Chapter Four: Dimitri

He better have the answer I want to hear. I sent Viktor because that’s all I felt was necessary. Why should I need to go there myself? She’s twenty-one for fuck’s sake, and if the offer for money was big enough, then she should have gone for it.

I stop at Benny’s grabbing an egg and bacon muffin and a coffee to start the day. The gym barely took the edge off my shattered nerves. It’s been years of waiting for the old stubborn man to keel over, and now Raven’s Peak is a hair’s breadth from my greedy hands.

Sipping my coffee, I tap the back of the steel elevator wall as I travel up to the fortieth floor, the heat from my beverage burning my top lip. “Fuck!” I take it down from my mouth, realizing I’m too invested emotionally over the property as the doors open to my office floor.

This is the comeback that separates me from my father. More money and more power. Yes. More money, more power, and definitely a helluva a lot more pussy. Everywhere.

Walking into my office, I notice Viktor’s already on the inside with his back to me. When I open the door, he swivels quickly on his feet, the concerned expression on his face, not the one I want to witness.

“Morning. Did you get it done?” I bark out, tearing a bite off my egg and bacon wrap.

“No.” Swallowing it down, I glare at Viktor, wanting answers.

“Why the fuck not?” Viktor hands over still photographs I had him take while in Wisconsin. Poring over them, I stare back at the multicolored stone house and the sheer vastness of the property with misty mountains overlooking the background. Despite all these features, I can only focus on the close-up photos of a long-haired beauty sitting in the front window, the sun shining directly on her face while on her laptop. My cock rouses in my pants as I ogle the next few frames of photos.

They’re even more stunning, revealing a cute little frown of concentration on the girl’s face and parted berry-colored lips. “This. That’s the one we’re up against. Ava Knight.” Viktor taps on the glossy images as I slide each photo one by one onto my desktop.

Her beauty is impressive and has left me stalling for a second. But only for a second. I’m not about to let a twenty-one-year-old law student get in the way of me and my fortune.

“Interesting,” I murmur, not letting on to Viktor how captivating I find her. I study the last two photos he gave me in silence where I can make out the outline of her black dress. She must have just come from the funeral. “What happened when you presented the offer?”

“She barely blinked and said she would think about it,” Viktor replies, shrugging his heavy-set shoulders, his deadpan eyes giving me no clues as to why she would.

“Did she give you a reason?”

“Only that she would think about it and that she needed time to think it through. I gave her our card. There were many others there as well, and she seemed overwhelmed by them.”

Annoyed, but mildly curious, I crick my neck, thinking my plan through. “She was dumb enough to turn down millions of dollars? Did you spell it out for her? Viktor. As in really spell it out?” I push, rounding my desk and sipping my coffee, my lip still throbbing from burning it a minute ago.

“Yah. I did. I swear, but she was preoccupied for the entire funeral, and I repeated it to her, but it was as if she checked out from what I was saying. I wanted to speak to her again and drag her away, but some other guy told everyone else to back off her.”

A surge of anger shoots through my body. “Who was it? Did you get rid of him?”

“You told me specifically not to put hands on anybody. Remember?”

Sighing, I rub at my temples again. Mad at myself for thinking it would be so easy to shore up Raven’s Peak. “Yes. I told you that. Thanks, Viktor.”

“How do you want to handle it from here?” Viktor sits in the chair in front of me as I slowly pick up the photo and stare at the soft beauty of the girl, finding myself wanting to know her more than I already do. The background information on her intrigues me enough already.

Her father, Dominic Knight, was one of those do-gooder types working as legal counsel in the trenches of Chicago, fighting bullshit cases that nobody cared to take.

She needs the money. I know she does. Is she like her father? Wanting to be a no-hoper stuck being paid below her pay grade? Flicking the photo through my fingers, I think about her motives. She should want money.

How will I appeal to her? “She should want the money. She has to pay for law school. Her apartment isn’t the best. She should have jumped at the opportunity, and she didn’t. Either she is super smart or super dumb. No in between,” I conclude, my eyes boring into Viktor’s, a slight smirk forming on my mouth. I wouldn’t mind finding out which one.

“Right. Want me to handle it? It won’t take long,” Viktor offers, and he’s right. Jackson Knight wasn’t stupid, and when he was alive, he had enough of a fortress of personal assistants and other handlers to stop us from gaining access. I was prepared to wait, not wanting to waste valuable resources, but not now. Ava’s a vulnerable student with no safeguards, and she’s wide open to sharks.

Me being one of them. She’s going to be scared easily. “No. But since she so stupidly declined our offer, we’re going to have to deal with her the old-school way.”

Viktor chuckles, understanding my language. “That shouldn’t be a problem. When she realized the car was out front, she shut the blinds. She’s stayed in the house.”

This interests me greatly. “She’s staying in the house by herself? Did you see anybody else with her?”

“No. She was alone in the place.”

Poor little law student, stranded in the Wisconsin wilderness by herself, there’s no telling what type of monsters lurk in the nearby woods. “This is almost too easy,” I mutter, my annoyance dying down, replaced by amusement.

“Yes. When do you want me to head back and how badly do you want me to scare her into a deal, Boss?”

Shaking my head, my eyes glaze over staring at the wall behind Viktor. “No. This one is mine. I’m going to take care of her.”

Ava Knight, you’re about to learn about a new law unto itself called the Bratva law, and it’s a lose-lose situation for you.