Violet added a bit more milk to the bowl of whipped eggs, lightening the yellowish color to a softer cream when she ran a fork through the mixture with fast strokes. Pouring the mixture into a hot pan, she let it settle and waited for the bubbling to begin.
The throat clearing behind her didn’t startle her. She’d been working in the kitchen for a good thirty minutes, exploring the cupboards and fridge to find what she needed. And even though her companion hadn’t made a noise, she knew that Kaz had been watching her for the last five minutes.
She was up early—for once. Put his shower to use, heaven that it was, and decided to cook something to eat since she had the time to actually do so with no worries about a call that would send her running again.
What was the harm, right?
She had heard the movement coming from the bedroom not long after she left, but she was already preoccupied by her work in the kitchen.
“What are you doing?” Kaz asked.
Violet shot him a look over her shoulder. “Take a guess.”
“Cooking.”
“Good guess,” she teased.
Kaz stayed leaning against the wall, watching her in that way of his while she worked, and saying nothing. Violet wasn’t so unnerved by his presence as she was his silence.
“Something on your mind?” she dared to ask.
“A bit.”
Two could play that game, so Violet decided to ease him into whatever he was chewing on.
“Are you hungry?”
“Starved,” he admitted.
“Find a seat.”
“I like where I’m standing.”
Violet gave him another look. “Why is that?”
“I’m enjoying the view. It isn’t often my kitchen gets put to good use, never mind a woman that isn’t my sister cooking in it.”
Ah.
“Interesting,” Violet murmured, turning back to her work.
She didn’t even hear him move until he was right behind her. A fingertip pressed against the back of her neck, and then slowly traveled lower until it stopped at mid-spine. Having little else to wear but what she’d come in, Violet had opted to grab the dress shirt Kaz had discarded the night before. Anything to keep her decent—her panties—were a lost fucking cause.
“You look good in my clothes,” he said, the words whispering against the side of her neck.
Violet grinned, keeping her attention focused on not burning the scrambled eggs. “Do I?”
“Very. And standing here doing … this.”
“I like cooking.”
“It’s very domestic,” Kaz said.
Something in the lilt of his tone caught her attention. “Is that a problem? Did you want me to skip out of here before you woke up or something? I mean, I’m pretty sure I could still go on ahead and do that, but you’d be left to cook and eat the food yourself.”
“No.”
“No?”
“Stay,” he urged quietly, moving closer to her until his chest was molded to her back and a hand landed firmly on her hip.
Violet nodded, content where she was for the moment. “I have some time, anyway. Safe time.”
“Sure.”
His other hand tangled into the damp strands of her hair, moving it over her shoulder, but nothing else. “Tell me there’s more than just eggs, yes?”
She laughed, and took a step back. He followed the movement. Opening up the oven, she waved for him to take a look inside. Eggs and toast were the last thing to be cooked because they were the fastest. Inside the oven, bacon, hash browns, and toast sat in different dishes, staying warm.
“No worries,” she told him. “I know how to cook a breakfast.”
“I won’t underestimate you again.”
“Thanks.”
Violet turned the burner down for the eggs just enough to keep them from burning as she ran her fork throughout the pan, keeping it all from sticking to the bottom. Kaz finally managed to surprise her just a bit when she felt his lips press to the back of her neck softly. Just as fast, he stepped away.
Domestic, he’d said.
She didn’t think he meant it quite the same way as she took the word.
Once she was finished at the stove, and had a fair spread sitting over the island to choose from, Violet shoved a plate across the counter for Kaz to take. He did, offering her one of those smooth smiles that caught her off guard every single time.
Violet fixed her plate, and sat atop a stool when Kaz brought one around the other side of the island for her to use. He sat across from her, attention drifting between the food and her.
It wasn’t awkward.
But she knew, just by the way he kept quiet, he was thinking about things. Her, maybe. The night before, likely.
“I considered taking off this morning,” Violet said softly.
Kaz barely reacted to that, but he did lift a brow and stared at her over the fork he was lifting to his mouth. “I would have been severely pissed off, had you done that.”
“Oh?”
“Very.”
“Well, I didn’t, so no need for that.”
“But you thought about it,” he pressed.
“Wouldn’t it have been easier?” she asked.
Kaz tipped his head to the side slightly, asking, “Easier for whom?”
“This.”
“And this is … what?”
Violet pursed her lips. “You don’t have to make everything difficult, Kaz.”
“I’m not making it difficult. I’m asking a question, Violet. You should answer it.”
Fair enough.
“This,” she repeated, waving a hand between them. “We hooked up once, and then again—”
“Hooking up is a one-time thing. When you start seeking the same person out to fuck again, it no longer falls into that category.”
He’d said a similar thing the night before. And he had a good point.
Violet wasn’t exactly able to say with confidence that it wouldn’t happen again between them, because honestly, she was already wondering how she could get him back into his bedroom after he was done eating. She didn’t think she would have much trouble convincing him, but she was still thinking about it.
And that in itself said a lot.
“My point was that I thought about taking off and just … letting it be what it was,” she said.
Kaz stopped eating entirely, discarding his fork to the side and picking up a napkin to wipe at his mouth. He didn’t look pleased at all over her statement, and for the first time all morning, he wouldn’t look at her. “Is that what you want to do, then?”
She was there, wasn’t she?
“I didn’t leave,” Violet settled on saying.
Kaz nodded once. “About last night, when you woke up.”
Violet frowned, not wanting to go into specifics about why she’d woken up. It was enough that he had been able to pull details from her mumblings to make a story and go with it. She didn’t have to confirm it.
“Let’s not go there,” she said.
“I have to.”
“I don’t want to talk about the dreams again, Kaz.”
He chuckled, but the sound came off entirely dry and not the least bit amused. “No, not that.”
“Then what?”
“I didn’t grab a condom, and—”
Oh.
Violet’s wide eyes and growing smile was enough to quiet him. “It’s fine.”
“Is it? Because I’m not sure that it is.”
“Worried about making some illegitimate babies with a woman your father doesn’t approve of?” she asked, smirking just enough to tell him she was teasing.
Kaz scoffed. “Babies, yes. My father, not in the least.”
Violet didn’t entirely believe that. “You sure?”
“Partly,” he said, shrugging. “For someone else, it probably wouldn’t be an issue to my father, as long as shit was handled. But since it’s you … Yeah.”
“Huh.”
“Wouldn’t be different for your father, no?”
Violet’s smile melted away instantly. “Point taken.”
“I thought so.”
“Still, it’s fine. I have regular shots to take care of that, so no illegitimate babies to worry about. My father overlooks men in my life as long as I don’t … ‘shame him’, as he says.”
Kaz’s expression remained aloof and impassive as he watched her from across the island. “Shame is an interesting word to use between a father and his daughter.”
“My life in a nutshell?” she offered.
It was truer than she wanted to admit.
And she could tell, just by the flashing disapproval in Kaz’s gray eyes, that he didn’t like it at all.
She didn’t know what else to tell him.
“That’s not my only concern,” Kaz said quietly.
“The birth control shot?”
“Yes, that and more.”
Violet didn’t know what else there was. “Table’s open, so to speak.”
“Are you seeing someone else?”
She damn near choked on the sip of coffee she had just taken in as he asked the question. Putting the cup down to the island, she cleared her throat. “I beg your pardon?”
“Someone else. I want to know if you are fucking someone else,” he clarified calmly.
“And if I was?”
“That would be a problem.”
Violet steeled her spine, irritated in a blink. “We’re not an item, Kaz, or a couple. You don’t get a say in any other relationship I may or may not have, just because we had sex.”
His tongue peeked out to wet his lips, and he laughed a husky sound. “You’re right, I don’t.”
“Then don’t ask if you know.”
“But I intend to,” Kaz said just as fast, his gaze cutting to hers. “Us, and this. I intend to be something with you, and I think, based on the fact you keep coming back and also last night, that’s exactly what you want, too. And so, no, I won’t have other men to compete with or concern myself over that you might be seeing.”
Violet swallowed hard, but she appreciated his candor. “What I said still stands, though. We’re not something. You don’t get to ask.”
“And I still want an answer.”
“Kaz.”
He cocked a brow at her, never wavering. “An answer.”
“What if I asked you the same thing,” Violet shot back.
“I would answer.”
“What would it be?”
“One that would please you,” Kaz said simply, still unbothered and watching her. “And probably surprise you.”
Violet sighed. “What are you trying to say here?”
“Exactly what I already told you. You’re going to keep coming back here. I’m going to keep letting you. And that makes us something. Answer me, please.”
“There’s no one else,” she said, letting the confession slip out before she could think better of it.
Kaz straightened on the stool, his smug grin firmly back in place. “Good.”
“Good?”
“Perfect,” he said.
She didn’t quite know what to think as he picked up his fork and began eating again. But she couldn’t deny that his intentions were entirely too appealing.
Kaz understood far too well how quickly things could change—because of a look, a conversation, or even a thought. He shouldn’t have been surprised that it happened to him and Violet, not when he knew better.
Yet, ever since their conversation over breakfast, everything had changed.
Over the span of two weeks, Kaz had made sure that he always made time for Violet, no matter when she reached out. It could have been mid-afternoon, the wee hours of the morning, and occasionally when he was in the middle of a meeting, it didn’t matter. He kept his phone at his side like a lifeline, never letting it out of his sight.
“You’ve been busy a lot, Cap,” Abram commented, glancing over at Kaz from his position in the driver’s seat.
It wasn’t often that Kaz let anyone drive him—most people were shit drivers in his opinion—but Abram refused to let anyone else behind the wheel of his truck. Besides, he wasn’t letting the man in his own, not when Violet was regularly riding in it, and while they were careful, there was still no guarantee that she hadn’t left some small trace of her presence.
“Oh?” Kaz didn’t want to indulge in the conversation, but if there was one thing he knew, if Abram asked any questions, somebody else had asked them first.
“Yeah.”
“I have better shit to do than to sit around asking about things that don’t concern me,” Kaz responded absently, his mind elsewhere.
Abram, now smiling, looked back to the road. “You see, my guess is, it’s a woman. You seem like the type to keep that kind of thing pretty hush.”
Were they really having this conversation? “Then why are you asking?”
“Can’t hurt to try. Never be afraid to ask questions you want answers to—someone once told me that.”
Kaz, feeling the beginnings of a migraine coming on, counted backward from ten in his head. “I told you that, Abram.”
He snapped his fingers. “Of course you did.”
“Just park the fucking car so we can get this done.”
“So about—”
“Fuck off, Abram.”
The man had no shame, laughing even as he swung the truck into a smooth parallel park. Kaz was out in seconds, crossing the short distance into the restaurant owned by a good friend of his—Abram stayed behind to watch his truck.
The restaurant was located just a few miles outside of Little Odessa, and was one of the few places outside of his circle that he frequented on a semi-regular basis. He was a friend of the family—not a part of the Bratva however—that dabbled in trade. If a person needed something from another, he was the man to go to.
Kaz strolled inside, stopping at the podium where a young woman was standing, a microphone wrapped around the shell of her ear. Her gaze shifted to his left, and he realized a moment later that she was listening to someone speaking on the other end.
Then, she smiled at him, gesturing to a hallway off to the side. “Mr. Shelby will see you in his office.”
There were cameras set up all around the restaurant, undetectable to anyone that wasn’t looking for them. Alfred Shelby—or just Alfie, depending on his mood—was a careful man by nature, and his restaurant was no exception.
Kaz rapped his knuckles against the solid oak door at the end of the hall, stepping back so the guard he knew was waiting on the other side could get a good look at him. Once the door was open, and Kaz was inside, he smiled at one of his oldest associates.
“How’s business?”
Alfie Shelby was a bull of a man, standing as tall as Kaz but much wider all around. His hair was short, but wavy, and he had the coldest eyes Kaz had ever encountered, like whatever switch he had on his emotions was always turned off.
“Not bad,” Alfie said reclining back in his seat, folding massive arms across his chest. “Not bad at all. I guess I have you to thank for that.”
Kaz waved his words away. “A favor between friends. Let’s not speak on it.”
Alfie just stared at him, seeming to gauge the sincerity of his words, before he nodded to the chairs in front of his desk. “Go on, have a seat.”
Alfie waited until Kaz did just that before he spoke. “Your father won’t bend on our little issue.”
Yeah, Kaz had been afraid of that. His father liked to believe he knew what was best for the organization—that was his due as Pakhan—but he still had the mindset of the generations before him, where the Bratva didn’t indulge in business with outsiders.
“I’ll see what I can do.”
That was the best he could give, and that was probably more than he should have. If his Pakhan dismissed a new arrangement, that was meant to be the end of it, and if Vasily knew that Kaz had known about the meeting in the first place, that wouldn’t go over well.
When you wanted to do business with the Bratva, you went to the Pakhan, no one else.
“Good, now—”
Alfie paused, his head tilted to the side, and then his eyes cut to Kaz. “Your time is up. Looks like you’re not the only one paying me a visit today.”
Though Kaz didn’t question him, he did wonder why. More than once, he had sat in the room while Alfie conducted business, and had offered insight when prompted, but never had he been asked to leave.
It, at the very least, made him curious.
Because of the position of the office, Kaz could see most of the restaurant—with the exception of the kitchens. Standing where he’d been no more than ten minutes ago was the last person Kaz had expected.
Carmine Gallucci.
He could see it, somewhat, the similarities between him and his sister—the blond hair—but the rest of him was a carbon copy of his father. And he held himself like it too, his shoulders back, his head held high as though everyone around him was beneath his notice.
Kaz couldn’t remember the last time he had seen the man in person, and it was even longer since he had given him any thought. But as Carmine’s gaze lifted to his, awareness making them narrow as his guard shot up, he had Kaz’s full attention.
“Right, gentlemen,” Alfie spoke up, stepping between them once Carmine got close. “This is a respectable place, yeah? And as much as I would enjoy watching the two of you try and beat the shit out of each other, though my money’s on Kazimir here—Russians, they’re fucking savages, you know?—that won’t happen in here.” He gestured to the door with a tilt of his head. “Outside and down the street, far away from my place, and you can do as you please. You still want to have words, Gallucci, you know where to find me. Now, get the fuck out.”
Carmine looked like he wanted to argue, even more pissed off by the way Alfie casually disregarded him, but as quickly as his flare of temper showed in his face, he swept his hands over the front of his suit jacket, even going as far as straightening his tie. He tried to make himself seem taller, but next to Alfie and Kaz, he still looked like a boy playing dress up.
“Nah, I’m good. You see,”—and this was aimed at Kaz as his gaze shifted past Alfie— “we Italians don’t need to act like dogs in the street. We know how to behave.”
Kaz smiled at his answer. “You’re right about one thing, Gallucci. I am a fucking dog, and when the day comes that you’re ready to find out what that means, look me up.” Clapping Alfie on the shoulder, Kaz headed for the door.
But as he passed—the two Italian guards moving to the side to let him pass without incident—Carmine started forward and bumped Kaz’s shoulder hard enough to make his temper flare. Before he could quell the impulse, Kaz had his hand around the man’s throat, shoved him backward, and made his head crack against the wall.
The impact was enough to silence the room, and while Carmine’s guards rushed to grab their weapons, Alfie made it clear, in that silent way of his, to not do it.
“That’s your one, Gallucci,” Kaz said squeezing harder, feeling the muscles in Carmine’s throat constrict as he fought for air. “Test me again and you won’t like the results.” As quickly as he had grabbed him, Kaz released his hold, laughing lightly as Carmine wheezed. “Walk away, before I give your father a real reason to start a war.”
Carmine coughed, his eyes watery and angry. “Fuck you, Markovic. You’re a fucking nobody. Had it not been for my family doing yours a favor, you wouldn’t be standing there.”
“Is that so?” Kaz asked, intrigued though he didn’t mean to be.
He had already been curious about the meeting that had happened all those years ago between their families, but he had yet to question Vasily about it, not really seeing a need to. Yet, this was at least the third time in as many months that the meeting had been brought up to him, and it was clear that Carmine knew something about it.
Kaz never liked when anyone had information he didn’t have.
“Why don’t you enlighten me?” Maybe then he would have an answer.
But despite how idiotic Carmine looked, he wasn’t about to spill secrets. “Savages, the whole fucking lot of you. We should have put all of you down, and not just that uncle of yours.”
“Savages?” Kaz asked, his voice going calm. “Savage enough to cut out a heart, Gallucci?” Almost immediately, the Italian reacted to his words, his face going ashen, and in that moment, Kaz had everything he needed. “Was it you that cut out his heart?” he asked as he got in the man’s face. “Did you finally get to be a fucking man, you little suka? Because let me explain one thing to you. I am a fucking savage—I live for that shit—and had I not been called off from coming after you, I would have found you and cut off your fingers, one by one. And only after you understood what real pain was, would I have gone for your heart.”
Carmine kept his mouth shut, and was still glaring, but beneath that careful facade, Kaz saw a trace of fear, and that was enough for him.
“Careful what monsters you play with, Gallucci, I’m worse,” Kaz finished, stepping back, and this time, he didn’t wait for the man to give a rebuttal, but exited the restaurant, and climbed into Abram’s truck.
“Take me to my place,” he said when Abram was finally inside and starting the truck up.
“But what about—”
“Zatknis’—Shut up. Do as I said.”
Abram didn’t argue further.
Kaz wasn’t usually one to lash out, but he was angry, angrier than he had been in a long time. And it wasn’t because of Carmine bumping him, but because of what he’d said—or rather, the things he hadn’t. Before, he hadn’t cared enough to question Vasily about his uncle, or about the meeting, but now he needed answers.
And he would get them.