23. Viktor
23
VIKTOR
M aybe I fucked her too hard.
Irina went quiet after I introduced her to the art of sixty-nine.
It was a pleasant surprise when I woke up and found her still there. With her track record, I wouldn’t have been off the mark to assume she’d run again. She stayed, though, the whole night and the morning after. And seeing her in my space made it so easy for me to seriously imagine her staying in my life. For good.
I’d come close to telling her the truth. I knew she was suspicious of me and what she didn’t know about me. She was sharp, realizing that I didn’t represent the lifestyle of a standard professor.
But I couldn’t bring myself to tell her the truth. Not when I was certain I was well on my way to falling for her.
When I described how different we were, evading any details that she could pick up on that would clue her in to the fact that I knew all about who she was, I heard the pang of sadness in her voice when she replied.
That she was so drawn to me because she perceived me to be someone outside her world. She saw me as Professor Viktor Remi, a “normal” man. And the distinct contrast to the Mafia men she was used to was a pro, not a con.
Yet, I was as Mafia as Mafia could get. I was Vik Baranov, behind-the-scenes soldier and leader who supervised whorehouses.
If she knew that I wasn’t who she thought I was, if she learned how similar—yet apart—I was to the life she knew, a Mafia man from a rival Family, I would lose her. I’d sever that connection that she liked, this idea that a so-called normal man could want someone like her. It was a complex of hidden and altered identities, and I worried that it would ruin what we were building.
Because after I dropped her off, I knew I would fight for us. There had to be a way to bring her to my side. I had to figure out how to wrench her out of Igor Petrov’s influence and firmly convert her into being a Baranov. With me.
I’d distracted her with sex all night and morning. It prevented me from asking her what her father was up to. If I wanted to prolong the secret of who I was for a little longer, I couldn’t ask her about Igor.
It might have seemed like I was being stupid, foolish for a woman, but I had enough sense to detect hints that she might not be loyal to Igor. The way that she had secretly helped Eva and Lev escape stood for something. It stood for a lot. That action was dangerous and altruistic, putting herself at risk of her family’s anger just to help a rival.
She can’t be loyal to him.
Yet, I refused to let myself completely believe that because I feared I was already too prejudiced in wanting her to be loyal to only me .
Talking to Eva and Lev would help. Even Rurik. They could help shed light on what might be going on. I could only hope it wouldn’t take too long. If the Ilyins thought that Irina would be promised to them, a ticking time bomb was working against me now.
Sunday, I focused all my efforts on looking for answers about Igor’s plans without involving Irina. She couldn’t be the only source of intel.
I followed the one burly guard, Peter. I hung out near a few Ilyins at a bar off campus. I listened in on a couple of Petrov soldiers who seemed to be waiting for a man in a suit to meet them near the dean’s office.
By the time night fell, I had learned a whole bunch of nothing. Frustrated and worrying that I was putting myself up to an impossible challenge, I slept restlessly and woke up annoyed at the world. After starting my morning with Irina next to me, naked and warm and inviting, I didn’t want to start my days any other way.
I got coffee and walked through the snowless but frigid weather toward the lecture hall. At least I’d be able to see her there and not have to settle for sexting like she had yesterday.
I reached the double doors to the building, frowning when Rurik pushed off the wall he’d been standing at. He approached me quickly, his brow furrowed and eyes serious.
“What’s wrong?” I asked. There was no point asking if something was wrong.
“Everyone knows.” He fell into step with me, entering the building.
Heat blasted at my face from the overhead furnace, almost burning my eyes. “Everyone knows what?”
“About you and Irina.” He looked around, ever cautious that someone could be listening. After he tugged his beanie off his head, he pushed his hair back to glance at me. “That you’ve claimed her.”
“Everyone, as in people here at the college? Or…?”
“Everyone in our world, Vik. What the fuck were you thinking?”
I stopped, glaring at him. “Don’t pretend that you didn’t know I was going to seduce her to get her to open up to me and talk.”
Which… I haven’t actually done yet.
“Yeah. Seduce her. As in tease her and maybe get her off. One night or something. Not take her home. To your real home.”
I frowned, missing too many dots to connect. I had been contemplating talking to him about how I was developing serious feelings for her, but I hadn’t said a single thing. How could he be aware that I hadn’t seduced her but instead fell for her?
“How do you know…” I shook my head, needing to back this up. “ What do you know?”
“Everyone’s talking about how you claimed Igor’s only daughter. Everyone in all the Families around here know that you stole the bride Petrov told the Ilyins that they could have.”
“We don’t know that Igor did promise her to anyone. Oleg told me that he was thinking it was a prank or only a rumor.”
He shrugged. “The Ilyins seem to think it was a legitimate arrangement. They’re pissed. I just found out this morning, listening in to a couple of lines I tapped, and I wanted to inform you as soon as possible.”
I scoffed. “What? You think the Ilyins are going to come after me now?”
“I don’t see why they wouldn’t now.”
I narrowed my eyes, scanning the hallway. The doors to the lecture hall were right there. I was due to start class in a minute. I’d see Irina in there. But Rurik seemed to think I had to worry about my life, not that my cover could be blown.
I felt lousy. If what Rurik said was true, word could reach Irina. And I’d just had this weekend to come clean and really talk to her, to expose myself in order to ask her what Igor was up to. But I hadn’t. Guilt hit me that I hadn’t been open and taken a risk on how she felt about me, that she could genuinely feel about me to the same depth that I did about her.
Confused, I tried to understand how I’d gotten to this point. “How did word get out that I was with her at all?” We hadn’t done anything publicly. Jessica had interrupted us in my office, but she wasn’t affiliated with anyone in the Mafia to spread word.
“Someone saw you at the whorehouse. With her.”
“Fuck.” I ran my hand down my face, more pissed at myself than anything else. I’d taken her in the back way to collect that package I had to deliver, which I did. When I saw how excited she looked from watching the monitors, though, I didn’t pay attention to leaving the way we’d entered. I’d held her hand as I walked her through the foyer of the whorehouse. And anyone in the city could’ve been there waiting to get in a room. Even a soldier from a rival family.
“Fuck!” I repeated before grinding my teeth hard.
“Yeah, fuck is right,” he agreed, so worried as he watched me nearly explode with anger. “The only silver lining is that no one seems to know you’re, well, you.”
I stared at him expectantly, waiting for him to elaborate.
“No one seems to realize you’re a Baranov. Just a man from here.”
Nodding, I tried to calm down with that news. That was good. That helped. Because if Igor or the Ilyins knew a rival family member had interfered with a potential arranged engagement, I’d be well and truly fucked. Oleg would hear about it. And I would most definitely have a target on my back.
“Do you think…” I winced, unable to finish my question.
“What?” Rurik asked as the last students in the hall shuffled into the lecture room for the class I was supposed to start in seconds.
“Does Igor know?”
He nodded. “I assume. Gossip spreads that fast, man.”
The fucker could hurt her for this. He could retaliate on her .
“I’ll handle this.”
The only plan that formed in my mind was reaching her and protecting her from any fallout from our getting together like we had.
“Let me help,” he insisted. “I’m here to help.”
I nodded, shuffling to the side to hurry into the big room where she should be waiting for class to start. “I’ll get ahold of you. I have to get to her first.”
Leaving Rurik in the hallway, I strode into the cavernous auditorium. My dress shoes clacked on the floor with my fast gait, and the sound echoed. No one spoke. I’d trained them that well to shut the fuck up so I could do my thing.
The second I reached the podium, I scanned the sea of faces peering at me. Methodically roving my gaze over row after row of students waiting for me to start this lecture, I fought the panic that rose inside me.
She’s not here.
Irina’s face wasn’t in the crowd.
She hadn’t come to class.
When she missed it before or showed up late, I was curious and worried. Today, after what Rurik said, I was downright concerned.
Scared, even.
Without any preamble, I cleared my throat then announced, “Class is canceled.” I didn’t wait for a reaction. I didn’t linger to offer an explanation or reason. Before the mob of students could delay me in getting out of here, I turned on my heel and left.
I have to find her. Now.
I could only hope I wasn’t too late.