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“Here, let me clean this up.” I move back to the table and slide the napkin into my hand. I move to the door, expecting him to be gone, but he’s still standing there.
“You don’t need to walk me back.” I shrug and walk past him.
“You going to throw that away?” He points down to the napkin crumpled in my hand.
I look down like I just realized I still had it. “Oh shit, yeah.”
I turn my back to him and move to the trash. I open the napkin and look down at the note.
Trust them. They’ll protect you.
I crumple it and drop it in the trash, making sure it lands in a cup of coffee and the ink runs so it’s not legible. Andrei is still at the door but on the phone now.
“Do it,” he orders and hangs up.
He holds the door open for me and follows me out. He walks at my side, close to the street.
“The Bratva is family. We don’t keep secrets,” he says ominously before he moves past me to his car, where I see Mikhail. I take a deep breath and step back into Clare’s House.
* * *
“Ican’t believe you’ve never seen this movie.” I laugh as Sparrow and I recline our chairs in Andrei’s theater room.Penelopestarts, and Sparrow is entranced. She takes a handful of popcorn, and I’m excited that I can expose her to this.
“Brett never let me go to the movies. We didn’t have a television, so I didn’t watch it, and at work, I never had time.”
“But at the shelter, you didn’t watch?”
“No.”
I lean back, and we watch as the movie progresses. My eyelids are getting heavy from lack of sleep the last few nights and just feeling unsafe. I haven’t seen Dmitri at all. Andrei told me he was working, so I didn’t ask any more questions. I know what I need to do for everyone.
“I’ll be back,” I tell Sparrow, and she just nods. I smile at the fact she’s so into the movie.
I step out into the hall and make my way to the bathroom off to the side. I open the door when I’m done, and I’m pressed back into the bathroom. The door is shut, and I hear the click of the lock. I almost panic until I smell the clean, fresh, expensive cologne Dmitri wears.
“Dima,” I sigh as he flips me around and puts my body to the door. He lifts me up and takes my lips in a deep kiss. I can’t make out much of him in the darkness, but I feel his body.
“I love hearing my name on your lips.”
I press against him to push him back and make him put me down. If he keeps kissing me, I’ll be lost in the desire and I’ll never tell him what I need to.
“We can’t. I’m here to spend time with my sister.”
“Afterward, I’ll come get you,” he says as he presses into me again.
I hold the moan in, but he must sense my body softening. He lifts my chin and takes my lips in a soft kiss.
When he lets me out of the bathroom, I run my fingers through my hair Dmitri had his hands in. I move back to my seat next to Sparrow and sit down. She looks at me and chuckles.
“Dima found you.” She laughs harder.
“What?” I brush my hands down my clothes and across my face, trying to find the tell that she saw.
“Your lips are swollen, and you’re flushed.”
“Ugh, that man is frustrating.” I huff.
“But you love him,” she says, and my heart catches. It has only been a week since he declared I was his. I can’t love him yet.
