Chapter Fifteen #2
Now, here she was.
I should have anticipated it. I knew she had come with Lukyan and Papa D on the flight over. I was just hoping to avoid her. She was the only person so far to have met me in person. I couldn’t run the risk of her recognizing me.
Autumn bent down and picked up my phone. “I am so sorry. I wasn’t even watching where I was going.” Her hand outstretched, she offered it back to me. “Here you go.”
I took it, trying to hide my unease under a friendly smile. “Thank you.” I pitched my words a little higher to conceal the true sound of my voice. Just in case she remembered.
“How is it in there?” she asked, inclining her head toward the dining room I’d just vacated.
“Tense.”
She chuckled. “Yeah, I bet. I knew it would be. Hence why I’m not in there. No way I wanna deal with that shit.”
I smiled again. “I better get going,” I said, pointing toward the kitchen.
“You know what? I’ll come with you. Not quite ready to brave the lion’s den yet.
” She fell into step behind me, and I suppressed my groan.
The longer Autumn was with me, the better chance she might recognize me, and that would just fuck with everything.
I had to minimize my interaction with her as much as possible.
When I stepped into the kitchen, there were mountains of dishes on the bench and in the sink. It was perfect. The perfect excuse I needed to keep myself busy.
“So, how long have you been working here?” She took a seat on one of the barstools around the island bench, crossing her legs.
I kept my back to her as I began to clean up.
The wig on my head itched like a motherfucker, but I refrained from adjusting it.
It was dark brown, hiding my light locks perfectly.
I’d taken a few precautions to hide my true identity, using makeup to obscure my facial features, and had dark, almost black contacts in. “Not long.”
“Do you like it?”
“It’s okay.”
“I can’t imagine Sergei Big-Bastard Volkov is a pleasant man to work for.”
Why the fuck is she talking to me so much?
“He’s not so bad.” Sergei was actually the worst. It’d only been a few weeks, but I didn’t need any longer to come to that conclusion. I couldn’t say that, though. Didn’t need to give Autumn any more reason to engage in conversation with me.
I turned the tap on and filled the sink with water. The dishes clinked and clanked, filling the silence between us.
“This might sound strange, but have we met before? You seem familiar.”
God fucking damn it. I forced my hands to keep steady as I dunked the dirty plates into the water and started cleaning them. “I don’t think so.”
“Where are you from? I’ve been all over. Maybe we’ve run into each other.”
“I’m sure I’d remember.”
She was silent for a moment. “Could I trouble you for a cup of tea?”
I paused, closing my eyes and taking a deep breath in to calm myself.
A tingle ran down my spine, my intuition screaming that I’d been made.
That I needed to get the fuck out now, before my cover was completely blown.
A carving knife sat on the bench within arm’s reach.
The idea entered my mind for a fleeting moment before I shut it down.
Autumn was far too skilled to get the drop on. Not only that, but I had a feeling that killing her would be no simple task. It would make a fuckton of noise, drawing attention right to us.
“Of course.” I dried my hands on the apron around my waist and moved to the cupboard above the stove, pulling out a mug.
“Thank you. Appreciate it. So what’s your name?”
“Paula.”
“Paula what?”
I turned the kettle on and grabbed a tea bag, placing it in the mug. “How many sugars would you like?”
“Six.”
I was unable to stop myself from glancing over my shoulder, giving her a bewildered look. “Six?”
She shrugged. “I like it sweet. Paula what?”
The tin of sugar was right in front of me. Teaspoon in hand, I counted out her sugars, placing them in the mug. “Why are you so interested in me?”
“Like I said, I feel like we’ve met before. I just can’t place it. These kind of things bug me, and I won’t be able to sleep until I figure it out—”
Loud, angry footsteps echoed just outside the kitchen. A moment later, Papa D entered in a big, furious huff.
Autumn stood, her face morphing from calculating and suspicious to loving and full of concern. She walked right over to him and hugged him. A sense of relief seemed to wash over Dimitri’s face, his eyes closing and head bending to lie in the crook of her neck as he hugged her back.
It was such a sweet moment. I couldn’t help but feel a little jealous. But I had to remind myself that it hadn’t been that long since Lukyan and I were finally able to be together. We would get there too. I knew it. Felt it in my soul.
“You okay?” she asked in a whisper.
“No. But I’m better now.”
Awwwww.
They separated, and Autumn returned to her seat, Papa D taking the empty one beside her. The kettle clicked. I poured the hot liquid into the mug, gave it a stir before adding in a tiny bit of milk, and placed it down in front of Autumn.
“What happened?” she asked, taking a sip of her tea. I was all but forgotten, and I couldn’t be more fucking glad.
Dimitri’s cold and evil eyes landed on me. “Give us the room.”
Fuck knuckles. I wanted to listen in.
Bowing my head slightly, I turned and walked out. With hurried strides, I did a loop so I would end up in one of the other rooms adjoining the kitchen, and peeked around the corner. I was now behind them, their backs to me—and luckily, still within earshot.
“-offered me his men,” Dimitri scoffed. “He doesn’t give a fuck if we find Lukyan. If anything, he’s glad this happened. Sergei got what he wanted without having to pay the price for it.”
“Do you think…I mean…is it plausible—”
“That the woman who walked down the aisle was his stalker? Yes. I fucking do.”
Stalker was such an ugly word. I preferred the term, loyal and loving girlfriend.
“I warned him something like this could happen. That she was unpredictable and needed to be handled.”
Autumn ran a hand soothingly down his back. “I know. Lukyan did too. I think he was just too intrigued by her. She is an intriguing character, after all. Remember what I told you about our encounter? She’s completely fucking crazy, and you know your son.”
Ahhh. So she had told him about when we met. I hoped she said nice things. I wanted my father-in-law to like me, after all.
Papa D sighed, leaning forward to rub his temples. “Yes, I do. Maybe I should have told him about that.”
“Wouldn’t have made a difference, and you know it. She still managed to sneak into the house, even after we implemented those new security measures. Fear doesn’t hold her back. It excites her.” True. “The harder the challenge, the more determined she is to beat it.”
“Argh, what the fuck am I going to do?” He buried his head in his hands. “I have no idea where he is. Where she’s taken him. If he’s even still in the fucking country.”
“What about those fancy trackers you have?”
Papa D shook his head. “Tried that the second he went missing. The signal was dead. She must have known about it. Fuck! What if she kills him?”
I slammed a palm over my mouth to hide my gasp of shock and outrage. I would never.
“I don’t think she would.” Yes, girl. Have my back.
“She’s obsessed with him. Infatuated with him.
Lukyan is smart. He’ll play along with her delusions, and the first chance he gets, he’ll escape.
Have faith in him. Until then, we need to do everything we can to help him.
We’ll start with the venue. We have the plate of the car she used to drive away, don’t we?
” Already burnt to a crisp. “We’ll track that, see where they stopped, and follow from there. ”
Their words concerned me.
I had to make Lukyan want to stay with me. Had to make him see that he couldn’t live without me, like I couldn’t live without him. How could I do that? How could I convince him to stay? To never want to leave?
“Should I tell the rest of the family?” Dimitri asked, voice layered with uncertainty.
“I think you should,” Autumn answered honestly.
“They’ll be furious if you don’t. But you need to make it clear they cannot intervene.
If they were to show up here, looking for Lukyan, it could cause more trouble and put Sergei even more on edge.
At least if they’re not here, they’re relatively safe.
Our focus should be primarily on finding Lukyan’s stalker. If only we knew what she looked like.”
“You never saw her face?”
“No.” Autumn’s lips pursed with thought. “Just her eyes. Light brown, almost like honey. And her voice—oh my god.”
“What?” Dimitri’s eyes ping-ponged around the room, looking for danger. “What is it?”
“That’s where I know her from.” Fuck.
“Know who from? What are you talking about?”
“The maid!”
Time to go.
I spun on the balls of my feet and bolted. I ran past several other maids, all of them giving me curious looks as I made a beeline for the front door.
Lev was going to kill me. My cover was already blown, and it was all because I’d run into Autumn when I was sneaking into the Volkov estate—something Lev explicitly told me not to do.
Yelling came from behind me. I didn’t stop, flinging the door wide-open and running down the driveway as fast as I could. The guardhouse at the front of the property was manned, as usual, but the gate was open, a car sitting idle, waiting to drive through.
My bike was parked just outside. I only had to reach it.
Pumping my legs harder, I slipped through the open gate.
I turned the corner and ran smack into a guard.
I didn’t hesitate, palming a knife in the front of my maid uniform.
I pulled it out and rammed it up underneath his chin, yanked it out, spun, and sent it flying to another guard, who had just raised his gun behind me.
I didn’t wait to watch him fall. I jumped right on my bike, started it, and sped away just as a round of gunfire hit the air.
The ground exploded around me from bullets.
Fear and adrenaline punched me in the gut.
I banished it away, bent forward, tucked my elbows in, and accelerated, not looking back.