I lean forward on the table, the chains shifting with a hissing sound. I steeple my fingers under my chin, watching Clare closely.
“What does Daddy do?” I muse.
“He’s a banker,” Clare says, through pale lips.
She’s lying.
I file that little inconsistency away for future reference.
“When did you start working for your father?” Clare demands.
“Young,” I say, which is true. I was twelve years old the first time he put a gun in my hand.
I could lie right back to Clare in return for her fib, but for all my flaws, all the sins I’ve committed, I do have one line I never cross; I always keep my word. For better or worse, if I say I’ll do something, you might as well engrave it on fucking stone tablets.
“You said you don’t believe in rehabilitation,” Clare says. “You don’t think people can change.”
“I know they can’t,” I growl. “Liars lie. Thieves steal. Gamblers flush their money away. A man’s nature is his destiny.”
“How do you know your nature is to be a criminal, just because you were born into a Bratva family?” Clare asks, her keen dark eyes fixed on my face. “What if you had been born in my family instead? Aren’t you just describing the effects of environment? And after all, environment can change… circumstances change…”
“If my father was a banker,” I say, “then I wouldn’t be me. What’s born of a cat eats mice.”
“You’re wrong,” Clare says.
Her contradiction gives me a pleasant thrill of annoyance.
I rather enjoy how this little bird will argue right to my face, as if I couldn’t snap her in two if she irritated me.
But I don’t want to snap Clare in two. I want to teach her better manners.
I want to squeeze her… twist her… bend her over this table…
I want to put my fingerprints all over that pale skin, and see if she bruises the same color as those freckles…
Until she gives in to me. As she’s dying to do, deep down inside…
“I’m surprised a man like you gives so much of your power away to ‘destiny’,” Clare says. “Aren’t you in control of yourself? I choose what I want to be. Not my family, not my circumstances.”
“You like to think so, Clare,” I say, softly. “But give it a year. Give it five years. This crusading fire will die inside you, smothered by the ugly realities of this place. By your complete inability to make a difference in anyone’s life. Eventually, you’ll return to the comfort of parties and charity boards, to people like yourself. You’ll look in the mirror and the person staring back at you will be all too familiar to you.”
My words bring a kind of nauseated fear into her face.
Stubbornly she replies, “You’ll see for yourself that you’re wrong. I’ll still be here in a year, in five years, and so will you. I hope it won’t take that long for you to see the possibility of a different road ahead of you.”
I appreciate Clare’s spirit.
I even appreciate her misguided concern for me.
But there’s no fucking way I’m going to be in DesMax a year from now.
Chapter 4
Clare
I gather up my papers and tap them on the table. I try to use them to quell the shaking in my hands, but it doesn’t work. I hope I can at least hide the trembling, but the knowing look in Constantine’s eyes tells me he doesn’t miss a thing.
He notes everything about me… that he can see, anyway. And for some reason, I wonder if he notes things that he can’t, like he somehow has a sixth sense or a fine-tuned power of perception.
My notes tell me he’s an enforcer for the Bratva—and heir to the throne of his father Artyom Rogov.
Enforcers are the ones who make others pay, that much I know.
Men of his caliber in the Bratva don’t get there by being nice guys and maintaining the status quo.
I don’t like how easily he affects me. I’ve poured blood, sweat, and tears into my degrees, into working my way toward a prestigious career, and one hot, testosterone-laden alpha undoes me with a crooked smile.
No… no, it’s far more than his smile.
I need to get laid. Or… something. Maybe drunk. Possibly even high. I’m confident Felicity has a good ol’ store of edibles she’d share with me if I asked her. Whatever it is that’s in my system needs to be eradicated, and now, so I can resume a professional demeanor when working with Constantine.
I glance at the clock. “Our time is up for now, Mr. Rogov, but before you go, I’d like you to take this form, fill it out and sign it for me before our next session.”
“Call me Constantine, Clare.”
Heat flames my cheeks, and my heartbeat quickens. “I’d prefer if you call me Dr. Nightingale.”
His eyes narrow ever so slightly. “I don’t know any Nightingales in Desolation,” he says.