Page 46 of Ripped Lace (Ripped Bratva)

“Then it’s not a conversation,” I point out. “It’s an interrogation.”

His eyes narrow into furious slits. “Just be thankful your interrogation comes with a fancy meal and not a prison cell.”

The moment he finishes speaking, the veranda doors are pulled open and two waiters emerge pushing a pair of trolleys. They approach the table, then work quickly and silently to unload the food for us.

It makes my eyes nearly pop out of my head.

A tower of lobster thermidor, dripping butter onto the rack of oysters on the half-shell laid out on ice beneath it.

Pan-seared scallops in a creamy mint sauce.

Lobster fettucine with paper-thin slices of truffle shaved on top.

Everything looks just as good as it smells. Phoenix accepts a bottle of wine from one of the servers and pours out two glasses. Then he nods and the two men slink off without a word.

He offers me a glass and I take it reluctantly.

“What would you like to start with?” he asks, gesturing at the dishes.

I’m still cagey after the argument ended so abruptly. “Whatever you want. You’re in charge, aren’t you, tough guy?”

He nods slowly. “Then I suggest starting with the oysters,” he says. “You look like you need a good meal.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“You’ve lost weight.”

Do I detect a hint of worry in his tone? Surely not. That’s just a mirage. A trick of the ear. The don doling oysters onto my plate doesn’t care about my weight loss.

“I haven’t been hungry lately,” I mutter.

“Why is that?” He seems keenly interested, which is bizarre in its own right.

“Oh, gee, I don’t know,” I reply, not bothering to pare back the sarcasm. “Maybe it had something to do with the fact that I was marrying a man that I…”

“Hate?”

“Don’t trust,” I correct. “Which is ironic, considering that it ended up happening anyway. Just not the untrustworthy man I had in mind.”

The comment doesn’t seem to affect him at all. “If you cooperate, you have nothing to worry about with me.”

“Cooperate?” I scoff. “That implies I have a choice. I can’t remember certain parts of my past. There’s nothing I can do to change that.”

“You claimed not to remember the night you came to Las Vegas, either,” Phoenix points out. “And you remembered that… eventually.”

“That was different. You scared the memory out of me.”

He smiles in the same bloodless way a shark would. “Is that you need to motivate you? Fear?”

I feel my body stiffen. My thought jumps to one thing immediately: Theo. “Please don’t hurt my son.”

His eyes go wide for the briefest of moments. Like he never intended for me to interpret his threat that way. Like he’s horrified that I think he’d ever lay a finger on Theo. But just like the concern I thought I heard in his voice, the expression is gone immediately. The ice-cold masks drops back into place.

“Eat,” he commands.

I do as he says, but only because it’s better than talking. For several long minutes, I sit there silently, tasting as much as I can. Only once I’ve satisfied my hunger do I look up.

Phoenix is watching me, a thin smile playing around the edges of his lips.

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