Chapter 22
CHAPTER TWENTY TWO
LYLA VOZNESENSKY
“What’s the craziest thing you’ve ever done?”
“The craziest thing?” Lukyan leaned back against the couch, hiking his leg up and draping his arm over his knee. The white, fluffy robe on his body made him look both cute and cuddly and hot as fuck at the same time. A matching robe was wrapped around my body. “We might be here for a while.”
“It’s a good thing we’ve got snacks.” Laid out before us in individual bowls was an arrangement of sweets. Candy, chocolate, sodas, whipped cream, you name it. Everything one could possibly need to rot their teeth.
After our mind-blowing oral sexathon, we’d both retired to our rooms to shower. Ideally, I would have loved it if we showered together, but I didn’t trust myself. I wanted him so bad. So bad it fucking hurt. And while I hadn’t envisioned me being the one to hold out on sex, I had to do it right.
A man like Lukyan got bored easily. He’d even said it to me himself. I couldn’t risk losing his attention. I had to keep him interested, and giving up the golden ticket straight away probably wasn’t going to do that.
I was going to work and manipulate him until he was begging for me. Until he couldn’t bear it any longer. Then, and only then, would I give him what he’d been dying for all that time. For a lot longer than he even fucking realized.
“Yes, good thing.” He chuckled. Directly in front of him was a bowl of skittles. He reached forward, plucking a few, and then dropped them into his mouth. “So, one of the first things that comes to mind is something I did to my sister when she was seven.”
“What did you do?”
“She pissed me off, you see. The little rodent stole my slice of cake, and then had the audacity to lie to my face and say it wasn’t her. She had chocolate smeared across her mouth. Of course it was her. So I zipped her up into a suitcase and dumped her outside.”
My mouth dropped open in shock. “You what?”
“It wasn’t a big deal.” He shrugged, completely unperturbed about the fact that he’d locked his baby sister in a fucking suitcase.
“I made sure it wasn’t done up all the way so she could still breathe, and told one of my father’s soldiers she was in there.
I’m not a monster. No harm no foul. She was super pissed about it, though. ”
“I don’t fucking blame her.” I laughed. “I’d disembowel Lev if he ever pulled a stunt like that on me.”
“Not a fan of tight spaces?”
I shivered despite the fact that it wasn’t even cold and we were sitting in front of the roaring fireplace. “No. Not a fan.” Years’ worth of horrible memories ran through my mind, but I banished them instantly, refusing to allow myself to think of them. “Was that a one-off kind of thing?” I asked.
That twinkle of curiosity in Lukyan’s eyes told me he saw that question for what it was—a deflection. He chose not to push. I had a feeling we’d probably circle back to it again at some point, though.
“We did shit like that all the time growing up.” A smile curved on his lips.
It was a happy smile. Reminiscent. Full of memories.
He moved a bit closer to me. Not much. Just a smidgen.
But I noticed, even if he didn’t. “This one time, when we were kids—I was about eleven, Illayana nine—she got angry at me because I chopped all the hair off her barbie dolls so they were bald. To get back at me, she took my favorite stuffed animal, this awesome red-and-black bull with huge silver horns, and set him on fire! Not only that, but she tied me to a chair and made me watch, the little psycho.”
Laughter bubbled up inside my throat. “Why did you cut all the hair off her dolls?”
“Because she threw a toy shield at my head.”
Oh, of course. “Why did she throw a shield at your head?”
“Because I chased her with a spider, and she hates spiders.”
“Why did you chase her with a spider?”
“It was payback from the time she tried to drown me in the pool.”
“Why did she try to drown you in the pool?”
Lukyan smirked. “Because I tried to drown her first.”
“Jesus Christ.” I laughed, shaking my head in utter disbelief. “I’m scared to ask why you tried to drown her first. I feel like we’ll be stuck in a never-ending loop.”
“We kind of are.” He chuckled. “We’ve been getting each other back for shit we did to each other for years. FYI, it’s my turn, and I’m planning something diabolical.”
“I’m sure you are. How did your parents deal with you guys if you were always trying to kill each other?”
He sat forward, all energetic and bubbly. “My father came up with this foolproof idea. I’m going to assume you saw the boxing ring in our warehouse during all those times you were sleuthing around my house?”
“I wasn’t sleuthing. I was observing.”
“You were stalking.”
“God forbid a woman has a hobby.”
He laughed, blue eyes twinkling. “When we were kids, every time we’d get the shits with each other, he’d slap a pair of boxing gloves on us, push us into the ring and tell us to just fight it out. There were rules, of course.”
“Oh, of course,” I agreed, nodding my head with an amused smile on my face. “I can’t wait to hear them.”
“We couldn’t hit the face, or, you know, delicate areas.
” The pump of his eyebrows going up and down made it pretty obvious what those delicate areas were.
“We had to stay in there until we’d punched and kicked out all our frustrations.
Then, once we were done, everything was right as rain.
As we got older, the rules changed. As long as we didn’t seriously maim each other, everything was cheerio. ”
“And I thought my family was dysfunctional,” I said laughingly.
His smile was bright, and full of love and light. “We’re just one big, happy, dysfunctional family, and I honestly wouldn’t have it any other way. Wouldn’t want it any other way.”
Over the course of time I’d spent stalking him, observing him and his family, I saw a lot of things. I had to admit, I was a little envious of the family bond they shared. It was so different from how I grew up.
Yeah, they pissed each other off a lot.
Sometimes, it seemed like it was on purpose.
But they loved each other. Would die for each other.
I knew Lev loved me, but would he die for me? I highly doubted it.
Lukyan picked at some more snacks, a faraway look in his eyes. The smile was still there, but there was also a hint of sadness that absolutely broke my heart. I hated seeing him sad.
“You miss them.”
He inclined his head. “Of course I do. They drive me fucking batshit crazy half the time, but I love them. It’s always been us against the world.” He stared deeply into the fire, almost as if he was losing himself to the flames. “I want to ask you for something.”
I had a feeling I wasn’t going to like whatever it was. “Yes?”
Pleading eyes locked onto me. “Let me call my sister.”
My mouth opened, a flat-out refusal on the tip of my tongue.
“Please, Lyla.”
God-fucking-damnit. He just had to use the one word that made me completely fucking powerless against him.
Soft fingers intertwined with mine. I stiffened, looking down at our joined hands. He touched me. Lukyan touched me willingly.
Relax. Breathe. Get a fucking grip.
“Why do you need to call her?”
“I need to hear for myself that she’s okay.”
A frown creased my forehead. “I told you that she’s fine.”
“Yes, you did,” he said cautiously, his thumb drawing small circles into my skin, making me shiver. “But I need to hear it for myself.”
“Why? Don’t you trust me?”
He blew out a huff of annoyance. “Don’t go getting all offended.”
“Oh, but I am.” It hurt, but I snatched my hand out of his grasp. “I gave you my word that everything is okay. That your family is fine.”
“I believe you.” For some reason, I didn’t think he did. At least, not entirely. “But if you want to build any kind of relationship, I need to know my family is safe and okay before I can do that. That there’s been no repercussions for what happened. You need to give me that.”
I grumbled under my breath, sitting back and crossing my arms over my chest. Yes. I was pouting. So fucking what? Despite how much I didn’t want to, I could see his fucking point.
And it was irritating as hell.
“Fine.” I sighed, getting to my feet.
We were in the main lounge area. It was a wide-open space, filled with beautiful mahogany furniture I’d selected myself. There was dim lightning, the illumination from the fire casting a soft yellow-orange glow throughout the dark room.
Beside the L-shaped couch was a side table. I opened the drawer, and dozens of burner phones greeted me. I pulled one out. Lukyan’s eyes lit up when I made my way back to him, device in hand.
“You get five minutes,” I said, putting in the four-digit code to unlock it before handing it over. “And I want it on speaker.”
I wasn’t concerned about any information he could possibly divulge. Even if he wanted to, he couldn’t say anything compromising because he didn’t know anything. I’d been careful not to reveal anything that could give away our location.
But I’d be an idiot to let them talk alone.
Lukyan looked the phone over. “Illayana won’t answer this one. She doesn’t accept calls from unknown numbers.” Huh. Neither did I. “I need my phone.”
I winced. “Yeah, that’s not gonna happen. Sorry, baby, but I tossed that sucker the first chance I got. Everyone’s heard of the Bratva’s affinity for trackers. Couldn’t risk them using that to find you.”
His breath caught on a sigh. “Can’t really blame you on that one. I’d do the same in your position.”
“Soulmates think alike.” I winked.
He shook his head, rolling his eyes.
“Try calling her.”
He did, and like he’d predicted, she didn’t answer.
“I told you,” he said, taking the phone away from his ear.
“Try again.”
“There’s no point.”