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“You bastard!” I’m seething now. I turn and storm back into the room, throwing my purse on the bed as I head to the bathroom. “I’m going to have a bath and then try to get some sleep.” I stop at the bathroom door and turn to look at him and then the bedroom door pointedly. “You can go now.”
He stands staring at me for a while before nodding and walking to the door with my phone in his hand. I couldn’t take it with me anyway. Because when I leave here, I’m disappearing for good. I’m thinking maybe Switzerland, where I’ll change my name to Heidi!
He stops at the door frame. “You have two options for how you want to start our life together, princess.” Andrey holds my eyes. “The easy way is by acknowledging that this is your life now. Or the hard way.” He raises an eyebrow and shrugs. “Either way, the fact is you belong to me now, and how you want your days to go is up to you.” A warning look flashes in his eyes and resonates in his voice. “But trust me, you don’t want to push me or try to defy me. I’m not your father, and you will lose every round. I run things around here whether you accept it first or not. You will do things my way.”
“Whatever you say,” I reply, saluting him. “You’re the big bad, Bratva boss.”
Andrey’s silent for a few seconds, staring at me before nodding and walking from the room, pulling the door closed behind him. I wait and hear a key turn in the lock.
“Wow, so much for trust!” I shake my head and snort. “As if I’d go through the door anyway with armed guards everywhere.”
I raise an eyebrow and glance at the balcony with the door still wide open. Now, the balcony, on the other hand. I walk out onto it and look down, down, down.
“Fuck, that’s a long way down.” I scan the balconies in neat rows and columns going down the side of the building. “I should be able to make it.”
Sixteen years of gymnastics is going to pay off tonight. I look down at my footwear and start kicking my high heels off. “These, however, are not going to get me anywhere.”
My eyes scan the room and fall on my purse. I plop down on the bed and pick up my black Gucci purse.
“Sometimes having an over-paranoid protective dickwad of a father pays off.” I grin and admire the handwork of my fixer.
Everyone needs a fixer, Isabella. Your go-to person who “fixes” things for you. I’m not too sure exactly what he meant by that, but James said it was someone who could make things like my purse for me. Someone who’d blend in anyway, and no one was even aware that he was your fixer.
I admire my purse. “Well, my fixer is a genius engineer, computer hacker, and dog trainer, and if I were James Bond, Davey would be my Q.”
From the outside, my purse looks like a regular medium-sized black purse with a thick, wide, decorative gold buckle in the front. But the buckle is a lot more than ornamental. It hides some crucial tools a girl should never leave home without. I click the trick lock, and the pouch springs open.
“Well, hello, toolkit and pepper spray.” I hold up the items in my hand. There is a small universal two-sided tension wrench, a pick, and a long flat spray bottle. “To think I nearly laughed when Genevra made this little bottle of pepper spray for me.”
I look around the room. I need somewhere to put these in case I get a visitor before I’m ready to leave. I open the drawer beside the bed and stuff them in there. Digging back into the gold compartment , I pull out a small gold pocket knife. It has the initials KM engraved on it. It used to belong to my mother. My father gave it to me on my tenth birthday.
I put the knife with the rest of the items before turning back to my purse. I click the buckle once again. A small compartment with a key in it pops open. I take the key and put it with the rest of the items. Last but not least, I take the wad of cash from my wallet, pop it in the drawer, and shove it closed.
My credit cards get a goodbye kiss before I reset the compartment. “Goodbye, old friends,” I say and put the wallet back into my purse.
I look down at my outfit. “Shit, jeans and an oversized cotton shirt of Andrey’s is not ideal for balcony hopping.”
I glance around the room. I wonder what’s in the closets. I walk over to them, yanking on one of the doors. To my surprise, there are women’s clothing in them.
“Huh!” I say, and something twinges inside me. I Ignore it. “What do I care if Andrey has some woman living here?”
“Those are my mother’s clothes,” Andrey’s voice has me spinning around.
“Oh… uh…” Busted. I close the cupboard and step back. “Sorry. I was just looking for something to sleep in.”
“I brought you this.” Andrey throws a giant T-shirt at me with Harvard written on it.
“Is it supposed to impress me?” I ask, holding it out. “I go to Harvard too.”
“Your father allows you to go to college?” Andrey asks, and he seems really surprised.
“No! I sneak out every day,” I retort sarcastically. “Who do you think pays for it? Santa Clause?”
“I’m just surprised he’d let you go to a place full of…” Andrey doesn’t get to finish, as I add.
“Horny frat boys?” I loop his T-shirt over my arm, trying not to notice that it smells like him.
“I was going to say college students,” Andrey tells me. “But yes, I guess it’s the same thing.”
