viktor ❄︎

One look at the olive-skinned beauty seated before me, and I knew she had no intentions of honoring the marriage contract or bequeathing her father’s properties to me by law.

Also, she kept fiddling with something in her hands under my office table, distracting me from reading her.

Dark-haired, preppy, and young. She hadn’t known a day of struggle in her life, but she met my gaze bravely.

Marcus DeVries opened his mouth.

“Viktor…”

“It’s Don Viktor to you,” Adrian, my underboss and second-in-command, interrupted, his voice cold as ice.

Marcus pinched his lips into an unsightly line.

I resisted the urge to sigh. “Leave. All of you.”

Rosalind Marlow stilled, the faintest tremor licking her skin.

Marcus and her bodyguards looked toward her, awaiting her order. The girl looked torn between braving being alone with me and looking scared in front of her men. I smirked internally, this was going to be easy.

“I will speak to Mr. Marino privately. You may all wait outside.” Her soft voice permeated the room, surprising me with its strength, and it didn’t waver once.

Marcus looked like he disagreed, but rose and filtered out of the office along with my men.

The silence was complete. I stared, and she met my gaze squarely, each of us reading the other.

Her choppy bob ended inches above her shoulders, adding to her allure. Dark makeup emphasized almond eyes that were deep-set in a spotless canvas of supple skin, balanced by thick, glossy, heart-shaped lips.

Her mouth moved wordlessly for a second before I realized she was actually speaking, breaking my trance.

“I’m sure you’re aware of the contract our fathers signed before their untimely deaths.”

“It was very timely, and deserved.” She looked offended at my response.

“My father did not deserve…”

“Save it for the eulogy, sweetheart. Your father killed, directly and indirectly, with guns and drugs.”

I rose from my chair, sliding my finger across the open map on the desk.

Rosalind and her scant train had arrived in the middle of my perusal of The Grand Marlow Hotel, one of the last pieces of property that my father had failed to acquire from George Marlow.

Through her brave front, I saw her flinch when I rounded the table and leaned on it with my arms crossed, my leg a mere breath away from touching hers.

“I take it you don’t want to marry me,” I said with a faint smile.

“I do not,” she said immediately.

She tilted her head to look up at me, exposing her soft neck, adorned with pearls. I imagined wrapping my arms around it and squeezing, just to cut this whole charade short.

I wanted The Grand Marlow, and she was standing in the way. Adrian had sniffed through every legal document available and found that George had transferred ownership to his only daughter, his last act of self-preservation. He sold everything but his house and that hotel.

“Walk me through your game plan, Rosalind.”

I tasted the name between my teeth, it was smooth and stirred something in me. I waved it away.

“I don’t owe you an explanation. I came here to annul the contract…”

“What makes you think I will agree to that?”

I leveled my gaze to hers, my face blank despite the curiosity burning behind my mask. Did she really waltz into enemy territory hoping to ask and just break the contract? I could kill her right now, only that, then, I would lose the hotel.

George Marlow had no other family, just his daughter and her aunt, Carina Fiorini. In the event of her death, if we never wed, the hotel and assets would go to the aunt.

She rose to her feet, turning her back to me, a mistake, and walked over to the window overlooking Park Avenue. Her survival instincts were shot, yet the girl thought she could handle running the business.

“You cannot force me.”

“I don’t intend to. You’ll come around soon enough.”

“Is that a threat?” she sneered with menace, but her tone lacked real bite.

“We both know you’re out of your league here. I’ll make you an offer. Sell the hotel, return to Boston, and avoid an ‘untimely’ death like your father.”

“Did you kill him?”

Bold.

Rumor had it that I’d killed two members of my own family just to rise, and it greatly helped my reputation. But as much as I entertained the idea, I knew I couldn’t kill her. I already had just the right amount of attention… and dread.

I pushed off the table, her scent drawing me like a moth to a flame. Only, this flame had dark hair and a messed-up sense of preservation.

“What if I did?” I whispered, towering over her shorter frame as she pressed her back against the window with nowhere to run.

“Then I’ll make sure you pay for it,” she hissed back.

Her hazel eyes locked with mine fiercely, shining with promise. My gaze slid downward. Those damned lips again. They quivered, my proximity affecting her in ways she would never, ever admit.

I stepped back and noted how her chest inflated with much-needed air.

“Fine. Don’t marry me. But don’t cry when your enemies show up at your door. You’ll beg me for protection, eventually. And when you do… I might charge interest.”

“Don’t hold your breath.” She said, bored.

Suddenly, I wanted to snuff the breath out of her. She thought pearls and a sharp tongue made her dangerous.

I bet she had never seen a man flayed, broken, or burned before. George Marlow, despite his notoriety for torturing men to death and distributing enough drugs to stunt a generation, had invested in this child, sent her to a good school far away from the very farm that paid for it.

She knew nothing of this life, of my life, with my polar opposite father, who abused his sons until they all but turned vegetables. I was lucky to have lived despite the circumstances. My brother hadn’t.

She must have seen the change in my expression, and felt the heat radiating from my glare, because she curtly turned to the door with her back to me, another mistake, and rapped on it twice.

After her inherited consigliere and bodyguards swooped in to rescue her from certain death, I sat in my chair once more, Adrian beside me, watching.

“Are you going through with it?” He asked.

I almost felt bad responding to him, the glee in his voice betrayed his bloodlust.

“Unfortunately, no.” I exhaled. “We’ll have to be tactical.”

The Grand Marlow Hotel was my ticket to owning the game, with its strategic position and operations that pulled in millions per night.

The Marlow heiress wouldn’t know what to do with it, and her father had already signed her away to me. She was mine, so the hotel was mine. But if I couldn’t kill her, and I couldn’t force her, then it left only one option.

I’d charm her and let her think she had a choice. Maybe I’d even enjoy it. I wouldn’t mind watching her unravel bit by bit until she offered me the Grand Marlow with her own hands.

And after that? I’d ship her back to Boston wrapped in silk and pearls, something to remember me by.

But I wouldn’t mind watching her squirm a little first.