Chapter Seventeen
Dmitri Konstantinov
The initial plan found its way back to me.
Iker sent an invitation to an event, which meant that after I pulled Inna out of his trap and sent Gunter’s dead body as a message, he understood I was serious. He decided to come to me the way I originally wanted him to. The problem was that I was also bending in another direction.
I got enough information on Inna’s father.
Enough to know where Iker was keeping him and enough to move on it if I chose to.
That thought sat at the back of my mind like an uninvited guest. Ever since Inna offered her sweet body to me, I’ve been considering a therapist because I was making unnecessary decisions.
Since when did I rearrange things for a woman I planned to get rid of?
“Should I confirm the attendance?” Akim sat across from me, waiting.
“Give it a few days before confirming.” I took a sip and sat there hating that Inna’s father was still in my mind. If I moved on this, it would change the geometry of everything. I would provoke Iker instead of circling him. And yet, I needed Zachary.
“What’s the plan? Do I pull our men off from where the father is being held?”
“No.” It came out faster than I intended, which told me where I stood on this.
I turned it over for a moment. If I did this for Inna, she would owe me more than we negotiated.
“Keep them watching. If Iker moves him, I want to know immediately. He knows I’m involved now, which means he could relocate him. ”
Akim got to his feet. “Boss, this changes the Cuba investigation entirely.”
I looked at him, and he continued.
“The plan was to let Iker come to you, use that to get close to Zachary, and solve what happened in Cuba.” He kept his voice even, the way he delivered things he knew I didn’t want to hear.
“If Iker finds out men are watching his territory, he will know it’s you.
You lose the approach, and you lose the investigation. I think we should call the men off.”
“So you’re suggesting I leave my wife’s father in Iker’s hands.”
“Boss, I thought the plan was that she was a fake—”
“I’m starting to hate that word.” I kept my voice low, but he felt the cold at the edge. “Don’t bring it anywhere near my face again. I’ll get rid of her when I decide to. Until then, you treat her as if she were my wife. My actual wife.”
“Yes, boss.”
I sighed. “Iker doesn’t know I’m Luigi.”
Akim’s face shifted when the implication settled in. I had buried that name twelve months ago. But burying a name was not the same as losing the access it carried.
“I thought you were done with it,” Akim said.
I scoffed. “I cleaned Rodion’s entire world using that name. You think I can’t afford to be a little selfish with it now?”
He understood what that meant. A smirk settled on his mouth. “I’ll prepare everything.”
A familiar weight settled on my shoulders, a particular arrogance that only came when Luigi stepped back into the room. It felt like wearing a coat that fit better than it should.
I respected Rodion. Fuck I did. That man was an animal when it came to building and protecting what the Konstantinov Bratva meant.
Back when he was chasing the person responsible for our mother and sister’s death, he was dying, terminally ill, yet he pushed through it like he wasn’t decaying inside.
Knowing that, I moved faster and found the man, killed him, put him in the ground, and took his identity to do some housekeeping.
And Rodion should be grateful because I was the reason he had a wife.
Akim left, and I leaned back in the chair.
Nobody knew I was Luigi except a few people, which meant moving as Luigi gave me a clean separation. And as Iker tried to figure out who Luigi was, he would still be looking at me across a table, making deals with me.
It was a game of deception, and I was the boss.
It also meant moving Inna and Cole to the mansion. The penthouse served a different purpose when I was operating as Luigi. That was not a part of my life I intended to let her see.
Speaking of Inna. She did well at that dinner, which was something I didn’t say easily or often. The way she spoke about inflation showed she had a mind underneath all the chaos. She wasn’t just a girl who stole to survive. I was starting to think she didn’t fully know what she was, yet.
I checked the time, and it was a few minutes to three in the morning.
I locked up the office and went upstairs.
The penthouse lights were still on. The smell of coffee reached me as I walked in.
I heard a hiss and a quiet curse from the sitting area.
I stepped in to find Inna bent beside the table, rubbing her knee in irritation.
She looked up at me, and a smile replaced the frustration so quickly it almost convinced me.
“Hey,” she said while I studied the room. There was a cup of coffee sitting on the table, and the moment my eyes landed on it, she picked it up and stepped toward me. “Oh, I made you coffee.”
My eyebrows went up as she stepped in front of me, holding the cup out. I caught her puffy eyes. She slept on the couch and waited for me.
“You don’t drink coffee?” she asked, and I looked down at the cup. There was no steam, meaning it was cold as fuck. But I took it because I knew this cup had a request underneath it. She couldn’t ask for something without offering something first.
First, it was her body, which was the best thing anyone could offer. Now it was cold coffee, which meant she was running out of ideas, or thought this was going to work. Either way, I was curious.
We stood there as she smiled while I held the cup.
“What is this?”
Her eyes dropped to the cup and came back up. “Coffee.”
I sighed. “What do you want, Inna?”
Her brows pulled together. “Can’t I make you coffee?”
I stared at her.
She gave up the way I knew she would. “Fine. I wanted to thank you for everything. For Cole’s tutor and for…” she looked around and moved her hand vaguely at the room, “all of this. The roof, food, and clothes. I just wanted to say thank you. That’s all.”
Interesting. So people thanked others for things like food and a roof over their heads.
I couldn’t remember the last time anyone thanked me for anything that wasn’t a business transaction or an order followed.
The last person who thanked me and meant it was my sister, who was stubborn in the same particular way Inna was.
I buried memories about her a long time ago, but without trying, Inna walked them back into the room.
I became Luigi to avenge their death, and I was about to wear that name again to dig into the mess surrounding Inna’s family.
Lifting the cup, I took a sip and almost spat it out. It was cold, sickeningly sweet, and one of the worst things I had ever put in my mouth.
“Do you like it?” she asked. “My father taught me how to make it.”
I swallowed, ready to tell her she was banned from going anywhere near that coffee machine for as long as she was in my building. But the words didn’t come because apparently, this girl had a specific talent for making me fold.
“This is how you thank people?” I asked and moved to sit on the couch. She followed and sat beside me.
“I could have bought you something if I had money.”
“And you think money is what’s required to thank someone?”
“That’s why I made coffee.” She pointed at the cup, waiting for me to take another sip, and, like an idiot, I took another sip. I hated this shit. I set it down on the table.
When I turned to face her, my eyes caught her knee. Up close, the skin was scraped raw, and blood spread around the edges. She noticed me looking and pulled her dress down over it.
I looked at her. “Did I say I was planning to die tonight?”
“Sorry?”
“You could have thanked me tomorrow with your—” I stopped before I said what I actually thought about the coffee. “You didn’t need to sleep on the couch waiting and hurt your knee doing it.”
She waved her hand. “It’s nothing. Just a scratch.”
I wanted to take that at face value, but this was Inna, and Inna didn’t make cold coffee and wait on a couch past midnight just to say thank you. There was more, but she just wasn’t saying it.
“You’ll be moving into the mansion tomorrow.” I got up and started up the stairs.
“What?” She was on her feet immediately. “Why can’t we stay here?”
“We are married. Grandma will expect it.”
She followed me up and through the door into my room.
“Is it necessary? I have plans, and if we move there, it changes everything.”
“Plans?” I walked into the bathroom and pulled the first aid kit from the cabinet. “And who said you could make plans?”
She stood in the doorway. The coffee, the waiting, the knee she was pretending wasn’t bothering her, were all connected. She was smart, just not quite smart enough to play this in a direction I couldn’t see.
“The plan won’t get in the way of anything you need from me. And it’s easier if we stay here.”
“I’m curious.” I tore open a cotton pad and poured antiseptic over it. “What plans?”
“Cleaning.” She straightened slightly. “I can work as a cleaner in your organization just to earn money.” Her smile dropped the moment I stepped toward her. “What are you doing?” She looked down at the cotton pad in my hand, then up at me. “I can do it myself.”
“Sit down.” I signaled her to sit on the toilet.
“It’s just a scratch—”
“Sit the hell down.”
She gave up and sat down. She was suddenly mute. I pushed the hem of her dress back from her knee. The scrape was more raw than she was letting on.
“You were saying.”
She cleared her throat. “Let’s stay here.”
“No.”
She hissed and pulled her leg slightly. “Why not? We haven’t even talked about what you actually need me to do. Your family is going to figure out we are faking.”
I dropped the used cotton into the bin and faced her. She was close, sitting with her dress pushed back, and her lips parted. Standing in front of her, she could take my cock in her mouth really well.
Fuck!
“Act like my wife, Inna. If you do anything that makes anyone doubt what we are, you and I will have a serious problem.” My eyes stayed on her mouth for a moment. “I suggest you focus on what it means to be a good wife.”
Her eyebrows drew together. “Why do you always say no to everything I ask?”
“And who told you that you have the luxury of asking?”
Her shoulders dropped. “Fine. Whatever you wish, sir.” She slid off, close enough that her head nearly brushed my groin. “Goodnight.”
She walked out, and I sighed, my cock throbbing. This was a disaster. And what did she mean by working as a cleaner? Was that an insult?