Staring back at her, it was the first time he noticed the smattering of freckles across her cheeks and nose. He allowed himself that one moment to feel sorry for her—whatever her circumstance—before he reached down and fished the key out of the front of her dress. She had wedged it deep down her cleavage, but he had a pretty good view of it the entire time.
He’d noted the Bugatti emblem on the keychain at first glance. It wasn’t the kind of car he could forget, and while he might have had other things on his mind earlier when they first arrived, he didn’t miss the vehicle when Dima pulled up, either.
He had to hand it to Anastasia. She at least tried to make a grab for the key. Roman held it out of her reach with a dry chuckle, and a little shake of his head.
“I would apologize, but I don’t think you really care,” he said.
“Of course, I care ... he’s going to kill me!”
Anastasia scrambled up from the ground, following him on shaky legs as he walked past her without a glance backward. Marky turned when Roman approached, and he tossed the key his friend’s way with a laugh.
There was no way that Dima drove all the way from Chicago in a Bugatti. It was pretty obvious that it was a rental. He was already delighting at the thought of chopping the car down and shipping it overseas to one of the clients on his list. Roman had spent the past decade adding up a trusted roll-call of clients who would drool at the vehicle he was about to have in his possession.
“What are you going to do with it?” she called behind him.
“What do you think I’m going to do?”
“Steal it for your chop shop?”
He gave Marky a look from the side, his tone mocking when he said, “She’s got brains, man. Imagine.”
Marky barked a laugh. “Shut up, asshole.”
Roman only shrugged, but even that wasn’t enough for Anastasia. She followed him down the alley while Marky went ahead of him with the key swinging from his index finger. It would have been easier if the chick disappeared by now. He half-expected her to go running to Dima or the others from his bratva to warn them of Roman’s plan.
Instead, her heels clicked on the cobbled alley while she tried to keep up with them.
“Please, I’m serious. God. Christ, listen to me! He will kill me, this will be all my fault,” she cried out again, a tremble in her voice making Roman hesitate.
When he turned to her this time, she was holding her arms out for him to see where she had shoved up the sleeves of her dress. There were more than just the bruises he had initially noticed. Cuts and deeper looking wounds, some fresh and others starting to heal, marked the insides of her arms.
Roman swallowed hard. “You’re not any better than any of the other girls he ships from state to state—you’re just paid.”
She didn’t reply, but the stuttering breath of air she released told him more than she could, anyway. He wasn’t up for playing hero with a woman—any woman, really. No one had time for that shit, but ...
Roman mulled over what to do. When he threw a look at Marky over his shoulder, his best friend gave him a raised brow and a tilt of his head in Anastasia’s direction like he was silently saying, Come on, Roman.
Jesus.
“Fine,” Roman told her, “you can come with us, but see yourself gone before morning.”
Relief swept over her face when she nodded wildly. “Yes, thank you, that’s all I need. Just a head start tonight.”
“Then, hurry the fuck up,” he growled.
Because he didn’t have time to keep being nice.
Marky had already made his way to the Bugatti parked at the side of the restaurant, opened the driver’s door and got the vehicle running. Ready for Roman to jump inside, and get gone as fast as he could. While there were bulls everywhere, keeping a watch on the premises, nobody even glanced his way when the Avdonin Prince slipped into a parked car. The key of which he already possessed.
Nothing looked out of the ordinary.
Anastasia climbed into the passenger seat, exhaling deeply as she tried to catch her breath. Roman caught her eye as he pressed down on the accelerator. She smiled back.
He didn’t.
She would give him anything he wanted.
That much was clear.
The problem?
He was already bored.
THREE
“So, you haven’t picked a woman yet? Or one hasn’t been picked for you?”
Anastasia’s soft question had Roman’s hand clenching tighter around the steering wheel. He hadn’t expected that from her. The word choice suggested that maybe her involvement with Dima allowed her insight on bratva men and their way of life. He didn’t dare to indulge her curiosity, if that’s why she brought it up.
With an arm dangling out of the rolled-down window, and a lit joint between his lips, he reveled in the smell of the heavy smoke filling the interior of the car. It clung to the air between them, every breath dragging into his lungs tasted like weed and expensive leather.
He might have offered her a hit, but he wasn’t in the mood to share. And shit, hadn’t his good deed for the day been enough?
She was there.
“No,” he eventually said, offering nothing more.
The way her mouth opened to say something else had Roman rolling his gaze toward the window at his left. She kept trying to get him to talk—he didn’t have shit to say.
“You’re just ... doing whatever with whoever, whenever, then?”
“Something like that.”
“You’re lucky. You do what you want and go wherever you like. Free.”
Her tone had dipped from sadness to almost dreamy. It made Roman’s throat tight—people always assumed that his life was easy. He walked on water while they drowned. He imagined what a life like that would look like.
“What makes you think I’m free?” he mumbled under his breath.
She still heard him loud and clear.
“You are Demyan Avdonin’s son.”
“And?”
“Come on, don’t play stupid. Dima wouldn't shut up about you—the Prince of New York, he said. He tried to laugh it off, said you were just a spoiled brat with too much control who hasn’t grown up yet, but—”
Roman’s gaze cut to her, the fire burning bright enough to stop her words instantly. “What else?”
Her throat bobbed. “I—”
“What else? He must have said something else—you said it, not me. So, what else?”
“Nothing.”
Roman didn’t believe that for a second. He was, however, fine with letting her drop the conversation if she was finally going to shut up. Fuck Dima. That piece of shit wouldn’t last a month in New York with Roman to contend with on the streets. Better men than him had already tried.
And failed.
Anastasia fiddled with the sleeves of her dress, silent in her thoughts and unaware that Roman had turned his gaze back on her. He could have said a lot about her assumptions regarding his life—it was just easier for someone to see him from an outside perspective and judge or believe what they wanted.
But ...
Fuck.
His shoulders ached sometimes. From the expectations he knew his people kept hanging around his neck like a noose, and the responsibility of his position. He worried more often than not that he was an embarrassment for the men who shared his last name, and he wondered if his mother wished she had raised him differently.