Page 84 of Enigma: An Isaac Retelling
It was a half-a-second embrace, but the shutter speed of the paparazzi’s new camera my empire purchased captures images so quickly, it appears as if it went on much longer than it did.
The circulation of our liplock stretched further than the towns bordering Ravenshoe. Even members of a criminal entity on the other side of the country caught wind of it. To begin with, the attention did exactly as hoped, it shifted the focus off Isabelle, but within days, it dawned on us that the two groups we were focused on had missed the fuss.
Hunter is still picking up rumbles for the Petrettis, but the man who flew into Ravenshoe on Col’s coattails after announcing Isabelle’s birthright is either lying low or one of the Petretti members got to him before I could. He hasn’t been seen since the day he arrived.
To some people, that’s good news. I can’t declare the same. It has me on edge, and the frustration it stacks onto the weeks of scheming and underhanded tactics currently occupying most of my security teams’ time is almost on par with knowing how good Isabelle tastes and being denied a second helping.
You have no clue how hard it has been for me not to sneak into her apartment the past two weeks. Hugo lives in her building, so I could downplay my visit as if I am updating a member of my team, but with Isabelle spending as much time at the office as me, the opportunity has never truly risen.
It’s for the best, but still, I’m not a man known for his patience. If I want something, I don’t stop until I get it. I want Isabelle even more than I wanted my empire to succeed.
“Hey, boss,” Tina greets, her voice far too sugary for how many disgruntled patrons are waiting to be served by her. “Last month’s books are on your desk, and I’ll have the projected sales for the following month to you shortly.”
Hopeful a curt reply will tell her I’m not up for her antics tonight, I nod. She was the first woman in a long time who could keep up with me in and out of the bedroom, but bedding her didn’t give me one-tenth of the satisfaction I felt when Isabelle screamed my name in the private jet.
Tina doesn’t get the hint. “Do you still want me to come with you this evening?” When I spin around to face her, she acts like she can’t see the confusion on my face. “I have a great knack for picking out the sucker in a group.”
“The proposal of an all-night dining precinct at the upcoming cruise terminal,” I mutter when it finally dawns on me what she is referencing. When she cocks her hip before fanning her tiny hands across them, I add, “Be ready to leave in ten.”
She squeals like I gifted her an invitation to my bed before barking orders at the bar staff already run off their feet. I would go without her if the billion-dollar developer looking to invest funds in the southern half of the country weren’t a friend of hers. He wants Texas, but Tina is trying to convince him Ravenshoe would be a better venture. She got him here, so now I need to sell him on the idea.
The hairs on my nape prickle for an entirely different reason than Tina’s screeching voice when I detect a presence in my office a second before pushing open the door. Henry Gottle, Sr., the mob boss of New York City, has a bad habit of pop-in, unannounced visits, but the heightening of my intuition isn’t announcing that my intruder is him. This man has an aura just as dark as Henry’s, but unlike almost all the men in the industry, it also exposes not all his secrets are bad.
After breathing out the annoyance wanting me to go in with fists at the ready, I push open my door and enter like I’m unaware of the dark figure sitting behind my desk with his feet on paperwork that will net my empire millions of dollars every year.
While pacing to the coat rack in the corner of the darkened space, I mutter, “This building has a non-smoking policy, so if you wish to finish your cigarette, I suggest you go outside.”
With a chuckle that reveals his insanity to go against me on my home turf, he stubs out his cigarette into my desk before slouching back in my big leather chair. “You should be grateful for the cover. Smoke hides the scent of fear.”
“A smell you’ll never experience coming from me.” I pivot around to face the intruder, my fists naturally balling when the quickest flash of a pair of icy blue eyes resurfaces memories of my past. “To what do I owe the pleasure, Nikolai?”
The pair peering at me belong to a Petretti, but they’re too youthful to belong to Roberto, too hopeful to mistake them as Dimitri’s, and since no one has seen CJ Petretti since the day we fought, that only leaves one remaining Petretti sibling.
Nikolai Popov, a mafia prince for a realm he doesn’t belong to.
“When you want information, who better to pry it out the conniving narc than the man wanting answers?”
“I’m not a narc. If I were, do you think I’d have them scrutinizing my every move?” My tone gets him on edge, much less the nudge of my head to the arched window in my office. With the lights still off, the blue van I lost on the drive here pulls down the alley Isabelle stopped running through two weeks ago.
As he scrubs at the bristles on his chin, Nikolai strays his eyes back to mine. “Perhaps if you weren’t fiddling in businesses unbecoming of your entity, you wouldn’t have the Feds’ eye.”
“That’s rich coming from you. How many barriers did you have to leap over before arriving here today?”
With my eyes adjusting to the dark, I watch a murderous gleam flare through his eyes as his hand moves toward the back of his jeans. “None that have the Bureau’s murky prints on all over them.”
“No, because the one barrier you’ve yet to man up to is the monster you call your father,” I snap out before I can stop myself, my qualm faulted by long, unpleasurable nights.
Nikolai moves quickly, but not fast enough for me not to recognize his game plan. His family lineage is his sore point, so I use it to my advantage when he digs the tip of his knife in my meaty skin under my left ear.
“He sells his flesh and blood… so how’d you escape his wrath for so long?” When pain flashes through his eyes long before conceitedness, I change tactics. “Because while everyone is staring at the light, the shadows do the best work.”
He’s not so deep into the darkness, his soul bleeds black. He is in the murky gray undertones I often reference when I say not everything is black and white. There’s a whole heap of gray no one pays any attention to. It proves he isn’t here to protect himself. He wants to hide behind the monster everyone thinks he is while protecting those he cares about.
“I don’t want Callie for anything sinister.”
He laughs in my face. “Says every man with evil intentions.”
I act as if he never spoke. “I want to free her from that life as I’m sure you’ve dreamed about doing for yourself more times than you can count.”
