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I stopped walking and faced him with a furrowed brow. “What?”
He frowned back at me, his brows knitting together. “Why don’t you want to go out with Samuel?”
My confusion turned to full-on aggravation. “Samuel, eh? Glad to see Sasha’s done his fucking homework. That didn’t take long.” I shook my head and resumed walking, even though I had no clue where I was going. At that point I didn’t care. I just had to move before I fucking exploded.
Of course Sasha knew about Samuel. Why was I even surprised? I would have bet money he did backgrounds on every single person at the Adler. Better yet, he probably installed some software to track me through my phone or had a cloning app or some shit and literally spied on every part of my life. And what could I do about it? Nothing. Completely powerless once again to control anything in my own goddamn life.
Ilya caught up to me easily. “You seem mad.”
“Mad doesn’t even begin to cover it.”
“Because Sasha cares enough to look out for you?”
I snorted. “Yeah, if that’s what you want to call it. You know what? I’m actually glad we got this out of the way. Now there’s no doubt whose side you’re on.”
“Yes. Yours.” He said it so convincingly, so matter-of-fact that I actually screeched to a halt and did a double-take.
“Mine? Really? And how, exactly, are you on my side? You’ve known me for all of five minutes. You’re being paid to keep me alive, meanwhile reporting back to Sasha every time I so much as fucking sneeze. So, yeah. Thanks for having my back, Ilya. Greatly appreciate it.”
“I’m not a spy,” Ilya replied, a frown pulling at his mouth. “My only job is to keep you safe.”
“From who? Sasha killed the people who—” My stomach lurched. I stopped a second before the admission came out, along with the coffee from this morning. “Never mind. Forget it.”
Thankfully, Ilya didn’t push to continue the conversation, or argument, or whatever it was, as we walked down the sidewalk. When we reached a black BMW, he held a hand out for my violin case and popped the hatch.
“I’m sorry,” I said, handing it off with a sheepish smile. None of this was Ilya’s fault. I shouldn’t be a dick to him because Sasha was being ridiculously overprotective. “You seem like a smart guy and you’re clearly connected. So why in the hell would you take this job?”
Ilya shrugged, setting the case inside and closing the hatch. “Because it’s important.”
“You don’t know me. I’m nothing. A no one. That’s the opposite of ‘important.’”
“You’re someone to him.” Ilya fixed me with a look I couldn’t quite decipher. Much like his uncle, there was a keen awareness in his eyes, but the rest of his face remained unmoving. “That makes you important.”
“Did he tell you he killed my last bodyguard?” I raised my brows at him.
He blinked, once, solemnly, as stone faced as the rest of the Russians I’d encountered. If the news was shocking, it didn’t register at all.
“Wanna know why?” I continued, tentatively feeling him out, trying to see how much Sasha relayed. “He had the audacity to allow himself to be rear-ended while I was in the car. Is my life more important than his was? Is it more important than yours?”
Again, I got zero reaction except a single blink. “To Sasha it is. So, yes.”
I shook my head. Say what you wanted about Russians, their dedication was like nothing I had ever seen before. Once they committed themselves to something, their pride refused to let them give anything less than one hundred and ten percent.
As I moved around to the passenger side, my cell phone chirped with a text message. I expected it to be from Samuel, bugging me about the party again. Or Frankie, sending the hundredth meme of the day, or bitching me out for not returning her calls. Hell, I even thought it might be Freddy checking in on me between his classes.
Wrong on all accounts.
It was from my father, the last fucking person I thought would text.
You have twenty-four hours to clean out your room. Anything left behind will be thrown out.
Fucking asshole!
I clicked the screen off and shoved the phone back into my pocket. Propping my elbow against the armrest, I held my forehead and closed my eyes.
“What’s wrong?” Ilya asked quietly. He started the car, but didn’t pull away from the curb yet.
There wasn’t any point in trying to lie to him. He’d see right through it anyway. “I have to go get the rest of my stuff from my parents’ house.”
