5: Three reasons

[Nikolai]

The first thing I noticed was the way the tips of her hair made contact with her shoulder.

Most men liked women with long hair, but I liked mine to be distinct—short hair with smoky eyes was my kink. And that was exactly how she looked when she walked into my club, fearlessly.

Enora Patrizio didn’t strike me as a woman who would be stupid enough to walk into a den of vipers, so there could be only two reasons she would do so.

One: this was a fucking trap, probably set up by Carlos Patrizio.

Two: she was actually stupid.

I preferred to go with the first option because the second wasn’t only very unlikely, but it was safer never to underestimate your enemies. And as it seemed, I had more enemies than friends.

Our gazes were locked on each other, hers cautious, mine observing. Her gray eyes glittered something sad in the disco lights, her lashes were wet, her black mascara smeared beneath her eyes.

She looked nothing like she did when I first met her a week ago. I supposed this is what it meant when people said someone was a ghost of themselves.

I let my eyes trail briefly to her feet, and that was when I noticed she was barefooted. Dimitri had a gun to her forehead before I could take my eyes away from her bare feet.

He looked at me and I nodded at him, my signal for him to take her inside my office. He lowered his gun behind her waist. I wasn’t the type of guy to give a fuck about what body part of a woman was touched but I kept my cool and followed them as they walked to my office at the V.I.P. section.

Dim warm white light replaced the previous blue, red, and green as the three of us entered the office.

Dimitri and Enora halted in front of my mahogany desk, and I walked past them and sat on my black-leather swivel chair before scrutinizing Enora some more. I thought to add one more option to the other two I’d stated.

Three: she needs something from me.

Although that was very likely the reason why she came here looking so tattered and homeless, I still had to take necessary precautions.

A Patrizio was never to be trusted, especially not one who seduced men to their deaths.

“Strip,” I said simply.

Enora raised her head quickly. “What?”

I rested back on my swivel chair and repeated myself.

“Strip.”

Because I need to make certain you aren’t here with a weapon. I didn’t bother to add my reason though.

Enora glared at me for a good minute or two. She must’ve coded what I meant because she turned to Dimitri.

“Do you think I’d be comfortable taking off my clothes in a room alone with two men?”

“I see no reason why you shouldn’t.” She returned her eyes to me. “You were comfortable stripping in front of more than one man when you had my men killed.”

She exhaled exhaustingly. “Fine.” She tried to bend but paused and bit her lips tight as if to hold back a pain of sort. I wondered if something was wrong.

I eyed Dimitri to leave. He eyed me back to say he didn’t want to.

The son of a gun really did know how to get on my nerves sometimes.

“Get the fuck out of here,” I growled at him. He spared Enora a suspicious glance before walking away.

Saying I wanted him to leave because Enora was uncomfortable with his presence was a better excuse, but I didn’t want him to see her naked for some reason, and I would have asked him to leave regardless of if she wanted him to or not.

Enora pulled her green knit dress down to her waist and then slid it off her feet, leaving only her black net pant and bare teardrop breasts that bounced as she moved.

The nipples on them were pink and it was hectic for me not to imagine myself groping them and twirling my tongue on them teasingly.

My brain fizzled and blood rushed to my groin. Fuck, I was having a hard-on just looking at her.

“You should be a gentleman and not stare at me as if you want to devour me,” she said firmly with a brow raised at me.

“It is not very polite,” she added.

A perverted smirk touched my lips. “I am not a gentleman, malysh.”

Seeing as she was Carlos’s daughter, she probably knew the type of reputation I had. I found it insulting she’d think I could possibly be a gentleman.

“Do not ever assume that I am.”

She nodded sardonically. “As much as I want to continue the argument on you being a gentleman, I am here for a different reason.”

She looked at a black club cushion across from her. “May I take a seat?”

For someone raised by a pig like Carlos Patrizio, I had to admit she was as polite as she was deadly.

“You may.” I made eye contact with the side of her back as she walked to the cushion. There were swollen red marks on it indicating someone had hurt her. Someone had manhandled my malysh.

It was odd to me how my horny state was swiftly replaced with the gritting of my teeth and clenching of my jaw.

Who the fuck had dared to touch what I’d claimed as mine?

“What happened to your back?”