40. Your hand or my belt?

NINA

The low hum of the car was the only sound filling the thick silence between us as the three of us sat, going to my first public appearance as Jeremiah Sokolov’s wife.

I was tense, nervous, not knowing what to expect and the two men surrounding me like I was there pet to display were sitting back like they couldn’t feel my growing agitation. But there was the tension in the air around us, too suffocating to go unnoticed.

Outside, the foreign city stretched in all directions, neon lights bleeding into the darkened streets, casting fleeting shadows against the tinted windows of the Rolls-Royce.

The car was sleek, all black with an interior of deep red leather that smelled of luxury and power. Everything about it screamed and represented what the owner was — polished, controlled, with an underlying edge of danger. What it couldn’t show was how lethal and fucking arsehole the man who owned was.

I leaned back, trying to relax. But it seemed impossible to relax with was Lachlan sit