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“Yes.”
“Yes?”
Adrik expelled a breath and stopped his pacing to answer me.
“Yes, to the first no. No. That is my answer to your rebuttal. You do not understand, I don’t want anyone else. I want you. Now, I have already bought this building. If you refuse me, I will take over all the apartments. You and your neighbors will have nowhere to go?—”
“Then I will go home, I have family, you know. And shame on you for threatening to put poor people on the streets,” I said, furious he would even suggest such a thing.
“I would do worse things than that, Zaika. I have done. And yes, let us talk about your family. Your father is unemployable. Alcoholic, yes?”
“Don’t talk about my father! He’s had some problems, but he’s doing his best and Nonna?—”
“We shall agree to disagree about what means his best. As for your grandmother. She is a good woman, responsible. She cared for you, yes?”
“She raised me,” I whispered, hating where this was going.
“Yes. Like I said. Good woman. But also deeply in debt. The rest of your family can barely get by. But they all live together. Nice family. Loving. Unfortunately, the mortgage is past due, and the property taxes have been unpaid for six months.”
“W-what?” I asked, sitting down hard.
It bothered me that he brought up my father, but he was not saying anything that wasn’t true. Dad was an alcoholic. His broken heart after my mother died allowed for nothing else. There was no room for anything but grief. Certainly not me.
But all that was in the past. I forgave my father for his sins long ago. What I did not know was that Grandma was so far behind. Fear filled me and worry, too. My grandmother had paid for my college. Helping me when my father was incapable. I always swore to pay her back someday.
“But do not worry, Zaika moya. I bought the lien on this property in North Bergen right before we got here. I now hold the mortgage on it.”
“Y-you did that in case I said no to your crazy and insulting plan to have me be your whore?” I asked, eyes so wide I wondered if it was possible for them to pop right out of my head.
“No, Zaika. Not my whore. Just mine. For one month. I wanted to make sure you understand how valuable this one month is to me.”
I could not believe this man. He’d dug into my life, violating me in ways I had never experienced. And what for? To have me as his beck and call fuck buddy? It shouldn’t have stroked my ego that he thought I was good in the sack, but it did. Good enough to warrant him going through all this trouble just to fuck me again. But I couldn’t help it.
Yep. There was something definitely wrong with me. That I would even consider being flattered by this monster. But even as I thought the word, I couldn’t help the quiver rolling through me. My body swelled and clenched at the remembered passion between us. That much was undeniable. Adrik and I were fire when we touched.
“Your phone is ringing, Zaika. Take the call.”
My body moved automatically to obey his rough command, but it was too late to stop. My grandmother’s name flashed across my cell phone, and I answered it immediately.
“Nonna? Wait, slow down. The bank called? Uncle Frank? No! Do not give him power of attorney, Nonna. I will be there in one hour. Promise me you won’t do anything. Just promise! Okay, yeah, I am on my way.”
My heart was beating me to death, but not because of the figure he cut in his tailored suit or because of how out of place he looked in my crappy apartment. Uncle Frank was a prick, and whatever manipulations Adrik set into motion to get me to agree to his cockamamie plan, he obviously hadn’t dug deep enough into my family to know about my father’s sister’s husband. A man I hated more than any other on the planet. A look of confusion crossed Adrik’s face, and he flashed a glare at one of his henchmen.
“On it,” the man murmured, already on his phone.
“Come. My car is outside.”
I put my ugly, puffy winter coat on, and my over-socked feet shoved inside a pair of scuffed-up boots, not giving two shits what I looked like. Grabbing my backpack, which doubled as a purse, I shoved my wallet inside, knowing my tablet and other crap were already in it.
Adrik’s men held the door of his sleek limousine open for us and I slid inside, too incensed to do much but get in. I had to get Uncle Frank out of there before that sleazeball did something that couldn’t be undone. I’d stopped the fucker once, but I didn’t know if I could live with myself if he took Nonna’s building from her.
“We will be there in forty-one minutes. Less if Carlo speeds, and he will. Now, tell me what I need to know about this Uncle Frank.”
I turned my head and looked into Adrik’s impossibly dark eyes. A minute ago, this man was my enemy, and I really should not look at him like he was a savior. But if he could help my grandmother, whom I owed everything to, then I would just have to trust him.
CHAPTER FIVE
ADRIK
