Chapter 8 Sofia
SOFIA
The following afternoon, I felt like a bomb ticking away and ready to explode. Over and over again, Andre’s parting words teased me and pricked at my mind.
Maybe that’s the point?
I gritted my teeth as I moved the vacuum over the rug near the dining room—again.
It was still just as spotless as the day before, hardly worn, and I felt like I was doing nothing that mattered here.
Andre wasn’t messy and no one came in his massive building to get it dirty to need a full-time maid.
Submitting to you and letting my life be turned upside down is the point?
I shook my head, letting my frustration bottle and rattle inside me. The pressure of my irritation had no chance to vent.
He had no clue what he was talking about. He was in no position to speculate on my life.
That I was just being contrary to stick with rejecting him.
That I was acting like a silly woman, playing hard to get for the hell of it.
I didn’t need to invent cheap thrills to entertain myself.
I had to somehow find that determination that got me here in the first place. That need to spy for my damn uncle so I could extend my cousin’s life and well-being for as long as I could.
If I caved to that sexy man, if I let Andre seduce me and weaken me and make me addicted to having him please me, all my best efforts for Esmeralda would be a joke.
Andre would kill me if he knew who I was.
He would hate me if he knew why I was here.
Avoiding either of those fates was simply in my best damn interests—regardless of how wet he made me when he drugged me with those stolen kisses and how needy he made me feel when he smiled at me and listened to what I had to say.
I growled, fed up with debating about it all.
No. There is no debate.
He and I have no chance at being anything.
I pressed my lips together, scowling at the whirring vacuum cleaner as I fought back the thoughts of him.
Shirtless when he came out of the shower that first night.
The devoted interest that shone in his eyes when we ate together every day with him treating me like a guest instead of a maid.
All those warm touches as he clutched me closer to dizzy me with his kisses.
Every heated look he sent my way in passing, as if he knew how aroused I’d get with what his naughty smirks implied.
So lost in my anger and frustration and yearning and wanting, I didn’t realize he’d come close until his shoes blocked the vacuum from moving forward.
I whipped my head up and frowned at him.
“Hi.” He shoved his hands into the pockets of his sweatpants.
I heaved out a deep breath, wishing I could just hate him, and turned off the vacuum cleaner. “Hello.”
“You’re fired.”
My eyes popped open wide. My mouth hung open. A squeak of alarm shot out past my parted lips, and I swore my heart slammed to a stop.
Fired?
No.
What?
Now?
But I hadn’t done what I needed to do yet!
He couldn’t fire me.
Not yet.
I’d come here knowing I wasn’t cut out to be a damn maid and aware that I’d only be here long enough to steal the intel my uncle coveted.
But—
“Oh, for God’s sake,” a woman scolded behind him as she breezed in. “Don’t shock her like that, Andre.”
I blinked as Claire Orlov entered the wide foyer.
Andre cleared his throat, smiling smugly and looking at me like he was the devil himself. “You’re fired and rehired.”
“What?” I frowned at him and willed my heart to slow from panic mode.
My skin tingled with the spread of goosebumps his words had caused me to experience.
Shock. Dread. A gut-sinking fear. All of it.
His announcement that I’d been fired—and no longer had a reason to be here for my uncle’s deceiving plans—had scared me that much.
Mikhail Orlov entered the room after his wife. He gave me a grave, sober stare like always. It wasn’t like how my uncle peered at me, like I was always lacking, but with suspicion. These two didn’t come over to Andre’s building often, but whenever they did, I felt like an intruder on the family.
“You’re accomplishing nothing as my maid,” Andre said.
I furrowed my brow again.
Claire sighed and put her face in her hand. “Finesse, Andre. Jeez.”
“You’d be far more helpful as my office assistant,” Andre decided.
“I—I would?” Hell, his office was where I needed to be to spy for my uncle. Just… not with Andre there.
“It’s a mess in there, and you can help me organize it,” Andre said. “My, um, sabbatical from work won’t last forever,” he said with a glance at his father. “So why not move you to help me there before my leave is over?”
Mikhail raised his brows, eyeing me as if waiting to see how I’d react to this offer.
Maybe it was nothing more than his being my uncle’s rival, and the fact that he was a ruthless Mafia boss, the Pakhan of this Bratva. But Mikhail Orlov instilled a healthy dose of fear in me just from his stern looks.
I’d noticed him watching me closely whenever he was here. I’d caught on to the lack of trust from him.
Would he be okay with me near his son in any office?
I had to wonder. Because sometimes, it was impossible to convince myself that Mikhail Orlov was just as duped as Andre and everyone else. That somehow, this powerful Mob boss knew I wasn’t who I said I was.
“Give her a chance to think it over,” Claire said with a small smile for me. “I don’t have long to check your wounds.” She clapped and gestured for Andre to act like a patient, not a relative.
I nodded once at the sweet-toned Brit. “I’ll… think about it,” I told Andre, wheeling the vacuum cleaner out of the room.
Think about it?
I held my breath as I passed by the watchful glare from Mikhail. Excusing myself as I wheeled the vacuum cleaner felt like I was running away from Andre’s offer.
No, not an offer.
And there wasn’t anything to think about. The way he’d said it, it was an order. A fact stated.
He was “firing” me just to rehire me as an “office assistant”?
It’s absurd.
Anger gnawed at me at how he was trying everything he could to wear me down.
He was annoyed that I wouldn’t take his offer to sleep with him and accept the charity of an easy life, one with expenses paid and my goals closer within reach.
So now he was trying another trick to have me be something other than a not-really-necessary maid?
I held in a growl as I tried to picture it. As long as he wasn’t getting rid of me and making me leave, I supposed I could still try to accomplish what I’d come here for. If I were still employed and inside this house, I could still try to get what I needed to send to my uncle.
Maybe this will work out in my favor.
If he brought me into his office, that messy haven he hadn’t been in for two weeks, I’d be that much closer to something useful—whatever that may be. Yusef had been in there for a supposed map of some kind. As I stowed the vacuum cleaner in the closet it belonged in, I envisioned it.
I could be in the office, not wearing this stiff, starchy uniform, and straighten out papers for Andre.
That map, or something else that looked official, could be in the stacks and I could pull out my phone, make a guise of checking a text or something as I actually took a picture.
Then I could send it to my uncle and I would have done something.
All this time I’d been here, he’d nagged me daily for not giving him anything.
I supposed that my presence here was proof that I could spy for him, and that appeased him for the time being.
Sooner or later, though, he’d expect me to pony up something of a clue or detail he could use against the Orlovs.
Pausing with my hand on the doorknob, I zoned out and fell deeper into my imagination.
Instead of seeing myself seated in Andre’s office and organizing his mess, I envisioned him looming over me as he caught me red-handed. Then I’d be the target of his gun lifted in the air, shot dead for double-crossing him.
And what would that get me?
I couldn’t help Esmeralda if I were killed.
At the idea of setting up the Orlovs, though, I was pushed to recall how Andre’s face was twisted in pain that night.
If I give Uncle Roberto something that he could use to harm him…
I sucked in a deep breath, uneasy and anxious about being an indirect contributor to hurting Andre.
Or any of them. I hadn’t really gotten to know many of them, and Andre was more of a loner who didn’t have people over.
But Oleg seemed like a gentle giant. Roman was clearly a flirt, but nice to me.
Sergei was gruff but polite, looking like a happy father with that little girl Maisie who’d held his hand when they stopped over for lunch once.
Andre’s family showed me what a real family looked like. Not a fractured mess of one with my uncle as the boss of ours, ruling with a heavy hand, taking too many drugs to function as a rational adult, and prone to abusing me and my cousin.
Do I really want to see them hurt?
I swallowed hard, torn in two.
No. But I can’t see Esmeralda suffering either.
Mind made up, I closed the closet door and wondered how I would start my “new” job for Andre. And when. The quicker I could knock out this spying expectation, the sooner I could push it into my past.
For better or worse.
Later, at dinner, where Andre insisted I was off the clock and to join him, I braced myself for being near him without the barrier of my “job” to hide behind. These episodes of him treating me not like a maid or employee were the hardest to stomach.
If I’m being his assistant in his office, I’ll have a harder time of avoiding him. I’d be that much closer to the dangerous man I was here to help my uncle ruin.
“You can start tomorrow,” he said once we started eating.
“Is this fair to Renee?” I asked honestly. “She’ll be the only one to clean up around here.”
Renee brushed by then, taking her tray of food to her room. “To clean up what?” she quipped.
“Well… um…” I frowned, stumbling for an answer.