Make Me Beg, Daddy

Chapter 38

Ekaterina brings the dress down herself in a bag, along with shoes she produces from a box under the cutting table. How she happened to have heels in my size remains a mystery that I don’t think I’ll ever get to the bottom of.

She hands the whole thing to Kane at the bottom of the stairs.

Then she stands there on the step, glaring up at him with her glasses in her hand.

“Don’t wait thirty years before you come back again, m’kay?” She raps him on the chest with a knuckle. “You were just a little malyávka when you were here, clinging to your mother’s hand. Remember that? And now, you’re this. Where have you been, hm?”

Kane touches her shoulder. “Around,” he says gently. “But never too far away.”

Ekaterina doesn’t look too satisfied with that answer, but unlike me, she’s willing to leave it alone. She bobs her head, then turns and climbs back up the stairs to her shop.

Kane puts his hand at my back and walks me to the car, and I get in with my head bursting full of questions.

Because she knew him as a kid. Here. And didn’t he say that Sunset Park was “his” neighborhood? What did he mean by that?

There’s a story here, I can feel it. Maybe even one that explains a lot about this mystery man who’s crash-landed in my life.

Stepan pulls out. I wait until we’re at the light. “How much was the dress, by the way?”

“Don’t worry about it.”

I turn in the seat to face him. “I’m serious. I want the number. Add it to what I owe you. I’ve already got four million on the books, so what’s another two grand? Round it up. Make it a nice figure.”

“No.”

“C’mon, don’t⁠—”

“You’ll pay nothing,” Kane interrupts. He’s looking out the window at the shuttered fronts on Fourth. “As long as you’re with me, you won’t put your hand in your pocket. Not once.”

“That’s not⁠—”

“It isn’t up for discussion.”

I let out a breath and slump into the seat. The stupid massagers start in on my back again like they’re on his side.

“Can I ask you something else?”

“If I say no, will you let it go?”

I laugh and then do what he expects of me, which is ask the question anyway. “You told me not to tell anybody about you. ‘Our little secret.’“ I pick at the seam of my coat. “So am I still doing that?”

Kane finally turns his head and looks at me. “That instruction is over.”

“You’re not flying under the radar anymore?”

“It’s you I was protecting, Lilah. But that’s no longer relevant.” He nods at the windshield. Up ahead, I see with alarm that we’re suddenly approaching what appears to be a massive party. “By tomorrow morning, every person in this city will know whose you are.”

“Whose I— Excuse me?”

“You’re Kane Makov’s woman now,” he explains. “Because of that, they’ll never disrespect you again.”

I sit up so fast the seat’s massage rollers lose track of my spine.

“Whoa, whoa, no. Nope.”

I throw up one finger. Historically, this gesture has never stopped Kane Makov from doing anything, yet hope springs eternal.

“We discussed holidays with you. As in singular. Not with you and two hundred of your closest friends. Nowhere in the fine print did it say that.”

“That’s because there was no fine print,” Kane replies as we zoom ever closer to the party of my nightmares.

“That’s exactly my point! There should have been! I would have read it, too. I read everything. I read the terms and conditions on my Hobart mixer warranty, all eighty-nine pages, and let me tell you⁠—”

“Lilah.” He puts a hand on my thigh. “Breathe.”

I was kinda forgetting that essential step, so I do take a moment to breathe.

But it doesn’t help, because it means I’m getting a double-barreled lungful of Kane’s scent.

His palm on my leg doesn’t help, either. I’ve never been stuck with a cattle prod, but I’ve got to imagine it’s the same kind of feeling. Searing heat, head-to-toe electricity, a sense of inevitable impending doom.

Black sedans nose up to the curb in a gleaming procession. Men in dark coats stand beside them with their hands folded over their stomachs, heads turning in slow sweeps as they watch the street. Women climb from back seats in fur and silk and diamonds that catch the streetlights.

And the building. I know this building.

It’s the old banquet hall on the corner. I always thought it was dormant. Just a relic of wild and reckless Nineties New York.

Tonight, every window in it is burning with gold light.

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” I say. “That’s the dead hall. That place has been dark for years.”

“It’s been closed,” Kane corrects. “Not dead.”

“Is there a difference?”

“A big one. Everything I own that looks dark is just waiting for me to come turn the lights back on.”

I have several follow-up questions, but I don’t get to ask them. Stepan is slowing and my stomach is turning into a pretzel.

The rear door opens. Cold pours in along with a wall of noise. Laughter, yelling, glass tinkling, music playing.

The overstimulation is so real. I’d like to curl up in a ball and hibernate until winter is over.

“You’re going to be fine.” Kane steps out, buttons his coat with one hand, and offers me the other. “Come on. There’s a room upstairs where you can change, and a woman named Galina who will do your hair whether or not you consent.”

I look at his hand. Rings, knuckles, ink creeping past his cuff. A hand dragging me into a dark and uncertain future.

I put mine in it anyway, and let a mob boss walk me into my own neighborhood like I’ve never been here before.

The sidewalk is packed—but not for us.

Because when people see Kane coming, they scramble to clear a path.

I feel their eyes glom on me as we go by. It’s not the condescending glare of the woman from Maison d’Hiver. I’d say it’s more of a curious look.

Who is she?

Inside, the heat hits me like I’ve just stuck my head in an oven door.

The lobby looks nothing like the abandoned shell I imagined from the outside. Black-and-white marble tile gleams beneath hundreds of shoes. A grand brass staircase sweeps toward the second floor, with miniature soldiers sculpted into the metal.

There are already a hundred people in here, and it’s not even nine o’clock.

I swear almost every single one of them pays their respects to Kane as we go. It’s a never-ending stream of greetings, bows, and handshakes.

“Mr. Makov.”

“Kane.”

“Boss.”

“Pakhan.”

He nods at all of them but doesn’t stop for any of them. He walks me up the stairs with his hand at the small of my back and takes me down a hallway to a door at the end.

The room inside is small and toasty, with a couch, a mirror ringed in bulbs, and a table with a hair dryer and about forty other things on it.

A woman is already standing there with her arms crossed. Her lips are bright red with lipstick and her many gold bangles and bracelets rattle whenever she moves her hands.

“Galina,” Kane says. “This is Delilah.”

She gives me a wide smile. “Delighted to make your acquaintance, madam. Would you like to sit?”

As I take a seat in the chair she offers me, Kane hangs the garment bag on a hook by the mirror and sets the shoebox on the couch. “I’ll be downstairs.”

“You’re not staying for this part?”

His eyes rake over me.

Slowly.

Heat surges beneath my skin.

“You’ll come down when you’re ready.”

He pulls the door shut behind him.

With him gone, it’s just me and this nice, albeit unfamiliar woman.

Galina turns my chair a few degrees toward the light, tips my chin with one bangled hand, and says, “Good bones. We do soft.” Then she goes rummaging in a train case the size of a toolbox. I get a minute to myself in a bulb-ringed mirror I did not ask for.

Okay, Delilah. Pep talk. Go.

You are not on a date. You are at work.

This is a shift like any other, except the uniform is a slinky ballgown and your work colleague is a green-eyed giant who melted your deadbolt and has a knack for pinning you in corners while he whispers depraved promises in your ear.

Why are we doing this?

Because of how hard I’ve worked to bring my bakery to life. Remember how happy you were the day you got the mixers? That was pure, unfiltered joy.

Remember when the walk-in went on the fritz and you almost lost the sourdough starter, and you and Priya spent a whole weekend babysitting it back to life?

Hell, remember Priya? She loves you unconditionally, and she’s got a little girl who needs her mama to keep bringing home the bacon.

You’re doing this for them.

And for yourself, too. You deserve a fresh start. Away from Connor and Vivian and all the other harpies who keep trying to drag you down into their respective circles of hell.

You can do this.

Galina returns, gives me one more reassuring smile, and then gets to work. She takes the pins out of my hair without asking and lets it fall, then combs it out with her fingertips.