Chapter 14
LUKE
I spend the next few days shadowing Zinaida, meeting all her staff and suppliers and gradually restructuring the way her clubs work. A team of Mak’s comes in to do the surveillance upgrades, supervised by me this time instead of Zinaida.
Especially in her apartment.
Christ, I think irritably, trying not to snarl my orders at the small army of workmen I brought in to gut the basement. How she’s survived this long is beyond me.
I still get a cold shudder of dread when I imagine her driving into that basement parking garage alone, at night. Clearly her would-be murderer has never done a thorough target assessment, or they’d have lain in wait there and picked her off at their leisure.
I’m still not certain someone wasn’t lying in wait the night I drove her home. Every nerve in my body felt another presence in that garage. I could almost taste them on the air.
Well, they won’t get another chance, I think grimly, staring around in satisfaction at the hive of activity transforming the entire building.
That’s another thing I like about working with the bratva: the lack of red tape.
It’s the absolute opposite of the army, where every plan takes a thousand approvals and then has to be done on a shoestring.
I can’t imagine who Mak bribed, or how much, to ensure both the compliance of the other residents and the consent of local authorities, but I had the requisite approvals in my hand faster than I could organize the workmen to do the job.
I take the stairs back up to Zinaida’s apartment, where the team is cleaning up after the upgrade. I wait until they’re gone to rectify the small things they overlooked: the exact position of a vase, the order of books on the shelf. Years doing surveillance has given me a forensic eye for detail.
Oh, yeah, Luke. Because you remembering every microscopic detail of Zinaida’s apartment is all about surveillance, huh.
The truth is that from the moment I stepped inside it, I’ve found Zinaida’s home just as intriguing and mysterious as the woman herself.
I stand in the center of her living room, surrounded by peace—and the seductive hint of Zinaida on the air.
I don’t know shit about perfume, but whoever makes hers deserves to be a billionaire.
It’s like inhaling a clean desert dune at dawn, when the night’s moisture clings to the surface, heady with some raw power only the earth understands.
Or maybe it’s the hint of amber behind it that makes me think of the Middle East. Either way it’s mysterious, dangerous and exciting.
The apartment itself is surprisingly simple, with some earthy touches completely at odds with Zinaida’s sleek, sophisticated siren facade.
The herbs hanging from a rack in the kitchen, for example, and growing on the upstairs terrace.
Food-splattered recipe books, all of which are clearly well used.
Leather-bound classics in three languages, one with a bookmark still in beside a sunny reading nook.
And then there are the oddly touching things. Like the two spare bedrooms, both neatly made up—with completely empty wardrobes and dressers.
As if Zinaida plans to have friends stay one day.
And yet I’d lay all the Mercura in my crypto wallet that those beds have never been slept in, just like I’m almost certain that I’m the first person, aside from tradesmen or Zin herself, who has ever set foot in her private space.
Which means you definitely shouldn’t hang around, asshole.
Trawling her private apartment is even more intrusive, and I know it.
Even if all I want to do is walk into her bedroom and imagine her in it.
If I’d thought that proximity would lessen desire, I was very fucking wrong.
As a safeguard for my own sanity as much as for Zinaida’s privacy, only she can access the new cameras in the apartment. Unless one of the alarms is breached, of course, in which case I can see them all on my phone.
I genuinely don’t trust myself with a round-the-clock video stream of her private space.
Zinaida in the shower. Zinaida getting dressed. Zinaida lying in bed, doing whatever she does when she’s alone . . .
I cut that thought off before it can take an extremely predictable, if not very honorable, turn.
It’s bad enough that I watched her through the camera in Mayfair.
Even worse that you let her know you saw her.
I’m still wondering what devil was sitting on my shoulder that night in the limo. I could have pretended I never saw a thing. She’d never have known.
But I would.
And just as I had felt that morning when I confronted her, lying about it didn’t sit well with me.
Yeah, Luke. Sure. Just taking the high road again, huh?
She could have fired me then and been well within her rights. Let’s face it: she should have fired me the day I broke into Pigalle Mayfair.
But she didn’t.
Not then, and not after she realized I watched her ride to an orgasm so explosive it’s still haunting my dreams.
I’d be lying if I said that hasn’t been messing with my head ever since.
It would be easy to think this entire contract is just one big game to her. Except that instinct tells me it isn’t.
Instinct tells me Zinaida is not only truly frightened, but far more vulnerable than she lets on. To anyone.
Because something else I’m beginning to learn is that Zinaida is very much alone.
She doesn’t date, unless it’s for business. No late-night visitors, no one-night stands.
No friends.
Apart from her staff, who all clearly worship her, I haven’t seen her so much as meet a girlfriend for coffee.
From the moment she rises before dawn until the late-night hours when I drive her home, Zinaida is either working or alone.
I’ve never met someone so driven. Or so entirely separate.
Your job is to protect her, not fucking psychoanalyze her, Macarthur.
Christ.
I need a distraction.
I take out my phone and hit Paddy’s number. He arrived from Ireland the day after I called and got to work straight away.
“Luke, a chara.” Paddy sounds like he’s out of breath. “Your girl Charlie doesn’t mind a scrap, no?”
I grin. “Who’s odds-on favorite today, then?”
Charlie and Paddy formed a mutual love-hate relationship on first sight.
They’ve been vying for supremacy in the ring ever since.
Anatoly began using their bouts as training sessions for the new recruits, which resulted in a daily book being run on the outcome.
The rest of the staff have started laying bets and bringing their lunch to the gym to watch, which both Paddy and Charlie love, though neither would admit it.
Anatoly, meanwhile, takes great pleasure in pointing out in voluble Russian where they’re both going wrong, although notably, he hasn’t stepped into the ring to correct either of them.
I’ve quietly shifted his roster to focus on daily training, stepping him down from the front door and replacing him on the late-night shift with his two nastiest-looking trainees, supervised by either Paddy or myself.
“Well now, there was a bit of an upset today,” Paddy says. “Your girl there put me on my arse, but only because my phone rang, you understand. Shut up,” he calls to the various voices catcalling in the background.
My grin widens. “So it’s my fault Charlie kicked your arse, then?”
“Aye, fucking clearly,” Paddy says cheerfully. “Lost a tenner on it, too, so you owe me—Captain McTasty.”
“Oh, fuck off.” I roll my eyes at the explosion of laughter in the background. “Would a pint take the sting out of it? Haven’t had a chance to buy you one since you landed.”
“Don’t need to ask me twice. Charlie’s got the night shift anyway, so I’m clear. Where’s your lady at?”
“Zinaida has a private dinner at Pigalle Mayfair. Anatoly is scheduled there this evening with a full team, so I can take a minute.” I pause. “And she’s my client, Paddy, not my lady. Watch your mouth, there, especially with an audience.”
“Sure.” He doesn’t sound in the least repentant. “But you should know that my bouts with Charlie aren’t the only thing the staff are laying bets on, cock.”
He hangs up before I can tell him just how far he can fuck off.
I toy with the idea of putting a ban on both the betting and the nickname, but dismiss the thoughts immediately. The staff is rapidly tightening into the close, highly effective unit I plan to make them. If that comes at my and Zinaida’s expense, well, I guess we’re both hard enough to wear it.
I text Paddy the address of a riverfront pub near my place instead.
Then I get the fuck out of Zinaida’s apartment, before her lingering scent brings me completely undone.
“Not bad,” Paddy greets me when I pull up a stool next to him an hour later. “For an English pub, that is.”
We’re sitting by arched windows overlooking the river, with a nice fire going behind us. The pub has an impressive selection of cask ales, offers a superb wine list, and does a sensational Argentinian steak as well as Paddy’s favorite kind of beef pie.
“Cheers.” I grin as I clink my glass to his. “And after more than a decade of taking the king’s coin, you should be used to drinking British Guinness.”
“Drinking Guinness outside Ireland is blasphemy, lad, which is why I’m on the amber instead.” Paddy holds up a pint of ale. “It’s not a bad drop either.”
“You look like you’ve been in the wars.” His jaw is turning a nice shade of purple, and from the careful way he’s moving, Charlie clearly landed more than one or two blows to the ribs.
“She’s quite the girl, your Charlie.” Paddy touches his jaw ruefully. “Pity the poor bastard who takes her on, though. Christ. Can you imagine the kind of damage she’d do to a man in the sack?”
Except knowing Paddy as I do, and by the slightly questioning way he phrases the comment, he’s definitely already considering throwing Charlie down on more than the gym mats.
“Keep your hands off my staff, you reprobate. I know what you’re fucking like.”
Proving my point, he winks at the waitress who delivers our meals. She in turn simpers back at him.
I shake my head.