The pickings were slim. Her image in the full-length mirror on the wall showed a black miniskirt. She dug deep, deep into the closet, for the slightly less revealing top. Even so, the neckline scooped way too much.
There were high heels galore, and she thought of who might have worn them before her—poor, helpless women, gold diggers, misguided innocents? She didn’t know. Marie was fairly positive this wasn’t where he was keeping women he’d brought in from overseas, but it was at least the place where his latest conquest or love interest stayed.
Her boots would do fine and keep her mobile.
She looked more goth than she had since high school. A shiver ran up her spine, and she swallowed hard.
A knock sounded on the door.
Unarmed, she opened the door with more than a little of the Bălan pride guiding her steps.
“Mr. Dimitru would like to see you now.” Burly Guy—she couldn’t seem to stop thinking of him as Burly Guy—stood back to let her by.
She stepped up and then turned so they could walk together. “If you don’t mind,” she said, “I prefer if you weren’t behind me while I’m unarmed.”
He grunted and kept moving, down one hallway and up another, then finally down a set of stairs, ending up back by the security office where Malcolm and she had worked.
It seemed like forever ago.
Gregory opened the door and then stood back.
“Oh, good. You’ve made it.”
“Not like I had a choice.” Her answer made Dimitru chuckle. She leaned against the door and looked around. Something was different. She looked over the equipment and computer screens and then back to Dimitru. “What can I do for you?”
“Lot 26.”
“Yeah,” she said slowly. “You want to start planning right now? We could start in the morning, you know. Get a good night of sleep. The shipment isn’t even going to be stateside for five more days.”
“I’ve been thinking about the armband.”
“You know the armband is mine.” Marie walked over to him. “And I am happy to help you acquire more, but the armband will remain in Bălan hands.”
Dimitru grinned and ran a finger down the slope of her neck to hook into her shirt.
She smacked his hand aside. “Don’t.”
Undeterred, he hooked his finger into the material and pulled her closer. “This isn’t only business, was never business—you know it and so do I. We are the last two. Each family vying for the greatest power. This is personal. Two hundred years of Dimitru purpose—to bring down the Bălan house and take rightful ownership of the power the armband endows—will finally come to be. Do you really think this is about gold?”
The back of his knuckles brushed her skin, sending goosebumps down her arms.
Without letting go of her, he nodded to Gregory, who leaned over and pulled a switch.
The room went dark and silent. Only the glow of emergency lighting in the hall spilled into the room and lit Dimitru’s eyes. “This is about immortal power.”
She swallowed the bad, bad feeling.
“Living forever—”
“You don’t really believe.” Marie laughed nervously. “If it were true, my parents wouldn’t be dead. As a matter of fact, I’m positive the amulet brings nothing but bad luck.”
She was about to break his wrist and the wandering hand at the base of her neck. His gaze moved over her, from the top of her head to her face and down. This time she gave in to the urge to cover herself, pulling on the material covering her breasts.
“Then you don’t know the whole truth,” he muttered as his hands tangled with her hair. He tucked the length behind her ear, gently touched her earlobe, and then, with little to no care, pulled the stud earring from the top of her ear.
Marie gasped, as pain shot through her and she bent over, covering her ear. “Shit, Dimitru.”
He dropped the piece to the floor and crushed it under his heel. “I have cut off all security, all means of contact with the outside world.”
All communication lost. “That was my mom’s, you jerk.”
“Do you want to know why your mother is dead?” he asked.
“What?” The breathless shock, no doubt, gave her away.
The glee in his eyes gave him away.
Shit.
“She denied me.”
Good for her.
“A Dimitru must marry a Bălan. Only then will the power of the armband be released to the next generation.”
Her frown deepened. “Hold on a second. Listen, if this was true, the power of the armband would have been released two hundred years ago when a Bălan did marry a Dimitru.”
He sneered. “The bastard daughter of my great-great-grandfather? That was never going to happen. Another Dimitru fixed things last time. Now it’s my turn.” He pulled her forward into his space with a bruising grip.
“You’re going to kill me?”
“Oh no, my dear. I’m going to marry you.”
“Fuck that,” she said as the strongest visceral response pulled at her spine and kicked her in the gut. Never before had the words of a man affected her so strongly.
“So confident,” Dimitru said with a smile. “I do like that about women these days. They think everything is going to go their way. You’ll see, though.”
“Tell me about my mother,” she insisted. Had he really courted her? Tried to convince her to marry him?
Sadness, real or imagined, she couldn’t tell, wrapped around him.
“She was a lovely woman. Not only beautiful—you do look like her, you know—but a pure soul as well. And powerful. She was to have been the one. I offered her everything. I asked her to marry me. Did you know?”
Marie shook her head. Her stomach fell. Ew. She was what? Second best? The last resort?
“No, you didn’t. Of course not. She never looked twice at me, not after your father came along. He was never good enough for her. But then she was pregnant with you.” He looked to her, his steely gray eyes sharpening on her, piercing her with a crazed light. “You were my last chance. So, I waited. I can be very patient.” He shook off the melancholy.
“Let me help you,” Marie said, her stomach hurting with the lie. “Let’s do this heist together. If”—she cleared her throat—“if we’re going to marry, we should get to know each other first, don’t you think?”
She really hadn’t thought he was as old as he must be, not unless he pursued her mother when he was merely a child. Ew. Now he wanted to marry her to fulfill some wicked spell he believed in. Double ew.
He’d expected her to refuse. When he looked at her again, there was hope in his eyes.
“We don’t have to marry tonight, right?” She smiled, trying to impress him with the possibilities.
Dimitru laughed then cupped her cheek with his hand. “You might do after all,” he mumbled, and then kissed her on the forehead. “Every generation has its greed. Perhaps I have finally found my match in a Bălan who wants the gold and power as much as I do.”
Marie held on to his arm, even as the urge to kick him in the balls almost gave way to action. “Tell me about tonight. You must have something big going on. I’m good with details. I can help. Please.”
“You ask so nicely.” His smile turned sad. “Too soon, though. Tonight, begins something that will make me”—he paused, his smile turning tender—“us. It will make us very rich.”
With her heart in her throat, Marie gave in to the smile he expected. She reached for him. “I have worked a long time”—the tightening in her throat again—“outside the law to gain riches and wealth, sometimes to get by, and sometimes for the pure pleasure of it.”
When he gripped her neck, almost gently, and he looked into her eyes, she lifted her chin. Believe me, she screamed inside. And his gaze fell to her lips. Oh, no.
“Perhaps you are even more beautiful than your mother,” he whispered.
“Mr. Dimitru,” someone said behind her.
Dimitru’s hand tightened on her neck, squeezing at the tendons, scaring her as his eyes glittered with displeasure at the interruption.
Saved by the bell. Fucking bell, as Malcolm would say. And she was doing whatever she could to keep her mind on nicer things than Dimitru’s hand on her neck, cutting her air off.
“There’s another call for you.”
“Thank you,” Dimitru said, anticipation vibrating through his body as he let her go.
She gulped in a breath. The women, here already?
“Be ready tomorrow morning, my dear. It’s your turn to prove your loyalty.”
“I’m loyal to a fault.”
Vladimir chuckled, stooped down, and picked up the shattered earring. “But who are you loyal to? Hm?” He touched her face as he passed by her. “Go to bed, Marie Bălan—”
“Feur,” she said.
“Tomorrow, we will talk about what you need to do.”
Anger streaked through her, but she curbed it and gave him a sweet smile.
He leaned in, and she held her breath as his lips closed in on hers. The kiss was chaste, cold, limpid. She pulled away first, turning her face as if embarrassed. “Even in marriage, this is business,” she reminded him.
Dimitru walked away, his steps sure. She blew out a breath and entered the hallway to make her way back to her room, but Burly Guy came around the corner with three very big, very hungry-looking guard dogs.
“Well, dang,” she whispered.
“I’m here to escort you to your room.” He sounded less than pleased.
She didn’t blame him at all.