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“... have to flush those fucking vermin, once and for all.” That was Sergey’s voice. I heard it before I made it around the corner, spotting his broad back at the head of the table, where they all stood, hunched over gadgets and printed papers.
“I already have an idea how this could go down...” keyed in Nikolai’s entry. “We fucking win, and they all lose.”
Heavy male laughter rang out in the dining room, accompanied by the clinking of ceramic on fine wood.
“That is not an idea. It’s just fucking fact,” Maxim pointed with a chuckle, and just then, I stepped into their line of sight. “We are going to win, and they are—”
The remaining words dried up from his mouth, and a bright smile—so bright it could blind me—grew on his face when his eyes met mine. Heat crept up my neck and settled on my cheeks. He never allowed me to forget how handsome he was.
He had on the same white short-sleeve shirt from the picnic yesterday. But a few buttons were undone, and his hair sat in a tousled mess like a bird’s nest on his hair. For a second, the sight of him robbed me from taking note of all the other blue-eyed Vadim’s seated on the table. It was fair to say they were the dead spit of each other.
Sharp, dark features, dark hair, and eyes that could shatter the walls or windows of anyone’s heart and snatch their souls—they looked scary, but after meeting Sergey, Nikolai, and Vincent, I knew I had seen much worse.
What gave me cold feet was the way they watched me like I was some stranger with a neon warning sign at the top of my head. The one at the end of the table, who I instantly recognized, had the most intense glare.
“DeLuca’s daughter?” He turned to Sergey, tightening the cup of coffee in his grip. “You didn’t tell me this part of the story. She lives here now?”
Sergey replied with a snort and gave Maxim a look that said he was handing the conversation over to him. Max all but rolled his eyes and put an arm over my shoulder when I got to his side by the table. “Anything you we didn’t say is not relevant to the issue at hand. And yes, she lives here now. “
I bit the inside of my cheek. I knew how the sight must have looked to the three familiar strangers seated at the table: Paul DeLuca’s daughter—their enemy’s daughter—in the same household. I could be a threat, a spy on my father’s side... and they will never know. But I didn’t have to prove any freaking point to them. I was way past the stage of even considering betraying Maxim. He knew he had my loyalty—or, I was hoping, he knew—and that’s what mattered.
Maxim looked at me with a dry look in his eyes when he said, “Raphael, Gianna. Gianna, Raphael. He leads the business in New York and allows his position to get to his head sometimes.” It seemed like making introductions was the last thing on his mind. But something else, something warm, fleeted through his gaze, and it made him smile at me before he took his hands off my shoulders.
I suddenly missed the warmth he provided and forced myself to concentrate, ignoring the flutter in my tummy.
Raphael grunted and flipped him off, but his eyes showed no malice. In fact, the scary cousin didn’t look so much like he wanted to have my soul for breakfast. He arched a brow. “Our paths crossed back in New York.”
I nodded, and he faced his brothers. That was it. There was no reminiscing or brief trip to the past. It was a mere acknowledgment that he’d silently accepted the current state of things.
The rest of their conversation flowed in Russian until one of them eyed me intently. He turned on the high stool and faced me. He had the gaze of death and a grip that could snuff out a life in a second. I could tell by the way he held the ballpoint pen between his fingers.
“This doesn’t bother you?”
Confused, I drew my brows. “Uh, what?”
“This,” he emphasized, pointing at the table as if I could decipher the hidden meaning behind his question with one look at the wood. “We are plotting to destroy your father,” he said plainly, the Russian accent thickly laced with every word. “And it doesn’t bother you that we are sitting here doing just that.”
There was a tiny question in his voice, and I suddenly knew what this was: a quiet interrogation. Maxim and his brothers might have trusted me, but their cousins... not so much. The distrust in his eyes was so visible that I knew I would have to say or do something to prove my indifference.
“No,” I said simply. He visibly looked taken aback, obviously not expecting my blunt honesty. I had nothing to hide. I remembered the times spent with my father, the lengths he’d gone to hurt me, and the fact that he still hadn’t stopped. It was in that very moment that I knew, more than anyone else, I wanted him out of my life. “No, it does not bother me.”
“Well, as long as she’s really on our side,” the other one with the sparkling ocean-blue eyes, introduced as Lucien, voiced out. He didn’t hold as much reservation against me. “The daughter of the bloody cunt should be more than useful in finding him.”
I motioned to all the phones, laptops, and tiny devices on the table. “Is that what all of these are for?”
“You talk like you have some interest?” Viktor inquired with a raised brow.
Maxim laughed. It was unexpected but very genuine. He pulled a laptop towards me and tossed a rumpled piece of paper straight into the bin. “Interest? She’s a fucking genius when it comes to these things. I don’t know why I didn’t think of getting her on it sooner.”
Raphael made an interesting sound, like a grunt of approval at the back of his throat. Somehow, he behaved like Sergey when he wasn’t drinking coffee.
Sergey cleared his throat, readjusting on his stool. “Since the previous attack, he’s been quiet. All signs are down. But we are sure he didn’t die in the attack. Something’s off. We need to find him, and since Max sings loud praises about your skills, maybe you can help us do that.”
“Go on, then,” Viktor urged. “We’d like to see what you’ve got.”
“I might have a few ideas.” With their permission, I settled on a high stool and navigated my way through the system, sorting through the newly installed hacking software. My major idea was to hack my father’s security system to pin his location, and for that to happen, I needed to exploit the system's weakness. To gather information, I implored some familiar techniques, such as port scanning, network mapping, and fingerprinting.
I did everything I knew I could do best: brute-forcing passwords and using backdoors to bypass security. It was partly nerve-wracking and intense, especially with the eyes of six grown men on me. I could almost swear I might have cracked under the pressure, but for the encouragement in Maxim’s eyes and the slow backrubs he offered.
