Chapter 20 Elena
CHAPTER 20
ELENA
Elena fumed after Viking’s not-so-thinly-veiled threat that she wasn’t to leave the apartment. Stirring her coffee, she tried to come to grips with the reality of her new life. She tried to concentrate on the happy picture she’d drawn her daughter when she’d called Vicky.
Being married to Viking had one big perk. At least she was finally out of the Romanov mansion, and far away from that dreaded wine cellar. But now what? Three days into herlife as Viking’s wife, it was the top question on her to-do list, together with buying some clothes and underwear. He’d been ignoring her for the past few days, rising early and coming home late, supposedly because of business. Not that she’d ever asked him where he was going or what he was doing. She wasn’t born yesterday. Vory men didn’t talk shop. Ever. Especially not to a wife they didn’t trust. Still, so far, though his treatment of her had been icy, she’d been treated better than she could ever have hoped for when she found out he was locking her up for life.
She could make this work. Keep her head down while figuring out a way to stop Pedro. This marriage? It was a fluke. He wanted her to pretend she had accepted her fate? She could do that. It was no skin off her nose to pretend to be a content little mafia wife. She’d done it before.
That was when you didn’t give a crap about your husband.
So?
So? You love the big bastard.
It didn’t matter. She could take whatever he would throw at her. She’d gotten quite adept at throwing back curveballs.
The bell rang and she opened the door, expecting to find Baran or Yuri.
What was actually on the doorstep was a different kettle of fish, though. It was her first curveball of the day. Willowy tall, wearing a tight skirt, and a halter top that was probably illegal in some states.
“Who are you? Where’s Daddy?” A frown accompanied the blonde’s dumbfounded expression.
An expression Elena was about to smack off her face.
“Your Daddy?” How remarkable. She’d spoken the words without strangling the girl.
The girl rolled her eyes and barged past Elena, entering the foyer.
“You must be the new housekeeper,” the girl stated, in her infinite wisdom. The pitter-patter of dog feet followed, and Loki came from around the corner. The girl blanched, but then put on a fake smile. “Hi, doggy, Mandy likes you.”
Right. “Then why do you look like you’ve just swallowed a lemon?”
Mandy blinked. “Um…shouldn’t you be offering me a drink or something?”
Loki growled at her, and the girl screeched.
Elena patted the dog. “Good boy.” He deserved some extra dog biscuits.
Mandy tapped her foot and cocked a brow.
Ah, right. The girl was expecting a drink. Elena had to dig deep to find the energy to form a smile. Like toe-deep, from the tips-of-her fingers, roots-of-her-hair deep.
She went into the kitchen and grabbed the first drink she saw. It was an energy drink Viking had stocked. Beautiful. She shook the can a bit, okay more than a bit, and returned to Mandy.
She was still standing in the foyer, her eyes watching Loki carefully.
Elena shook the can one more time for good measure, then she opened it and sprayed it all over the blonde.
Another screech followed as Mandy got doused in the Monster energy drink.
“What are you doing!—”
Oh no, she didn’t get to ask her that. Grabbing the girl’s arm, she pushed her toward the door. Then she opened it and kicked her outside.
Mandy almost fell off the stairs on her way out. Baran stood near the private elevator, in the middle of a phone call. A smirk clung to his lips. Bastard. He knew exactly what Mandy had come to do, and could’ve stopped her.
Elena flipped him off and slammed the door shut.
Was it fair she’d taken out her anger on Mandy? Probably not. Did she care? Not one bit.
With the house and her four-footed friend to herself again, she cleaned up the mess in the foyer, and then dropped onto the couch. An hour passed and she was still mulling over the happenings of the afternoon. The simmering rage inside her mind was warring with her rational side that up until an hour ago had decided the best course of action for her to survive this marriage was to go with the flow. Except, that girl had seemed like the first wave of a tide that would drown her if she didn’t put a stop to it.
It was time to make a stand. She owed it to herself, as a role model for her daughter, and to every other woman on this planet who ever got cheated on.
Viking might have the right to be angry with her. He might even want to punish her, lock her up, and deprive her of food, but he did not get to marry her, say his vows, and go off on his merry way to hook up with another woman. Hell to the no. Worse, he expected her to sit at home, playing the obedient wife. Ha!
It was as if the universe agreed with her because an hour later, Katya stood on her doorstep. Behind her, Elena could see Yuri standing by the elevator.
“I got you clothes,” Katya said.
Elena let her in and looked surprised at the shopping bags Katya was holding up.
“My clothes?” She remembered all too well she didn’t have any on her back when she’d arrived at Casa Romanov. In fact, if it hadn’t been for the guy called Artist who had given her his jacket, she would have remained buck naked.
“I needed to get out of the house,” Katya declared, and sprawled onto the comfy couch in front of the TV.
“So you went on a shopping spree for me?”
Katya’s smile wavered. “I needed to do something useful to get out of my head. I’m sorry I didn’t think of it before.”
She couldn’t help but think of the times she had comforted Vicky after her girl had gone through a rough patch. And in the Morelli mansion, there had been many.
“Hold on to that thought. I’m gonna make you hot cocoa first.”
“With mini marshmallows?” She sounded hopeful.
“Of course,” Elena said with aduhtone. After making the drinks, she took a seat next to Katya.
Then out of the blue, Katya said, “I think he’s going to marry her and send me away.” The poor girl sounded desolate.
Elena didn’t need to ask about the ‘he.’ It had only taken her a sec to see how Katya felt about Kristoff when they were in the same room. The girl was a goner, bad. The notorious Bratva leader, on the other hand, had been the opposite. Elena couldn’t tell if he was mad, happy, smitten, or totally void of any feelings whatsoever. He had his shields firmly up.
“I’m so sorry to hear that.”
A frown followed. “You know, I was both happy for you and angry with you, when Viking married you.”
Aha. “This, you have to explain.”
“I was happy because, well, I really think you two deserve a second chance. Also, Annika is a horrible person. She stayed at our place for just a week and hurt the staff with her vicious tongue. Nothing is ever good enough to please her. The way you treat your underlings says more about a person than how you treat your superiors. It’s one of the things Kristoff told me once.” She rolled her eyes, her love for him clearly shining through. “He’s big on inspirational and tactical stuff like that. He made me read everything he had in his library that was about the human mindset.”
Elena took a sip from her cocoa. “I can’t imagine Kristoff Romanov as a man of the word,” she confessed. “He seems more like the type who thinks you can get much farther with a kind word and a gun than with a kind word alone.”
Katya almost choked on her laugh. Cocoa coated her lips, painting them a mocha brown. “Did you seriously just quote Al Capone?”
“I’m surprised you even heard that one.”
“My Uncle Damon is kind of obsessed with old school gangsters. He even named his pet tarantula Gotti.”
Even she, isolated as she’d been at the Morellis, had heard of the crazy twins and their extensive collection of exotic pets.
“Now, since you’ve mentioned them…that story about their killer gorilla. Is there any truth to it?”
Katya grinned and pretended to lock her lips. “Lucky Luciano? Sorry, my lips are sealed about any monkey business. I can say, however, that I know more about their animal kingdom than they’d like me to know, but not as much as I want to know.”
“That’s not helpful at all.”
“Oh, you just wait, I’m going to be plenty helpful. I’m going to help you take your mind off of things, even if only for one night.”
Suddenly Elena felt like she was being ungrateful. “Sorry, I didn’t mean it like that. Thanks so much again for the clothes and—”
Katya waved her apology away. “Forget about it. I meant that I’m taking you out!” she declared.
“You are?” Elena wasn’t so sure. Katya had that mixed look of deranged and determined on her face again.
“Yes. Why should we stay inside and be miserable, if we can have a girls’ night out to share our misery?”
That made sense. In a weird, don’t-want-to-think-too-much-about-it way. Except for one thing.
“I’ve never had a girls’ night out before.”
Katya’s big baby blues bored into her. Elena almost felt as if she was a bug under a microscope.
“Never?”
“Never. Lorenzo wouldn’t allow it.” Not that she had any friends left to have a girls’ night with, once he’d basically imprisoned her in the Morelli mansion.
“Kristoff didn’t allow me to have one until I turned twenty-one either.”
Somehow, Elena doubted his reasons had been the same as Lorenzo’s. One of the reasons Lorenzo kept her isolated was because he was afraid she’d spill his secrets. More so if she’d got drunk.
Elena set down her drink. “Also, I became a mom at eighteen. It was pretty much changing diapers and heating up bottles from then on. There was no time for nights out.” Nor had she wanted to. Vicky was her whole life, the one tangible proof of her time with Viking. She was the tendril of life that connected them.
“So, you’ve never even got wasted?” Katya asked, a gleam in her eyes.
“Nope.” There had been lots of things she had never experienced. Things girls her age—young, carefree, and restless—had been able to do without giving them another thought. She had envied them. Learning of former classmates going off to college, traveling around the world, or getting married to their high school sweethearts, had sent pangs of envy through her. At her lowest point, during another cold and lonely night holding her baby while fatigue drooped from her bloodshot eyes, she had even blamed her little girl. That memory still filled her with shame and regret. Then there had been times she had blamed the Universe.
Katya jumped from the couch, a huge grin on her face. She pulled out her phone and started typing like a madwoman.
“Get ready for tonight. You’re going to love this month’s theme,” Katya claimed.
“Theme?”
“Uh-huh, every month one of us gets to pick the dress code. It was my turn this time.”
She almost didn’t dare to ask. “And the theme is…?”
“Leopard. I can definitely see you in those spots. We are so going to roar!”
To roar? Elena winced. It was like a cosmic joke. What had she gotten herself into?