Chapter 13
Chapter
Thirteen
Alexei
“You have got to be fucking kidding me. You're actually agreeing to this?" I try to tamp down on my rage, but I just can't hold it in. Everything I say these days seems to come out in either a growl or a yell.
I blame my brother. If he weren't being such a fucking idiot, then I wouldn't have to yell at him for it.
It's not wrong that my brother and I are very different people.
Not just different, but residing at the opposite end of every spectrum we can compete on.
Victor is a closed book. I've never seen him raise his voice or give away an emotion.
Even when he's killing. Me, though? My voice is permanently raised, every thought voiced, every emotion suffocating my very existence.
I don't know how we ended up so different.
That's a lie. I do know. Victor was showered with our father's attention, readying him to take on the role of pakhan. I... wasn't.
"Calm down, Alexei," Victor says with a sigh, rubbing his brow from where he sits in the armchair in his room. He's got a glass cradled in his left hand, and he's looking at me like I'm nothing but hard work and I fucking hate when he acts like I'm difficult.
I throw my hands in the air and pace. The room is lit only by the lamp next to his bed, and so my shadow follows me on the walls. "Calm down?!" I rage, eyes bulging out of my head. "How can you agree to this?"
I followed Victor and Anton around the estate for about twenty minutes this afternoon but I couldn't get close enough to hear the rest of the conversation.
If I ask Vic directly, it'll look like I don't trust my own brother.
I'm waiting for him to tell me. Every second that he lets me rage and says nothing convinces me that he's not going to say anything at all.
"You're not paying attention," Victor says, leveling me with a disappointed glare as he stands up and comes to my side, placing his hand on my shoulder. "Look at them. They're running scared."
I narrow my eyes at him.
"Whatever is going on, they're not doing this to fuck with this. They're freaked out."
"How?" I ease my shoulders. Where I'm impulse, he's strategy, and I owe it to him to listen to what he might see that I don't.
Though, I see a lot of shit that he fucking doesn't and maybe he should listen to me sometimes. My nostrils flare but Vic squeezes my shoulder, anchoring me once again.
"Locking down this mansion. Various alarms. Bringing us here? They're not locking us in, brother, they're locking someone else out."
Victor sinks back into his chair to relax and I resume pacing with my hands on my hips. "You think they're under attack?"
"Isn't it obvious?" Victor says.
I give him an annoyed look and shake my head.
"They're not trying to fuck with us. They're trying to figure out if we're fucking with them."
Was that the summary of his conversation with Anton? Are they under attack and trying to determine if they should lay blame on us? Maybe.
"So you're going to bow down to their whims just to prove that to them? When they don't trust you?"
"They don't have a reason to yet. And yes, when marrying that girl practically makes me the leader of the entire city. Yeah, I'm going to bow down. For now," he says, giving a little smirk at the end.
I still don't like it, but Victor is done with this conversation. He stands up and claps me on the shoulder, telling me not to worry, that he's got it all under control, and to stop fucking pacing before I wear out the floor. Then he leaves me alone in the bedroom.
I stand at the window, resting my hands on the sill as my mind turns circles. Are they running scared? Their behavior does seem to indicate that something is wrong. Honestly, I'd just assumed that the 'something wrong' was us being here at all.
But if they really are under attack, it makes them weak and vulnerable. Do we have the power to crush them now where we never have before?
I'm chewing on my lip when something outside the window catches my attention. Sage is with the bodyguard on the back lawns. I can barely see them under the cover of dark, but through the moonlight I recognize her form and his sulky one nearby.
They start circling each other. Like lions on the prowl. Why the fuck are they circling each other? The show gets even more curious when she bolts towards the edge of the property and he chases after her in a fast pursuit.
It looks like a possible training scenario, but something tells me that it's not. They have no need nor intention to train the little princess. They want her sheltered and cooed over. That much is both obvious and sickening.
I smirk, understanding now. Vicious princess. She doesn't like being sheltered. She's trying to escape. But she's playing a losing game, because there's no way she's escaping him. She's heading for a dead end and he's gaining on her fast.
Then, out of nowhere, she surprises me. She runs across a paved garden bed, jumping onto the overhanging trellis that leads into the rose garden.
She scales it, going full on parkour, as she uses the rungs as stepping stones and makes a final leap to freedom.
She lands on a perch atop the wall, and Christ, she's one step away from freedom.
My brows raise when I realize that he's not going to be able to follow her. She just outran him. She throws her shoes down to a very annoyed bodyguard and my lips tilt up at the corners. When I realize what I'm doing, I frown. I did not just almost smile.
She disappears over the edge.
I let out an amused huff, but I relish in the knowledge that I am absolutely one hundred percent right. And this is all the proof I need to confirm what I've known since the first moment I saw her and she stomped her delicate little foot.
Sage DeMarco is up to something... and I'm going to find out what it is.
The bodyguard whips around suddenly, like he's going to charge into a run to the front gates and follow her, but then he sees me standing at the window and stops cold, frowning up at me.
I offer him a smirk and salute.
Oh, yeah. Sage is hiding something. And he doesn't know what it is.