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“Strip,” I said simply.
Adrienne raised her head quickly. “What?”
I rested back on my swivel chair and repeated myself. “Strip.” Because I need to make certain you aren’t here with a weapon. I didn’t bother to add my reason though.
Adrienne glared at me for a good minute or two. She must’ve coded what I meant because she turned to Dimitri. “Do you think I’d be comfortable taking off my clothes in a room alone with two men?”
“I see no reason why you shouldn’t.” She returned her eyes to me. “You were comfortable stripping in front of more than one man when you had my men killed.”
She exhaled exhaustingly. “Fine.” She tried to bend but paused and bit her lips tight as if to hold back a pain of sort. I wondered if something was wrong.
I eyed Dimitri to leave. He eyed me back to say he didn’t want to. The son of a gun really did know how to get on my nerves sometimes. “Get the fuck out of here,” I growled at him. He spared Adrienne a suspicious glance before walking away.
Saying I wanted him to leave because Adrienne was uncomfortable with his presence was a better excuse, but I didn’t want him to see her naked for some reason, and I would have asked him to leave regardless of if she wanted him to or not.
Adrienne pulled her green knit dress down to her waist and then slid it off her feet, leaving only her black net pant and bare teardrop breasts that bounced as she moved. The nipples on them were pink and it was hectic for me not to imagine myself groping them and twirling my tongue on them teasingly.
My brain fizzled and blood rushed to my groin. Fuck, I was having a hard-on just looking at her.
“You should be a gentleman and not stare at me as if you want to devour me,” she said firmly with a brow raised at me. “It is not very polite,” she added.
A perverted smirk touched my lips. “I am not a gentleman, malysh.” Seeing as she was Dante’s daughter, she probably knew the type of reputation I had. I found it insulting she’d think I could possibly be a gentleman. “Do not ever assume that I am.”
She nodded sardonically. “As much as I want to continue the argument on you being a gentleman, I am here for a different reason.” She looked at a black club cushion across from her. “May I take a seat?”
For someone raised by a pig like Dante Paolo, I had to admit she was as polite as she was deadly. “You may.” I made eye contact with the side of her back as she walked to the cushion. There were swollen red marks on it indicating someone had hurt her. Someone had manhandled my malysh.
It was odd to me how my horny state was swiftly replaced with the gritting of my teeth and clenching of my jaw. Who the fuck had dared to touch what I’d claimed as mine? “What happened to your back?”
She paused when she reached the couch and spun to face me. “It’s nothing.” She sat down and stared at the walls that were the color of her eyes. I knew she was lying by the way she avoided my gaze.
“Do not lie to me, malysh.” My voice was harsh with rage and thirst for blood. I stood from my swivel chair, went to her, and dragged her up from the cushion before examining her back. Red and purple lines crossed each other countless times, and the skin around them was crimson, darker than red.
I ran my finger on them, causing goosebumps to appear on her skin. “Who did this to you, malysh?” I asked again, hearing the roar in my voice.
Adrienne swallowed. “It’s nothing.” It was something, and it all made sense. Her entering my territory even after I’d threatened to kill her the next time we meet, her bare feet, her pale face, and misty eyes.
“Listen, malysh.” I tilted her chin up and peered straight into her gray eyes. “The day I find out who did this to you will be the last day they breathe.” It was a promise I fucking meant, and I’d fulfill that promise soon enough. That I was sure of.
She grinned, not too brightly but not too darkly either. “What does it concern you that I’m hurt? You promised to kill me, remember?”
Her breasts were way too close to my chest, and like unlike poles, I was being magnetized to her. “I’ll break you, and then I’ll kill you.” I brushed my thumb on her lower lip. It was a pink, soft, full lip. “Till then, malysh, only I have the right to—” I leaned down to her ear. “To touch you,” I whispered.
I heard her breath cease as a low grunt escaped her throat. It was the reaction I wanted, but then she pulled away from me. “I am not yours or anybody’s, I came here for one thing, and you must help me.”
I put on my most indifferent look and took a seat on my desk. “Your papa is an enemy of the Bratva family, which I rule. Why would you come to me for help?”
“Because you’re the only one who can defeat the man I want to bring down.” She sat down on the edge of the cushion. “My papa does not stand a chance; he and that man are too identical.”
Was she trying to play a game with me? Her papa was the only person in New York that could challenge me, although I could easily take him down if he weren’t busy hiding like a rat. “Say I could help you destroy whomever it is you want me to help you destroy. Why would I want to do that?”
“Because we have a common goal,” she replied firmly. “The bigger picture may be blurred, and you can’t really see it now, but you’ll eventually come to see I’m on your side.”
Laughter itched the back of my throat and I let it out. “You’re on my side? Malysh, you pointed a gun at me a week ago! And more of my men have died because of you than have died in an open fight between the Italians and the Russians.”
“I know.”
“If you do, then tell me what the hell you need my help for, and I might just consider it.” She really was Dante’s daughter, tricky, doing her best to outsmart me, but I’d been in this game for years before she was born.
