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A clicking sound in the almost silent restaurant yanks my attention to the front door. My face pales.
One of the three guys who was drinking coffee has just dead-bolted the door from the inside. Another one is pulling the shades down over the big front windows, hiding us from the sidewalk outside.
Holy fuck.
My chair crashes over backward as I leap from it and bolt for the side door. But I barely make it four steps before two of the men grab me hard by the arms and yank me back, making me scream.
“Take yourfuckinghands off her.”
I freeze immediately when I hear the voice.
Hisvoice.
Instantly, I shudder as the same cold sensation from before tickles down my spine. My stomach clenches painfully, my heart thudding against my breastbone as the two men release me. The third man is already locking the side door when slowly, my tongue wetting my lips, I turn.
And I tremble.
Gavan is sitting alone at one of the empty tables, drumming his tattooed fingers on the top of it. His men are in simple black suits. Gavan, however, is dressed like a king.
Or a Tsar.
He’s in an impeccably tailored and fitted three-piece suit—gunmetal gray to match his piercing gray eyes. His shoes are polished and stylish. He’s wearing gleaming silver cufflinks. He’s even got one of those tie-bars across his collar—also silver, to match the cufflinks.
Even if you don’t know who and what he is, Gavan cuts an imposing figure. Well over six feet tall, with long legs and broad, muscular shoulders. The suit tightens across a powerful chest and bulging biceps, and I flush as I stare right back at the cold, calculating gray eyes boring into me.
I tense as I take in the high, aristocratic cheekbones, the jaw that could cut glass. He’s got a dark, swarthy scruff of stubble covering his chin, and keeps his hair longish, but styled.
It is outrageously unfair that a man as terrifying and lethally dangerous as Gavan Tsarenko should be so ridiculously attractive. Heat courses through my system alongside fear as his eyes burn malevolently into me, and as the power almost literally radiates off him.
“Leave us,” he growls quietly, addressing his men even as he keeps staring right at me. Slowly, he raises a hand, two fingers beckoning me in a “come here” motion. I swallow the lump in my throat as the three men in suits file out through the door to the kitchen.
“I thought we should have a little chat,” Gavan murmurs, his eyes still locked on mine.
I see his men leave in my peripheral vision. Then I’m bolting for the front door. But I barely make it a few steps before Gavan grabs me, and I scream. His muscular, powerful arms circle me like iron bands, unyielding, lifting me off my feet, my back to his chest as my legs kick helplessly. He marches back to the table and unceremoniously drops me to my feet again before sitting back in his chair.
I glance sharply at the door again. He just sighs.
“We can play this game all fucking night if you’d like, Eilish,” he rasps darkly. “Or you could simplysit, as instructed.”
I purse my lips and look away.
“Where is everyone?”
“Gone. I own this place.”
I shiver.
“Now—sit.”
I briefly contemplate running for it again. But it’s a stupid idea, and it’s just going to make me look even guiltier, not to mention foolish. So, pulse roaring, I drop into the chair across from him.
“Good girl.”
I simmer. My gaze rips to his, narrowing into a glare. Gavan just smiles a thin, cold smile.
“Do they know?”
I swallow and remain silent.
