“It is. I know you don’t trust me, but I’m ready to prove my loyalty. Just give me one last chance, Ki…Sir.”
I bite my lower lip. I really hate calling him that. It’s like I’m rebuilding the wall between us brick by brick.
“You lost my trust, and, therefore, I will only see you as a potential enemy.”
My chin trembles, but I lift it. “I’ll gain it back.”
“Doubt it. So why don’t you leave? Be my enemy for real, so we can fight properly.”
“I’m not your enemy, and I refuse to leave. If you still insist on throwing me in the weapon vault, I’ll stay outside again and starve to death. I’d hate to waste your time if you have to carry me and nurse me back to health every time…wait, did you carry me? How is your injury—” I start to reach a hand for him, but he slaps it away.
My heart squeezes. It wouldn’t have hurt this bad if he’d punched me in the face.
“Don’t even try to act worried.”
But that’s the thing. I wish I were acting, but I’m genuinely worried about him, so I’m rethinking the whole scene of him carrying me. Was he exerting himself while holding my dead weight? I really hope he got someone else to take me inside and change me into dry clothes…shit. My bandages are gone, so that means he did it himself.
Now, I’m mad at myself for not being awake during that time.
But then again, if I were, I probably wouldn’t have woken up here.
He adjusts his glasses with his middle finger. “You want your job back?”
I nod frantically.
“You got it.”
Before I can grin and do a celebratory dance in my head, Kirill grasps my chin with two harsh fingers. “But you’re no longer my trusted person, Lipovsky. You’re nothing more than a stranger that I’m keeping for information. You want to prove you’re loyal to me? That won’t be possible when I already consider you my fucking enemy.”
9
SASHA
“What the fuck is this supposed to mean, Kirill?” Damien lunges in our direction as soon as we’re out of the Pakhan’s house.
I step forward, my shoulders squaring for a fight or the possibility of one.
Before he manages to grab Kirill in a chokehold, I’m already standing between the two men. Viktor, Yuri, and even Damien’s guards don’t move an inch, despite the clear war that’s about to take place.
“You, step the fuck away before I fuck up your pretty boy face.” Damien speaks so close that I smell the nicotine on his breath.
Most days, Damien has casual and sometimes amusing moments, but today is definitely not one of them. His shoulders are taut with tension, and his eyes blaze in a mixture of light green and a raging gray.
Still, I can’t let him attack Kirill. The rest of the guards might choose not to interfere in such instances due to orders from both men, but I already promised Kirill my loyalty, and I intend to prove it in action, not words.
It’s been three months since I got back my bodyguard job. Or more like, kind of forced Kirill to offer me back my job. I thought that as long as I was where I was supposed to be, everything else would work out. That, sooner or later, he’d learn to trust me again.
I definitely thought wrong. I greatly underestimated Kirill’s ability to completely erase me even while seeing each other every day.
And he has erased me for three months. Didn’t speak to me directly for a whole month until I thought I was going insane.
The only reason he went back to speaking to me, and only in clipped direct orders, was because I nearly got myself shot during a shipment gone wrong. He pushed me to the ground—like that time when we were a captain and a soldier—clutched me by the nape to hold me in place, and told me, “Stay the fuck down.”
They were harsh, cold words, but I wanted to cry. Beneath the callous edge of his order, I could hear the smidgen of care he has for me. Something I thought I’d lost for good.
After a whole month of starvation, it felt like a sweet reward.
It’s not an exaggeration when I say it took all my willpower not to hug him or at least grab onto the hand he held me down with.
Since then, he’s given me direct orders instead of using a middleman, usually Viktor, who—to be fair—was getting sick of being a messenger.
But the state of things hasn’t changed. He doesn’t like me in his presence for any extended time or if we’re alone. I’m tasked with activities that are far enough from his vicinity that he doesn’t have to see or hear me.
It’s like he’s allergic to me.
No. It’s worse.
He’s disgusted with me. He doesn’t look me in the eye without a slight tic in his jaw and a subtle darkening of his gaze.
I’m still trying to convince him that he can trust me, and he still believes I’m an enemy of sorts.
Back to the present, we’re the last ones to leave the Pakhan’s house after the weekly meeting, and Damien is clearly pissed off that Kirill suggested stopping an ongoing war with another organization and got the majority of the others to agree.
Damien, who, unsurprisingly, led the on-ground war with his brigade, reacts badly to the prospect of taking away his favorite hobby.
So the fact that he came after us the moment we stepped outside was expected. Now, we have to deal with his bursts of anger and whatever unpredictable things he has in store for us.
I shake my head once, placing a palm on his chest. “Step back.”
He seizes my wrist and starts to twist it with brute force, but I free myself before he breaks it. Then I use my hold on his hand and push him back as I move so that I’m standing fully in front of Kirill.
Damien pauses and narrows his eyes. So, yes. I’m no longer the weakling he could send flying during that first meeting. Kirill might have given up on me, but Maksim and especially Yuri haven’t.
Yuri even has a special program for me that I’ve been following to hone my skills to a T, and I never skipped a day of strength training.
Unlike Viktor and Maksim, Yuri isn’t as strong in combat and always withdraws or has a subpar performance in physical training. However, he’s the best teacher alive. Unlike Kirill, he doesn’t teach using force or terrorizing methods. He’s more of a steady progress type, and it’s been working perfectly for me.
He’s patient and understanding, and most of all, I feel like I’m going out to see a friend whenever we have our daily sessions.
“I’m warning you, pretty boy.” Damien balls his hand into a fist. The veins pop on the tattoos decorating the back of it. “If you don’t move right this instant, I’m going to break your fucking neck and feed your fucked-up corpse to my dogs.”
I don’t change position. In fact, my shoulders snap backward, and I jut my chin forward, ready for the fight. Damien’s upper lip lifts in a snarl as he steps forward. Before I can get into a defensive position, large hands fall on my shoulders from behind, pressing down, then effortlessly pushing me to the side.
Or maybe it’s so easy for him because I’m too dumbfounded to think or react. Kirill steps in front of me so that he’s toe to toe with Damien, and the only view I have is of the taut muscles of his back.
Ever since he recovered from his injuries, he’s been spending all-nighters at the gym or doing hand-to-hand with Viktor. As a result, he has gained more muscle than before.