Chapter 15
MIKHAIL
The night I caved to my desire for Claire, I told her not to deny how much we wanted each other. In the next couple of days afterward, it seemed like we were both dancing around it.
Her insistence to leave was a thorn that pricked at my side, but the looks she couldn’t hide contradicted her wishes to go.
My demand for her to submit was too much of an ask for her, but the way she sighed and blushed when we brushed past each other proved I wasn’t as strong as I wanted to be in this war of resistance.
I’d be damned if I had to chase her again.
She needed to submit to me. I could struggle and endure wanting her again, but I had to be patient for her to come to me, to break first and initiate any more intimacy.
It killed me not to steal her away and kiss her until we were breathless.
It agonized me to watch her at meals and in my home and know I was keeping my distance. This waiting game couldn’t last forever, but it was an easier playing field when I was kept so busy.
Between the Popovs trying to fuck with our businesses and portray the Orlovs as weak and the Giovannis trying to usurp our monopoly on the drug trade in this city, I had no spare time to seduce this sexy doctor.
Still, I was aware of her. I kept tabs on her, either following and listening in on her when I was home or relying on Martin and other members of the staff to report to me.
Claire and Anya continued to slowly get used to each other.
Perhaps it was nothing more than their both being in the same place and having no one else to talk to.
Claire’s phone was still locked from normal use, and the device would stay like that until I deemed it safe for her to reach out to anyone outside these walls.
It seemed to start as a gradual acquaintance at first, both of them passing by each other in the hallways or in the kitchen. Then they seemed to plan to run into each other. Small talk was the main theme between them—commenting on the weather or food. Banal, whatever details.
But then they seemed to get closer yet. The day I had a new piano delivered to a different room, sparing Anya any trauma connected to when she was shot at in the large ballroom, Claire found the instrument and tapped a few keys.
Anya passed by and scoffed, telling her it was out of tune and not worth her time.
The next day, I had it tuned.
The following day, Claire asked if Anya played. They sat together at the bench as Anya taught her the basics. That afternoon, Claire helped Anya with some science homework, material provided through the remote tutor she’d had when she lived in Moscow.
Watching them connect softened my regard for the sassy doctor, but it couldn’t erase the biggest obstacle of all. Claire would never belong in my world when she was so determined to stand on the other side, the side with normal society.
When I could, I caught up on how they were getting along. Checking if they were sharing any details I could benefit from knowing about. They didn’t. Watching to see if Anya would smile or act happier. She might have come close it.
Any good faith that was being established between Claire and Anya came to a standstill the next night. Almost two weeks had passed since I’d brought Claire here. Almost fourteen days of wrangling with the mystery of having not one female, but two in my life.
“I don’t care,” Anya shouted at me when I caught her trying to sneak out the back door to go to the pool.
“I didn’t ask if you cared about my rules,” I told her. “If you want to go out to the pool and conservatory, you make sure a guard is with you.”
“Because I’m just a prisoner, right? Trapped like a caged animal.” She stormed off, overreacting that I’d caught her trying to slip out of the house without letting anyone know.
“Is that necessary?” Claire asked, raising her brows. She’d heard the shouting match. Everyone on the floor would have.
“Yes, it’s fucking necessary.” I stalked up to her, wishing I could vent all my anger and exhaustion on her.
With her. This tension simmered too hot between us and I damned her for not caving to come to me again.
“The night I came to the hospital was the night men came to target her. I won’t apologize for doing all I can to keep her safe. ”
“But it’s not like she is leaving. The whole block is guarded,” she pointed out. “All she wants is some free will, the freedom to choose where to be and what to do without being monitored with so much direct surveillance.”
“Don’t act like you know what you’re talking about.” I turned from her, going to my room to pace and drink until I could fall asleep, only to suffer through more dreams of her.
The next morning, I woke up with the reminder that Claire likely had a valid point.
Suffocating Anya wouldn’t do anyone good.
Honestly, if she could open up to me and communicate to the point that I could ever trust her not to run away or do something risky and stupid, I’d let her have all the permissions she wanted.
She could go to school. She could go shopping.
She could take up any hobby or sport or pastime she wanted.
Having personal protection was non-negotiable.
She had to agree to security, but I didn’t have the bandwidth to police her.
I didn’t have the energy to figure out how to have my daughter happier than she had been at the same time I could be confident she would survive and not be targeted.
That was why when I came downstairs for breakfast and asked Martin if Anya had come down for breakfast yet, I was confused that she hadn’t.
Before Claire, Anya would take all her meals in her room. Since Claire showed up, Anya had come out of her shell to at least be near the doctor.
But not today.
Claire glanced up at me and Martin, frowning. “I didn’t see her last night, either. She sometimes comes to the library when I’m in there looking for a book.”
Fuck.
I called out to the guards to check the property. Men ran to the elevator while some went to the stairs. More of them headed to the security room to check surveillance footage.
“She’s missing,” I told Andre as I called him and tried not to panic.
“How can you know?” Claire asked, shooting to her feet and following me out of the room.
I just do. The uneasiness in my gut was telltale enough. I’d woken up bothered about how Anya and I fought last night, and this was why.
“Claire is missing?” Andre guessed, probably thinking of her first because I’d tasked him with looking into her background and life.
“No. Anya.” I hung up, trusting him to follow up and know what to do. He’d corral men to search for her. He’d take over commanding the men to be efficient and productive with this hunt.
But already, I felt the sinking dread that she was gone.
“Mikhail?” Claire ran with me toward Anya’s room. “How can you be sure that she’s gone?”
“I just know. I can tell.” I could predict that my daughter was missing because I felt her absence in my heart.
“Do you think she ran away?” Claire asked, on my heels as I hurried toward the room Anya had holed up in since she arrived.
“No.” A guard was already there. “It looks like there was a struggle.” He pointed out the broken items and knickknacks, as if she’d been captured and she fought to get free.
Rage spiked in me. It grew hot and fast, the emotion surging until I saw red. Cursing and wishing I could punch something, I tried to stay calm and not frantic.
Between calling the men in charge of security and the computer personnel in the room with all the monitors that watched this building and the others, I left the room and disregarded Claire following me.
She was worried. I saw that.
But I was fucking panicking beneath the surface.
This was exactly what I dreaded when I got that call that Anya was coming to live here. She’d be my burden to protect. My obligation to care for. With how icy she’d been, it hadn’t been easy with her lack of cooperation.
I couldn’t focus on Claire. I couldn’t give her any of my time or attention as I locked into the zone to find Anya.
My first step was the security room.
“Lev took her,” a specialist said. He sat at a row of many monitors, tapping on a keyboard to bring up a view.
“Lev?” I hurried closer to watch the footage of one of my former lieutenants sneak into Anya’s room, capture her, and then sedate her when she fought his taking her away. He carried her limp body out of the room, then down the hall, where he escaped through a fire stairwell.
I pounded my fist down on the counter, making a few keyboards jump. Screens tilted. But as I closed my eyes and gritted my teeth, breathing through the fury, I shook with the need to damage something. To destroy everything in my path to reach her.
Sergei barreled into the room, no doubt up-to-date with this discovery already since he had his ear bud in his ear, on task and serious about getting her back.
“Lev,” I told him. “That motherfucker took her.”
He nodded once, curt and without any unnecessary emotion, like a militant. “He was always a loose thread.”
“I should’ve fucking killed him,” I said, pacing.
“Perhaps,” Sergei agreed. “When you caught him spying, we voted to keep him alive, though.”
Rubbing my hand over my face, I gritted my teeth some more and thought back to when I’d let the lieutenant go a few years ago.
He’d been too greedy, too eager for power, trying to spy for Niko Popov.
He’d gotten it into his head that he could gain the other boss’s favor by fucking us over.
The only reason he’d lived was because we thought he could still be useful as bait someday. Or a scapegoat.
“He’s clearly out for revenge,” Sergei said.
“And no doubt trying to bring my daughter to the fucking Popovs so they’ll recruit him.” They never would, but you couldn’t fix stupid.
“You’re sure that this is because of the Popovs?” another man asked.
I grunted, my mind already racing with ideas of searching for my daughter. I plotted which districts to send men to, which crews could comb through which buildings. We had to move and act now. Not later. Every second that she was gone could count.
“If this isn’t something to do with Niko Popov, we know where else to fucking look,” I replied, referencing Roberto Giovanni.
Sergei took charge, ordering supervisors to start searching.
As he handled the immediate delegation, I shrank under the guilt that this would be my fault.
If I hadn’t been so obsessed with keeping Claire here, would this have happened?
If I hadn’t been pulled away to focus on Giovanni, would I have predicted Niko trying to order my daughter’s capture sooner?
“We will find her,” Sergei said as we left the control room.
“But would she have even been missing if I were paying attention?”
My nephew frowned at me. “You mean because you’ve been focused on looking into Claire and who’s after her?”
I growled. Not one woman but two. How far I’d fallen from keeping my life simple with business only.
“Do you think she could be here on purpose?” he asked. “To distract you?”
I paused before getting into a car with him, glancing back at the building and spotting Claire standing at the door, frowning with worry.
“No.” I wanted to dismiss it. “Claire wasn’t planted here as a spy.”
She was too innocent, from another world where violence wasn’t the currency that ruled life.
But she’s hiding something.
I couldn’t forget how nervous she got when I mentioned her colleague.
A threat could be lurking too close to her for comfort, without her even knowing. I doubted that skittish and gorgeous doctor was at fault for any wrongdoing, but I couldn’t reject the possibility that she could know something.
“She doesn’t matter,” I stated coolly as we left to search for my daughter. “She can’t matter right now.”
That was the problem. Claire did matter. Too much. She was already getting under my skin and I wasn’t sure how to navigate that.
But first, I had to retrieve my daughter and know I wasn’t failing my own flesh and blood.