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“To whom?”
“Your little fuckboy, Hayden, for starters.”
He let out a weary sigh and looked down at the plate in front of him. I thought he was going to defend his “regrettable lapse” or whatever the fuck he’d called that asshole’s lips wrapped around his dick, like I needed any reminders ofthatvisual. Instead, he veered off in a different direction entirely.
“The next manager needs to be someone we can trust. Someone Sergei can trust. You know what we are. Some of your side businesses overlap with Sergei’s side businesses. Delirium is central to those operations. We need a manager who can run the club effectively while being mindful of whatever Sergei may be doing behind the scenes. Someone whowon’task questions. And someone whowon’tgo to the police.”
Fuck…He just admitted they were mafia.I mean, I’d guessed it. We all pretty much guessed it. But he’d gone and laid it out there in no uncertain terms, short of saying, “I’m part of the Russian mob.”
“For this, you’ll be compensated generously,” Misha continued, letting his gaze lift to mine. His sky-blue eyes were so serene, I had to remind myself to blink before I stared too long. “It’s a salaried position with benefits, like health insurance, for starters. Regardless of your decision, you may stay here for as long as you’d like.”
That was… a lot to think about. Rather than dwell on my indecision or even attempt to start weighing pros and cons, I redirected the spotlight to Misha.
“If we’re putting everything on the table, why don’tyoustay here? All of your personal stuff is here, like pictures and books. Why have a penthouse but leave this stuff here?”
“Nostalgia,” he replied with a small smile that looked kind of sad, not wistful. “This was the first apartment I had when I came here. I saved, I bought the building. Eventually, I bought some other buildings, one of which has a penthouse. Here I can be myself. At the penthouse, I have to be… something else. I have to be what the world made me. Like you.”
My first reaction was to argue with him, to tell him we were nothing alike. But I remembered what Nolan said about homophobia being a thing with the guys at Delirium. It intersected with what Misha told me, that if Sergei found out certain things, he’d hurt Misha. Since it was the mafia we were talking about, “hurt” could only mean one thing.
“Would Sergei really kill you if he knew you were gay?”
“I’m not gay,” he replied, clearing his throat. “But yes. Not necessarily Sergei. He doesn’t like it but he doesn’t go out of his way to kill people over it. Not anymore, at least, but there was a time that’s how it was dealt with. Dimitri on the other hand… Dimitri would most certainly kill me the first opportunity he could and he would be justified.”
“Justified? But you said Sergei doesn’t care!”
“It wouldn’t be because I loved a man, but for the act of lying itself. Once Sergei loses his trust in you, you’re dead.” The corners of his eyes tightened and I got the impression there was way more going on than he admitted to, but I wasn’t about to start poking around in mafia business. Two illegal occupations were enough for me, thank you. No need to get involved with a third.
“ButIam. Gay, that is,” I said, in case I needed to spell it out. “Will Sergei care about that?”
He made a face and waved me off. The concern he had two seconds ago was gone in the blink of an eye. “He won’t even look twice at you. His only rule is no ‘gay shit,’ as he calls it, in public. So don’t make out with your boyfriend at work and you’ll be fine.”
“I don’t have a boyfriend.” I narrowed my eyes at him again. Considering he stalked me for weeks before we ever spoke, hehadto have known that. If he went through all that trouble, surely a kinship network was one of the first things he’d established. So was that his not-so-subtle way of asking if I was taken?
“Good,” he replied, pretty much answering my silent question. “Keep it that way and you’ll be fine.”
“Is that an order?” I lifted an eyebrow.
He held my gaze so long my heart stuttered when he finally answered, shocked back into its rhythm by his voice breaking the tension. “It’s a piece of advice.”
Advice, huh?
“What if I get one?” Leaning back in my chair, I crossed my arms over my chest, waiting for some sort of reaction or telltale clue as to what was running through his head.
“A boyfriend?”
“Yeah.”
A muscle in his jaw flexed and his brilliant blue eyes darted away before returning, locking onto mine with unwavering confidence. “Would you like one?”
Since I wasn’t expecting him to turn it around on me, I went back on the offensive, trying to shake him or at least get some flicker of emotion on his face. Leaning forward, I made an open perusal of his body. He’d rolled his sleeves up on his forearms before we started eating, revealing a tattoo of a skull and crossbones, surrounded with Cyrillic script. It was the most skin I’d seen him show and I was practically frothing at the mouth. Now I knew how the Victorians felt when they glimpsed an ankle.
“That an offer?” I asked, raising both brows at him.
He shifted closer, mirroring my pose and tilting his head, never once looking anywhere but my face. “Would you like it to be?”
Well, shit.How was I supposed to answer that? If I said “Yes,” I was no better than Hayden. Thirsty and convenient. But if I said “No,” I had a feeling I’d regret missing whatever opportunity might come out of it. Regardless, I wasn’t going to back down from whatever battle of wills was underway.
“Wouldyoulike it to be?”Notmy best retort, but whatever. When in doubt, make it aboutthem, not you. The key was confidence. But that advice only worked when the guy you were working didn’t exhale confidence like carbon dioxide.
