The Bratva's Heir (Underworld Kings)

I pump and pump into her, still kissing her, still looking into those big, dark eyes.

A familiar feeling rushes through me, like when I visit the ocean or achieve an impossible goal. A sense of grandiosity and rightness that I’ve never experienced during sex.

It almost frightens me.

I put her down, breaking away, my whole body still shaking.

“What is it?” Clare says. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” I say, roughly.

I can’t look at her face, flushed with heat and pleasure. She’s glowing like a goddess. I can’t look at her.

“Get dressed,” I order. “It’s time to go.”

Clare is quiet on the drive to the winery.

I know she’s troubled by my abrupt switch in mood. And possibly by the sex as well. Did she feel it, too? That moment when I looked in her eyes and it felt like my chest would split open if I didn’t look away?

The winery is in the posh part of Desolation, an area I really shouldn’t go to under the circumstances. I should send Yury or Emmanuel to handle this errand, but I don’t want to do that—I’m beginning to feel a strange sense of paranoia tightening around me concerning the circle of people I can trust.

I feel distinctly out of place parking in front of the forest-green awning with its ornate script reading Baldacci’s Fine Wine and Florals.

The delivery truck is likewise parked out front—the same dark green van that Yury says was spotted stopping outside my house the day Roxy died.

I push my way through the front door, silvery bells jingling overhead, alerting the shop owner who bustles out of the back, wearing a crisp white apron, his dark hair neatly combed and a pair of spectacles perched on his nose. The scent of fresh flowers mingles with the richer smells of red wine and chocolates.

“Welcome!” he says. “What can I do for you?”

His eyes trace over the ink on my exposed skin. I wonder if he knows I’m Bratva.

“You can tell me who sent a bottle of Chateau Margaux to my house on March 5th.”

The shop owner frowns, his thick black brows drawing together in one solid line over his beaky nose.

“I’m afraid that’s quite impossible, sir—”

In one motion I seize him by the throat, slamming him against the nearest wine rack. Several bottles plummet from their berths, shattering on the tile floor, sending a flood of acrid wine across our shoes.

I can feel Clare tensing up behind me, but this time she doesn’t try to intervene.

“You’re going to tell me exactly what I want to know, or I’m going to smash every fucking bottle in this shop over your head, and set the whole place on fire,” I snarl.

“But we—we—we don’t sell Chateau Margaux!” he sputters, his face rapidly turning blue.

“Constantine,” Clare murmurs, tugging at my arm.

I wheel around, just in time to see a skinny kid in a matching white apron slipping out a side door.

I drop the shop owner and bolt after the kid. He’s trying to insert his key in the door of the delivery van, but when he sees me barreling after him at top speed, he drops the keys in the gutter and sprints off down the sidewalk instead. I race after him, my boots pounding the pavement, running with the speed and force of a linebacker.

I catch the kid four blocks away, plowing into him and taking him down hard.

He’s already begging and pleading before he hits the concrete, his hands held up in surrender.

Unfortunately, this isn’t the Warren where nobody would dare intervene in a physical confrontation like this—his shouts draw shoppers out of neighboring stores. I can see several people frantically punching three digits which are certainly 9-1-1 on their cell phones.

At that moment, the dark green van screeches up to the curb, Clare leaning out the driver’s side window to shout, “Get in!”

I pick the kid up by his shirt and chuck him in the back of the van, amidst a half-dozen undelivered bouquets and several crates of wine.

“Drive!” I call to Clare.

“Where?”

“Anywhere!”

I turn to the kid.

“You have one fucking chance, exactly one, to tell me who hired you to deliver a bottle of Chateau Margaux to my house.”

The kid is shaking so hard his teeth are chattering together, a long scrape down the side of his face where it met the cement at the culmination of my tackle.

“I don’t know his name, I swear, he brought the wine, he paid me two hundred bucks to drop it off, I’m so fucking sorry man, I had no idea it was poisoned or whatever the fuck, I saw the news later about the girl, she was really nice when I dropped it off, she even tipped me, I never would have done it if I knew, I’m so fucking sorry!”

I stare at this kid in utter disbelief, realizing that he must have watched as I was convicted for what he believed was the murder he unwittingly committed.