MASTER DON'S LITTLE PREY

CHAPTER 4: FOR THE BOOBS

DRAVEN'S POV

The wine did nothing to settle it…this irritation sitting under my skin since the reception, since I watched her swallow the tracking device wrapped in pill with her chin trembling and her eyes wet, and felt something twist in my chest.

I didn't like being distracted. I liked her body even less for doing it to me.

The door opened without a knock. I didn't turn around. Only one person in this house walked in like she still owned it.

"You couldn't wait until morning," I said.

"You couldn't wait to ruin everything I built." My mother's voice was ice wrapped around velvet, the same tone she'd used to terrify grown men twice my size since I was a child.

"Lyra was standing at that altar in her dress, Draven. Do you understand what you did?"

"I understand exactly what I did."

"Her father controls half the gold moving through this city underground. That marriage would have made you untouchable. She loved you enough to let me become her stepmother, and you humiliated her in front of everyone."

I finally turned. "You wanted to marry her father so badly, you should've walked down that aisle yourself."

Her jaw tightened. I could see it…so tight that she could tear me apart.

But I understand her medicine better than she thinks.

"Don't be clever with me."

"I'm never anything else."

She stepped closer, her arms folded, studying me the way she studied every mistake she thought I'd made. "Who is this girl? Where did you even find her?"

"Trunk of a car." I took a sip of wine. "Kidnapped, screaming, a tray of wine ruined on the floor of a club. Very romantic huh."

"You're joking."

"I don't joke."

"Then what," she snapped, "what could possibly be the benefit of a waitress with nothing to her name?"

I considered the question with the seriousness it deserved. "Her body. Specifically, her chest. Exceptional. I approve."

My mother's hand moved before I finished the sentence, a gun appeared from the folds of her sleeve, pointed dead straight, center at my forehead.

I had mine raised just as fast, aimed just as steady, mirroring her exactly. We'd danced this particular dance before.

Pointing guns at each other like we could even release the bullet.

"You'd shoot your own son," I said, "over an insult to a girl you've never spoken to."

"I'd shoot my own son for throwing away everything I built for a pair of breasts."

"Then we understand each other." I didn't lower the gun. Neither did she. "No, Mother. I won't kill you tonight. Not for her."

Her eyes narrowed, waiting for the rest.

“So you did shoot your mother for what exactly Draven?"

"For the boobs," I said. "I'd kill you for the boobs."

She looked at me the way she had when I was nine years old and broke every rule in this house just to see how far the walls would bend.

Then she lowered the gun, turned on her heel, and slammed the door hard enough to rattle the glass in my hand.

★★★

Rachel's hand trembled in mine through the entire receiving line, her legs unsteady enough that I had to adjust my grip to keep her upright without anyone noticing. Side effects. The tracker did that in the first few hours, nausea, tremors, weakness in the joints. It would pass by morning.

I said nothing about it. Just moved her from businessman to businessman, introducing her the same way each time.

"My wife."

The first man bowed his head slightly before he even looked at her. "Draven. Congratulations. We should talk about the shipping contract next week, I hear the northern route's opened up again."

"My office. Tuesday." I didn't break stride.

The next one reached for Rachel's hand, lips already halfway to her knuckles before I shifted my grip and moved her half a step behind me, cutting the distance clean.

"Another time," I said. He nodded once, understanding exactly what that meant, and didn't try again.

Others were smarter about it, a respectful nod toward Rachel, nothing more, before pivoting straight to me. "Vitali. Good to see the merger talks moving forward. My father sends his regards."

"Tell him I'll call Thursday."

Rachel said nothing through any of it, her hand cold and trembling in mine, her smile stretched thin and correct. She understood the assignment even shaking apart on her feet. Good.

By the time we reached the end of the line, half the room had unofficially agreed to three new deals, and every man in it understood one thing clearly: he could look. He could speak business. He did not touch what was mine.

By the time I'd finished the circuit, I needed air that didn't smell like perfume and ambition. I left her with my mother's assistant and took the stairwell to the roof, a glass of wine in hand, the city spread out beneath me in a wash of light.

I wasn't alone up there for long.

"You didn't even look at me." Lyra's voice, thick with tears already, before I'd fully turned around. "You stood there shaking hands with every man in that room and you couldn't spare me one look."

"I was working."

"You were humiliating me." She stepped closer, mascara already running. "You introduced her to men who were supposed to be introduced to me. My father's contacts. My family's name. What status does she even have, Draven? She's nothing. She's no one."

"She's my wife."

"You were supposed to marry me."

"Plans changed."

"Plans don't just change…" her voice cracked "....not after everything we agreed to. Not after I told my father yes. Not after I loved you for three years waiting for you to be ready."

I took a sip of wine and said nothing.

"Do you even care that you ruined me tonight? That I stood in that church in my dress and everyone watched you marry someone else?" She was properly crying now, hands reaching for my jacket. "Please. Tell me this was some kind of test. Tell me you still want me."

I looked past her shoulder instead of at her face.

Down at the edge of the property, near the service exit, a cluster of men in black were moving fast toward a van, carrying something between them. A shape. A struggle.

I recognized the dress before I recognized her face.

Rachel.

Elvin Valkrom's men. My oldest enemy, moving exactly on schedule, exactly as planned, the tracker in her bloodstream lighting up somewhere on a screen in my pocket right now.

I smiled.

"Draven." Lyra's hands tightened on my jacket, oblivious. "Please. Say something."

I lifted the wine glass to my lips, unhurried, watching the van doors slam shut in the distance.

"Tell me more.”