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“My bedroom, huh?” I flash her a taunting smile as I raise the glass towards my lips. “Hear anything else interesting in there while you were eavesdropping?”
“I did, actually. Given your god status on campus, I kind of expected to hear you fucking droves of gorgeous women.”
Smirking, I say nothing and instead just give her a quick rise and fall of my eyebrows before taking a sip from my whiskey.
“So imagine my surprise when all I heard was you jerking yourself off and moaning my name.”
I choke on my drink.
Coughing, I try to get the whiskey out of my windpipe while alarm spears through me. Shit. I haven’t done that, have I? Have I moaned her name? Out loud? Fuck. I don’t know. I sure have been jerking off to images of her in my head. But I haven’t actually moaned her name out loud. Have I?
While setting my glass down on the table again, I scramble to get my wits back while Alina smirks at me from across the table. I clear my throat again, getting the last drops of whiskey out. Fuck, that didn’t make me sound nearly as in control as I would’ve preferred.
“Cute,” I comment drily.
She flicks her hair behind her shoulder and gives me a calculated smile dripping with fake sweetness. “I know.”
“Careful now, little doe.” I narrow my eyes, fixing her with a threatening look. “Are you sure you’ve thought this through properly?”
“Of course I have. I would never go into a meeting like this unprepared. After all, you can’t blackmail someone without actual leverage. And that, right there in front of you, is proof that you have been selling out the Morelli family to me.”
“Blackmail, huh?”
“Yes. Because here’s the deal. In exchange for keeping that information to myself, I want two things. First of all, you will delete the video of Mikhail groveling. From any and all devices and cloud backup storage spaces. And after that, you will leave my brothers and cousins alone. No more messing with them. No more tormenting them. No more ruining their education here.”
“You drive a hard bargain.” I cock my head, watching her intently. “But you’re forgetting one thing.”
“Oh?”
“If you release this,” I tap the topmost paper in front of me before pointing to the stack of documents in front of her, “I release that.”
Given how shocked she looked when she realized that I had had the exact same plan as her and bugged her house too, I don’t think this particular problem was part of her little blackmail scheme. Which means that even though it was an incredibly impressive play, she still can’t win.
I watch her face, waiting for that realization to flood her features.
Once again, she doesn’t react the way I expect her to.
Instead of realizing that her threat is neutralized by mine, she grins at me as if she understands something that I don’t.
Her gray eyes hold no fear. No hesitation. Only cold calculation.
It makes both dread and an insane thrill spike through my spine.
“Yes,” she says at last. Then she transforms her features into the perfect mask of an innocent little girl with big doe eyes. “But I’m just a weak, naïve, little girl who was taken advantage of.”
I blink at the abrupt change as she quickly lets the expression fade and instead flashes me a smile dripping with threats and challenge.
“My family will be angry, yes. But it will pass.” Her eyes gleam as she stares me down from across the table. “But what do you think the mafia king Federico Morelli will do to you when he finds out that you have jeopardized the safety of his family?”
For a while, all I can do is to stare at her while shock and incredulity and utter admiration whirl through me like a raging storm. Because she’s right. If I leak my information, her family will be angry. But like she said, she will probably still get away with a disappointed lecture and some months of angry silent treatment.
But if she ever leaked her information, if Mr. Morelli found out that Alina had gotten that information from me, involuntarily or otherwise, I would be ruined. Completely and utterly ruined. After what happened with Rico’s parents, Mr. Morelli considers the security of his family the most important thing in the world. He would never trust me again if he knew that the fucking Petrov family had obtained some of his secrets because of me, and my career would end before it even began. Hell, it might even fuck with Jace’s future too since his voice is no doubt on those audio recordings as well.
Seated there at the kitchen table, I stare at the ruthless little Russian in front of me.
My heart pounds like a battle drum in my chest.
Clarity, like nothing I have ever felt before, cleaves through the storm of emotions in my chest like a lightning strike. It fills my entire soul until all those confusing emotions fade, leaving only that one realization behind. I sit there, staring at Alina.
