Page 10 of Arranged Marriage to the Brutal Bratva King
“I don’t know yet.” I glance around at the crowd. It’s a mix of people who look like they belong here and others who are clearly slumming. “It’s reckless.”
“So is agreeing to meet a man you barely know in a neighborhood you don’t recognize.”
My cheeks heat. “Fair point.”
“You came anyway.”
“You invited me. It didn’t sound like I had much of a choice.”
The admission hangs between us, charged with meaning I’m not ready to examine. The cars thunder past again, completing their first lap, and Dimitri’s hand settles lightly at the small of my back, guiding me closer to the action.
His touch burns through the fabric of my dress.
***
We stay for two hours.
Dimitri doesn’t race, but he watches each heat with the same intensity he’d brought to the business negotiation I’d witnessed weeks ago. Reading angles, calculating risks, predicting outcomes. When I ask questions—why that car is faster, how the betting works, who organizes this—he answers without condescension, treating my curiosity like it’s worth his time.
It’s intoxicating.
Between races, we argue. About gentrification and community displacement. About whether progress requires sacrifice or if that’s just what powerful people tell themselves to justify taking what they want. About the difference between risk and recklessness.
“You think I don’t care about the people I displace,” Dimitri says at one point, voice low enough that only I can hear over the engine noise.
“I think you care about profit more.”
“You think caring changes anything? The city doesn’t reward sentiment, Janice. It rewards results.”
“That’s bleak.”
“You said that before.” His gaze holds mine. “You keep coming back anyway.”
I don’t have an answer for that.
When we finally leave, the driver takes us to a restaurant in SoHo—small, intimate, the kind of place that doesn’t have prices on the menu. The host greets Dimitri by name, leads us to a corner table that offers privacy without isolation.
I should feel out of my depth. Should be hyperaware of every fork, every word, every gesture that marks me as someone who doesn’t belong in places like this.
Instead, I feel seen.
Dimitri asks about my research, my theories on urban development, what brought me to New York in the first place. He listens when I answer, actually listens, arguing points he disagrees with and conceding others.
He tells me about growing up between two cultures, never quite fitting in either place, learning early that power was the only language everyone understood.
“Is that why you do this?” I ask, gesturing vaguely. “The developments, the empire-building?”
“I do it because I’m good at it.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“It’s the only answer I have.”
The food is incredible—courses I can’t pronounce, flavors I’ve never experienced—but I barely taste it. My entire focus narrows to the man across from me, the way candlelight catches in his gray eyes, the controlled precision of his movements.
Somewhere between the third course and dessert, I realize I’m in trouble.
It’s not the kind of trouble Marissa warned me about. Something deeper, more dangerous.
