Page 35 of Arranged Marriage to the Brutal Bratva King
Dimitri goes very still. “So itwasyou.”
“You got me fired from the only opportunity I had. Ruined my references. Made sure I couldn’t work in this city for years. What did you expect me to do? Thank you?”
“I expected you to disappear.” His voice is dangerously quiet. “To understand that some worlds aren’t meant for people like you. To be grateful I let you walk away alive.”
“Alive?” Fear finally breaks through my anger. “What are you—”
“You exposed operations that cost me millions. Cost people I’m responsible for their livelihoods and safety.” He straightens, and suddenly he’s towering over me. “Did you think there wouldn’t be consequences?”
“I thought…” My voice cracks. “I thought the truth mattered.”
“The truth.” He laughs, cold and bitter. “You wrote about gentrification and displacement like you understood what you were documenting. You had no idea what you’d actually uncovered.”
“Then enlighten me.”
“No.” He circles behind my chair, and I resist the urge to turn and track his movement. “You don’t get to understand. You don’t get explanations or context. You get consequences.”
My hands are shaking now. I grip the tablet tighter, trying to maintain composure that’s rapidly deteriorating.
“What do you want from me?”
“Everything you took.”
He’s in front of me again, and this time when he moves, it’s fast. His hand fists in my hair, tilting my head back, forcing me to meet his eyes.
“You cost me four years of searching. Four years of looking over my shoulder, wondering who knew what, who could be trusted. Four years of being haunted by a ghost I couldn’t identify.”
“Let go of me.”
“Afraid of what might happen if I don’t?”
Yes. Terrified.
Beneath the fear, something else pulses, something hot and unwanted and completely inappropriate, given the circumstances.
He sees it. I watch his pupils dilate, watch recognition cross his face.
“You still want me,” he says, voice rough. “Even now. Even knowing what I am.”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
His other hand reaches into his jacket, and suddenly there’s metal pressing cold against my throat.
A gun.
Every thought evaporates into pure survival instinct. My breath stops. My body goes rigid.
Dimitri’s expression doesn’t change. Doesn’t soften. He just watches me with that merciless focus while pressing the barrel harder against my skin.
“This is what happens when you cross people like me, Janice. This is the world you tried to expose.” His voice is perfectly calm. “One word from me, and you disappear. You’ll be just another casualty of a city that eats idealists alive.”
I can’t speak. Can’t breathe. Can only stare at him while my pulse hammers so hard I’m certain he can see it.
“I’m not going to kill you,” he continues almost conversationally. “Death would be mercy. And I’m not feeling particularly merciful right now.”
He steps back, lowering the gun. My lungs finally remember how to work, dragging in air that tastes like fear and adrenaline and something darker I refuse to name.
“Get out.”
