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The Red Place was not one of them.
I loved the lounge on the top floor almost as much as I loved my brothers. The food was immaculate, the atmosphere was exquisite, the music, the lighting. I loved that there was a crazy, loud club on the ground floor, I loved that from the lounge you could look across the city, and even more, I loved that I could have Katya Petrenko and her posse shuffled out like children.
“I swear, one day you’ll have me killed,” Jaricho echoed in my ear over the phone. “Mattis has already complained. He’ll quit if I pull shit like that again.”
I chuckle. “You’ll live.”
“I really won’t. Didn’t you hear anything I just said?!” I laughed and ended the call.
Jaricho wasn’t very active in running the place, so too many people assumed Mattis was in charge, but Jaricho was my friend and the owner of The Red Place. Sometimes, I liked to think he had me in mind when planning the damned thing.
There was no other acceptable explanation.
The Petrenko car sped away, and I winked it a good night. It was hard to say why it felt so damn good to have them kicked out. I’d gone up to have a drink alone. Sometimes, being with my thoughts was what I needed; if not, getting somebody to keep me company wouldn’t be too hard. I already wasn’t going to tolerate anybody at the table I liked, but there’d been other great tables unoccupied.
It hadn’t taken too long for those tables to go, though. This was The Red Place, after all. Then I’d decided to ruffle her a bit, just a bit, because she’d tried to play with a tiger’s tail.
Any kitty that did that deserved to be ruffled a bit.
The line into the building was as long as ever, and I walked past all of them without a second glance. Coming downstairs had been to make a particularly mean call and watch the embarrassed kitty drive home.
I already knew her looks were something to write home about but watching her across the lounge had done something to me…I would need company after all.
Extraordinarily straight blonde hair and firm, long legs, she wasn’t shy to show off in that little black dress. And there was that severe gaze. Those icy blue eyes never landed on me, but I wish they had, just to see what I might have done.
I pressed for the elevator and waited, tapping my feet to the pounding bass from the club. There was that welcoming vibe. Not exactly noisy. There wasn’t a constant booming, just the vibration. Jaricho had made it all possible. I’d told him many times about how impressive it was.
The elevator dinged open, and…
I smiled, I couldn’t help it and got in.
The doors closed, and we were thrust into perfect silence, no thumping coming off the walls to affect your body.
“Aren’t you going up? The top floor, I believe.”
I bit my lower lip, but the chuckle still came out. “How cute…”
“Yes,” Katya Petrenko drawled, “very adorable.”
I didn’t move. Both my hands were shoved in my pockets. “Is this what you do in the Petrenko family, play cheap tricks on your enemies.”
Her reflection in the elevator was perfect. Her curves were evident in her body-tight dress, her legs crossed by the ankle and her head thrown back against the elevator wall. Not the most flattering pose on anybody else, but God, she was working it.
She laughed—a short, brief bark. One hand came up as if she was a delicate woman to cover her mouth as she laughed. “Please. I have better things to do than to take someone worthless like you for an enemy.”
I turned my head slightly to look at her. Mistake. “Really?”
“Yes. Cheap moves like a 20th-century gangster, pranks like a high school child, and goodness, who advised you to wear that rubbish?”
Now, I turned to her fully. I couldn’t help it. Something about her kept calling out to me, and I wasn’t the kind of man that resisted temptation.
I indulged in it.
“A 20th-century gangster? Do you mean my irresistibly convincing and charismatic nature?”
She laughed again and pushed herself off the wall. “No, I mean the single-dollar tricks you learned from your grandfather. Disappointing really, with all the noise about the Sorvino don, I had expected something…” she gave me a slow look over, walking around me as if I were a piece of meat. “…I’d expected somebody with at least a better sense of style.”
“Liar,” I teased with a smirk and took a step towards her. “This piece fits me to the T. It was custom-made.”
