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“Was I going crazy, then?” he asks. “The way you were looking at me … I thought you had something to say.”
“I guess I noticed some tension between you and Ania.”
He sucks in a sharp breath through tight-clenched teeth, somehow making him look even hotter. Or maybe that’s just the lust in me refusing ever to quit. “I didn’t know it was that obvious. I’m trying to do better. I don’t want to be an asshole, big brother.”
“What’s wrong, then?”
“When I was younger, I tried to convince myself my father was a good man,” he replies. “That involved ignoring every bad thing he’d ever done … which was difficult with a man like Konstantin Sokolov. It’s impossible when there’s evidence of his cheating right there, every day.”
“Where’s her mom?” I ask.
“She didn’t want to raise her daughter, according to my father.”
I try to keep my voice nonjudgmental, at least as nonjudgmental as it can be when we’re discussing psychopathic liars. “Do you think he was telling the truth?”
“I don’t know,” Mikhail says thoughtfully. “I’ve gone back and forth about it. On the one hand, my father was a liar. On the other, I can’t imagine him getting sentimental about a baby out of wedlock, especially a girl. No offense.”
“I’ve been around Bratva men ever since I was a kid,” I tell him. “I know it’s a sexist world.”
“I’m trying to be nicer to her,” Mikhail replies. “She doesn’t deserve me being an asshole. She’s a good person.”
I take his hand and squeeze it. “So are you.”
He looks at me darkly. “You don’t know that.”
I move closer to him, his warmth enveloping me. In the back of my head, those horrible wedding bells are playing, taunting me, making me want to scream. “I know you’ve probably had to do some Bratva things in your life, Mikhail.”
“Bratva things,” he repeats, laughing darkly. “That’s a good way to put it.”
“I know my family is worse than yours. We, the Petrovs and Dad, are cut-throat compared to you.”
“You’ve got Dimitri to thank for that,” he says with apparent pride in his voice. “When he came of age, he wanted nothing to do with the life. Our father was outraged. He was the heir. Would he have to turn to the spare?”
“That’s an awful thing to call yourself.”
“No, it’s not,” he snaps. “Because it means I never had to be our father’s plaything. It means I was able to live my own life. I could travel and be my own man, but not Dimitri. Dimitri made a deal: no more trafficking, and he’d stay in the life. Our father agreed, probably because it would look bad if his son went AWOL.” Mikhail takes a step back. “Anyway, we’ve got work to do.”
I wrap my arms around him, pulling myself close. I put my ear against his chest, savoring the warmth, the moment, and the make-believe dream we can make this work.
Makewhatwork? This relationship? I’ve never even had one before.
“Thanks for letting me help,” I murmur. “I know it’s not easy. I’m a Petrov. I’m a woman?—”
“The Bratva, as a whole, look down on women,” Mikhail tells me, “but I don’t care who you are. If you’ve got what it takes to dosomething special, exceptional, and interesting, you’ve got my respect. It’s as simple as that.”
“That’s very progressive.”
Mikhail laughs gruffly. “Don’t let the guards hear you say that.”
CHAPTER 8
MIKHAIL
“This is brilliant,” I say, sipping my coffee as Mila sits at her desk, clicking through the options of all the Bratva we’ve narrowed down. “Mila, I’m impressed.”
She looks at me over her shoulder, giving me savage thoughts as she clicks through the guards, their profiles appearing. It’s been a day since we set up our rig, and already Mila is doing slick work.
“Do you want me to show my workings?” she says with a sexy-as-hell hint of irony.
