Page 39 of Sinful Promise

“Yeah, yeah, I know the drill. Don’t scratch the paint, don’t get any crumbs on the carpet or cum stains on the seats.”

“What the fuck, Luca? I never said shit about cum stains. Have you been screwing chicks in my car?”

Luca plasters a shit-eating grin on his face. “You’ll never know because I’ve kept that baby in pristine condition.”

I take the keys to his Prius. “I swear to god… We’ll talk about this later.”

“I look forward to it.” Luca offers me a mock salute, and I scowl.

He might be my best friend, but that doesn’t make him any less of a pain in the ass.

By the time I’m parking the car across the street from the café, Emily is already sitting at a table in the window with Jana and another one of her friends, Carla. Despite everything that she’s been through over the past week, she looks radiant.

Her face is free of makeup, and her golden hair is loose around her shoulders. She’s wearing another one of those summer dresses that drives me crazy. I’m not sure if it’s because they show off her long legs in such a way that has my mouth watering, or if it’s because it’s so easy to imagine lifting that dress and sliding her panties down her thighs…

My cock thickens.

“Jesus Christ.” Now isnotthe time to be thinking about fucking Emily.

I’ll save that image for later.

Despite being in a more inconspicuous vehicle, I still put a cap and sunglasses on just in case Emily looks out of the window.

But she seems to be so deep in conversation with her friends that she’s not paying much attention to her surroundings.

Keeping an eye on Emily has been easier than I thought. She sticks to the same routines and makes sure if she’s meeting upwith friends or Zara that she sticks to public places where she’ll be seen.

The close call with Isaak must have seriously scared her, as I’ve never known Emily to follow the rules so religiously before.

I watch her closely as she talks with her friend Jana, who sits opposite her. I know she’s Emily’s best friend, but ultimately, she is the reason Emily is in this mess in the first place, so she’s not exactly my favorite person right now.

Those hostess jobs are to lure in girls like them with the promise of making some easy money. But the fact is, the men who frequent those parties are more than just criminals. They’re the kind of guys who always get what they want. You can’t win against them, and if you try to go after them, you’ll end up dead.

The thought has me pulling out my phone and dialing Dimitri. He’s looking into this situation, but he’s been unusually quiet over the last few days, and my patience is waning.

“If you’re calling about information on Igor, I don’t have anything new,” Dimitri says before I even have a chance to speak. “I told you I would call the moment I find something.”

I keep my eyes on Emily. “I know, I’m just checking.”

“You’ve beenjust checkingpractically every hour for the last week.”

“I don’t want to miss anything.”

“You aren’t.”

Usually, I find Dimitri’s easygoing attitude refreshing because it’s the polar opposite of how Alexei and Mikhail are. But rightnow, with Emily’s safety, it’s pissing me off. “You should take this threat more seriously, Dimitri.”

“You think I’m not?”

“No, I don’t. All you’ve been able to do is confirm that Igor was definitely the one who was targeting Emily, but we don’t knowwhy.”

“These things take time, Danil. Igor is not an easy man to look into.”

“Can’t you get Rurik on this or something?”

“He already is. Like I said before, if you can’t handle this, Danil…”

“I can handle it. It’s just…” I rub at my jaw as I watch Emily tuck into her food. “I don’t like the idea of Emily walking around while these fuckers are still out there.”

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