Chapter 4 Sofia
SOFIA
While Andre showered, I did my best not to imagine it.
No, not like that. I’d only known my new “boss” for a matter of minutes, but even that was long enough for me to appreciate how fine of a dangerous man he was.
Tall, rugged, fit, and muscular in a timeless way that suggested he exuded masculinity and oozed testosterone.
He had that kind of an instant vibe. That sort of a magnetic draw.
Despite his labored breathing from being in pain and how he was bleeding from two wounds, I registered how much of a lure he could be.
In other circumstances.
Circumstances excluding how I couldn’t stop the worry about his slipping in the shower and being dizzier and more disoriented than he assumed he was.
Circumstances other than my fear that he’d bleed more and his wounds would require more assistance to close up and start healing.
What if he keels over and hits his head?
What if he gets tired and can’t call out for help?
What if someone else comes in here and he has to shoot them but can’t?
This guessing game sickened me, and the longer I sat perched on the edge of a chair in his humongous master’s room, I bobbed my knee anxiously. Waiting wasn’t a great skill of mine. Being held back from helping someone when I was capable of it bothered me more.
“Sofia?”
I perked up at his calling out for me. Stuck in worrying and overthinking, I hadn’t paid attention to the water being turned off.
Then again, the walls weren’t thin here, like at my uncle’s residence.
He’d lost too much money to have anything in the budget for upkeep in the old building.
Sitting upright, I turned in the direction of the open bathroom door.
“Yes, Mr. Orlov?”
“Are you still in a helpful mood?”
Helpful how?
Now, I was struck with the other visions of him having been in that shower.
With water sluicing down his chiseled body—one I’d already felt from assisting him with walking here.
With his thick blond hair damp and messy from the water.
With his dark, moody eyes, the blue of those orbs so powerful to grip me.
“Yes, Mr. Orlov.” I shot to my feet as he appeared in the doorway. With nothing more than a towel wrapped lethally low on his waist, he leaned against the doorframe and heaved out a deep breath.
Dammit.
Every urge to check him out fled my mind. Hearing that harsh exhale more than proved how taxing it had been for him to shower unassisted so soon after being wounded.
Desire had no place between us. Even if he wasn’t injured. He was still a deadly rival who’d no doubt be pissed to discover me spying here and lying.
“Maybe you can help wrap this up before it starts bleeding again.” He lowered his gaze to the gash on his side. Angry red skin surrounded the open cut, but it wasn’t leaking profusely.
“Yes. I can. But it looks like you need a few stitches first.” Gesturing for him to take the chair I’d waited in, I got straight to work cleaning off the cuts and stitching him up, then applying ointment to them both.
This first-aid kit had plenty of materials, perhaps the standard for a dangerous man who lived a violent life.
Even though it’d been a while since I’d needed to use a needle on someone like this, the muscle memory came back to me.
It wasn’t pretty, and it might scar, but he was patched up.
Satisfied, I started to affix the gauze and bandages.
He’d at least had the foresight to grab this first-aid kit from his bathroom before he came out here.
All the while, he watched me. And all the while, I did everything I could to avoid making any eye contact with him.
This wasn’t right. Maids didn’t double as nurses. Yet something common linked us together. This unspoken understanding that violence was part and parcel of this Mafia life.
“Today is your first day working here.” It should’ve been a question, but he said it to me as a statement after I finished tending to his wounds.
I nodded, glancing at him and doing my best not to let his heavy gaze affect me.
“How come you’re good at this?” he asked with a vague inclination of his head at the puffy protrusion of gauze that I’d strapped to his shoulder.
I shrugged. “Basic first aid.”
“Knowing how to stitch up a stranger is basic?”
I opened and closed my mouth. “It could be.”
He grunted his doubt at my reply. “Not freaking out at a dead man in my office isn’t basic, either.”
I met his gaze and sat back on my knees, putting more distance between us. “Renee explained that this can be a, um… a dangerous household.”
That should be a blanket statement that wouldn’t get me in trouble. I hope. Renee hadn’t really explained anything, just barking at me that what happened in this building stayed in this building.
I didn’t need her to give me pointers about how a Mafia family operated. I came from one.
The burn of Andre’s stare on me intimidated me.
Lingering in his bedroom like this couldn’t be wise to begin with.
But it was the worry that he’d get curious about how little I’d reacted to his killing someone that I didn’t welcome.
Being expected to explain any more about why I was in that office was the very last thing I wanted to suffer through.
Because despite this innate and automatic pull to his dangerous aura, despite this draw to enjoy his presence and attention on me in any regard, I had to see this assignment through. I had to have something to give my uncle or else he’d hold my cousin’s life on the line.
I had to do it.
I had to stick with it.
And if that included staying here as a maid for a while longer until I could look at the papers in that messy office, then that was what it would take.
“She’s right,” Andre said at last as I stood and brushed my hands over my apron. “This is a dangerous household.”
Of one? With only you living here? Yeah, I got the memo on that.
“And it’s a dangerous world out there, too,” he added dryly, standing.
I jumped back at how little space remained between us. With him on his feet and the fatigue painting the exhaustion over his face, it was dumb of me to latch on to how intimately close we were like this.
Taking a step back was instinct, but I struggled to pull myself away and behave like a normal maid should. With distance and blending into the background as low-level hired help.
“Thank you for your help,” he said, watching me closely.
I nodded, racking my brain to remember whether I had to curtsy or something. “It was nothing,” I replied, praying that he couldn’t tell how nervous I was, alone in his room with him and his seeming curious about me at all.
“Good night, Sofia,” he said as he turned toward his bed. Giving me his back seemed like the final dismissal, and I didn’t second-guess it.
“Good night, Mr. Orlov.” While part of me wanted to fuss and worry over his wounds, I wasn’t stupid enough to insert myself into a situation I wasn’t expressly needed for. More than anything, I was supposed to be lying low and staying off this man’s radar while I tried to spy on him.
Yet, when I returned to my small maid’s quarters, a tiny room on the next floor up from his, I showered and got ready for bed with an uneasiness I couldn’t shake.
He’d killed his own guard, catching him snooping. But it didn’t make Andre seem like the villain. Yusef just had that negative, malicious air about him. Andre had acted swiftly, sure, but I wasn’t scared of him.
Of course he doesn’t scare me. I rolled my eyes as I lay in bed and stared at the ceiling. I’d grown up around Giovanni men and soldiers, and I was not some na?ve, sheltered moron to how those ruthless mobsters operated.
Replaying the memories of helping Andre infused me with heat. Each time I thought back to how taut and smooth his skin was, how hard and rigid his muscles were, bunching up and tensing when I tended to his injuries… That sobering and sinister stare he leveled on me, as if he had to figure me out.
Stop it, Sof.
Andre Orlov hadn’t earned the right to this much brain space or interest from me.
He was the means to an end. Uncle Roberto charged me with spying on Andre and obtaining copies of his paperwork about the drug deals.
And since Esmeralda was the only person who mattered to me anymore and her life was contingent on my pulling that feat off, I had to keep Andre Orlov where he belonged.
As a target.
As someone who wouldn’t carry significance on my life or my actions.
I closed my eyes tighter and willed myself to fall asleep so things wouldn’t seem as challenging tomorrow.
With my luck, Andre wouldn’t be here and I would have another chance to spy.
Luck wasn’t on my side, though, because as I came downstairs to the main floor, where the kitchen was, I saw him seated at the dining room table, just finishing a very early breakfast.
“Morning, Sofia.” He lifted his gaze to me, and I hated how I mentally swooned.
“Sofia?” Renee paused in bustling by with a small stack of towels. Volleying her gaze between me and Andre, she narrowed her eyes with suspicion. “Since when do you know the names of any staff here?”
“Since I want to, Renee,” he replied curtly with a familiarity that suggested he’d never let her forget he was in charge.
Renee scowled, looking me over.
“Excuse us,” he ordered her.
My heart raced. He was dismissing her? Why? Was I expected to stay? As Renee walked away, I moved to follow her.
“Sofia.”
I closed my eyes and cringed with my back to him. Dammit. He was still curious about me, wasn’t he?
“Come sit with me. Have a coffee.”
I blinked, turning to face him. “Sir—”
“No. None of that sir bullshit.” He huffed a wry laugh. “You helped me with my wounds last night. I think that moves you past only being a member of the household staff here.”
Walking toward him, I debated how to play this. “But I am only a member of the household staff.”
He shook his head, watching me take a seat. “There’s something different about you.”