Chapter 9 - The Golden Cage|
"What?" I gasped, stepping back from him. "You canceled my lease?!"
"I saved your life," Dimitri corrected coldly. "If you went back to that apartment, Julian Moretti’s men would have strung you up from the fire escape to send me a message."
"Julian Moretti?"
Dimitri took a slow sip of his drink, his gray eyes darkening.
"Julian is the head of the Moretti family," Dimitri explained. "For three years, we have maintained a fragile truce across the five boroughs. Tonight, he broke it. He tried to take my head in a three-dollar diner, and he failed because of a waitress."
He set his glass down on the stone mantelpiece, leaning closer to me until I could feel the heat radiating from his broad frame.
"Julian cannot afford to let the city know a woman saved me," Dimitri murmured. "It makes him look weak. It makes his snipers look incompetent. He will hunt you, Elena. Not because he hates you, but because you are the proof of his failure."
My knees felt weak. I sank into the edge of the leather sofa near the fire, hiding my face in my hands.
My quiet, simple world was completely gone. I was trapped in a war between two monstrous men who owned cities while I owned four hundred dollars and a apron.
"I can't live like this," I sobbed quietly into my palms. "I don't belong here, Dimitri. I'm just a waitress."
I felt the cushion sink beside me.
May you like
Dimitri’s large, warm hand rested gently on the back of my neck, his thumb tracing the hair behind my ear with an unexpected, delicate tenderness.
"You're not just a waitress, Elena," he whispered into the dark room. "You're the woman who saved the King. And as long as I am breathing, no one in this city will ever touch you."
