“No, probably not.”
“What’s it like?” I ask. “To have other people manage your life for you?”
He scoffs. “They manage my house. I manage my life. There’s a difference.”
“Feels like you’re splitting hairs, but I digress. Do all your slaves live here?”
“My employees,” he enunciates, “have quarters in the back.” He points through the open window to an elegant longhouse-type structure past the pool. “There’s room enough for twenty, though only twelve are occupied at the moment.”
I gulp, realizing how far out of my league I am right now. One housekeeper is an unfathomable luxury. Twelve is… I don’t even know the word for it. A lot, to say the least.
“Is this where you grew up?”
“More or less. We moved here when I was young. I shot my first gun at that tree back there.”
“I should’ve known that would be a fond memory for you,” I mutter. “We had very different childhoods.”
“You don’t know the half of it.”
He gives me a subtle glance there that suggests there’s more to those words than he’s letting on. It wouldn’t be right to call it sorrowful, but it’s something along those lines. Somber, maybe. Melancholy.
“You didn’t mind it?” I ask in a quieter, less bitchy voice. “Being trained like a soldier instead of being allowed to be a child?”
“Why would I have minded?”
I raise my eyebrows. “You never missed, shoot, I don’t know… kicking around a ball in the garden with your dad?”
“What good would that do me now?”
“Never mind,” I say with a shudder. “Question retracted.”
He leans against the refrigerator and folds his arms across his chest. “Not all of us have cookie-cutter upbringings, Olivia. Some of us are built for different things.”
“That sounds like something you should address with a therapist, not with me,” I retort. “But surely you did something normal. College?”
“No.”
“A job?”
“The Bratva is my job.”
“Yes, God, you say that enough, I get it. But did you ever work at, like, a Burger King?”
He snorts. “Absolutely not.”
“What about a normal dating life?” I ask, encouraged by the fact that he’s actually answering my questions. “How did you meet girls?”
“In clubs and bars like everyone else.” He leans forward and adds, “And they were women. Not girls. The kind of women who knew exactly who they were and what they wanted from life.”
Playing the comparison game doesn’t end with any winners, but I can’t stop myself. I find myself wondering about his first time, his first love. Did he even have a first love? Is he even capable of such a thing?
“I can see all those questions filtering through your head, you know,” he remarks, breaking my concentration.
“Oh, so you’re a mind reader now?”
“It’s my job to know things that people don’t want to tell me,” he says simply. “But with you, I can’t exactly take the credit.”
“Why not?”
“Because you’re not very good at hiding how you feel.”
I flinch back defensively and put down the fork in my hand. “I hate that you think you know me.”
“But I do, kiska. I know you better than you know yourself.”
“One day,” I say, looking him in the eye, “one day, I’m going to do something unpredictable. I’m going to prove you wrong.”
He smiles that deadly, sexy smile of his. “I look forward to it.”
When he pushes himself upright, I actually feel the disappointment swell in my gut like something physical. Why on earth does he make me feel like I’m losing something every time he walks away from me?
“Where are you going?” I ask, trying to sound unconcerned.
“I have a few things I need to discuss with my mother.”
“Oh. Okay.”
He eyes the half-empty container in front of me. “Don’t let me stop you from picking up where you left off.”
The moment he leaves, I end up opening the container and taking another huge mouthful. I’m not hungry anymore, but I have a tendency to eat my feelings when the mood catches hold of me.
Apparently, today’s one of those days.
I’m washing my dishes in the sink when it strikes me that Aleks and I had an entire conversation without my brother coming up once.
Somehow, that feels like a betrayal.
This is not some vacation home I’ve come to so I can unwind and relax. I have a family on the outside who is no doubt scared shitless on my behalf. I have a brother who might be sacrificing his career to save me.
I should not be having comfortable little chats in the kitchen with the man who is responsible for everything that’s gone wrong in my life since the moment my flight was delayed.
I drop the dirty fork and Tupperware in the sink. Aleks can pay someone else to clean his shit.
I’m stalking towards the gardens, fed up with someone—myself? Aleks? God? Fuck if I know the answer—when I hear a voice. Definitely a woman’s.
And she sounds upset.
I follow the sound of the voice to a room in the far corner of the house. I position myself between the staircase and the wall in front so there’s no chance of me being seen.
From here, I can see Aleks’s broad shoulders. I’m silently grateful that he has his back to me. The man is too perceptive not to notice me standing here if he was facing the other direction.
He leans slightly to the side and Yulia comes into view. She’s wearing pale jeans and a cashmere sweater. She doesn’t have any makeup on today, and for the first time, I can really see her age.
“Calm the fuck down,” Aleks growls.
“I will not calm down,” she stammers, clearly rattled. “Now, you’re telling me who I’m allowed to associate with?”
My first thought is that she might be talking about me. But the fact that she’s so worked up makes me think otherwise. What would she care if he said she couldn’t see me anymore? I’m nothing to her. Just her son’s helpless little toy.
“I’m not telling you anything of the sort,” he says. “I’m telling you to be careful. The man is the king of network television.”
King of network television—that rings a bell. A name is right on the tip of my tongue, but I can’t quite place it. The fight happening before me is too distracting, anyway.
“So? He’s accomplished and entertaining. And he enjoys my company.”
“Are you dating him?”
“No, we’re just friends.”
I wouldn’t trust anything she’s saying right now. Apparently, Aleks doesn’t either.
“You are not to discuss Bratva matters with the man,” he says firmly.
“What makes you think I will?”
“Because you’re lonely and you have been known to make poor choices in the past.”
“Don’t,” she hisses, twisting away from him. “Donald and I are just friends. We share a lot of the same interests. Besides, it’s good for me to get out of this godforsaken house.”