Chapter 10 Andrej
ANDREJ
I’m buzzing when I walk up the steps to the front door of the women’s shelter.
I hide behind the huge bunch of flowers that I’m holding and peek around them when the door opens. Mika eyes them suspiciously.
“Are these an apology or are you trying to impress her?” she asks.
“Neither.” Then I realize what she said. “An apology for what?”
“You tell me.” She blocks the doorway, and I find myself scanning the hallway behind her for a glimpse of honey-blonde hair.
“Cartier told you about the nightclub?”
“No, what about the nightclub?” Mika jumps on the question like I just confessed to blowing the place up.
“Are you going to let me in?”
She relents, stepping aside and opening the door wide.
When we’re both standing in the hallway with the front door closed, I try again. “What should I apologize for?”
Mika holds my gaze like she’s figuring out if this is an act. Then, “You don’t know, do you?”
“Know what?”
I’m not a patient man, and right now, I could rip someone apart with my bare hands and keep these flowers intact. If something has happened to Cartier…
“Probably best if Cartier tells you herself.” Mika gestures towards the back of the house. “You’ll find her in the kitchen.”
I don’t wait around.
I didn’t want to leave Cartier in my bed this morning.
For the first time in my life, work was an inconvenience that I’d have easily swapped for a day spent watching her come all over my face.
Notes on the nightstand are not my style.
I left my car and driver in the parking lot at her disposal, but maybe I should’ve woken her up before I left.
Fuck!
I’ve never had to think about this kind of thing before.
I’ve never had to consider anyone else’s feelings.
I’ve always done whatever I wanted to do, whenever I wanted to do it.
Pleased myself. Now, walking through the house with a bunch of flowers that made me think of Cartier when I saw them, I make a mental note to put myself in her shoes in future.
Cartier is filling a basket with sweet pastries, coffee brewing on the counter when I find her, filled paninis arranged on a tray.
For a few precious moments, I have her all to myself, watching her with her back to me while she’s oblivious to my presence. My gaze sweeps the curve of her ass, her waist where it dips in, the thick honey-colored curls tumbling down her back.
I can smell my shampoo on her. I can smell me on her. And I adjust my pants before she turns around and startles when she realizes that I’ve been watching her.
“Andrej?” Her eyes drop to the flowers in my hands. “Are they for me?”
A sarcastic comment perches on the tip of my tongue, but I let it go. Cartier deserves so much better than sarcasm and games. She deserves so much better than me, but if I can step up and be the person she should have in her life, then I’ll do everything in my power to make it happen.
“For leaving you in my bed this morning.”
I spot a simple glass vase in the window and cross the room to place the flowers in the basin. Then I go to her, cup her face with my hands, and kiss her.
She doesn’t close her eyes. She’s submissive to my touch, and I instantly miss the passion of her regular responses.
“Where did you go?” she asks.
“Something came up that Leonid couldn’t handle.” It isn’t a lie. It just isn’t the whole truth. “He needs me to step up while he spends time with his family.”
She gives me a half-smile. I’ve known Cartier Black for less than forty-eight hours, but I recognize when something is bothering her.
“I’m sorry. I won’t leave without telling you in future.”
Her face glows with her smile. “In future?”
“I meant what I said, Cartier. You’re mine now, and I’m not going fucking anywhere.”
She relaxes against me. But she’s still holding back. “I should finish preparing lunch.”
I pull her back into my arms before she can turn away. “Talk to me, baby.”
Her eyes hold mine, and fuck if I could get lost in those green and amber pools and never resurface. “Ivana was waiting for me when I woke up this morning.”
My jaw clenches. Ivana sent the message that woke up me at dawn and hauled my ass out of bed to handle the situation. “In my apartment?”
Cartier nods. “You didn’t know that she was there?”
“What did she want?”
“She … warned me to stay away from you.”
I release her arms so that she can’t feel my clenched fists.
What the fuck is Ivana playing at? I understand that my brother feels responsible for Ivana and her twin sister Tamara.
He was the one who discovered them in a shipping container when they arrived in Chicago and rescued them from being trafficked to fuck knows which twisted animals prepared to pay for their bodies.
But I feel no such compulsion to protect them.
Especially if they want to interfere in my life.
I turn back to Cartier. “I’ll speak to her. It won’t happen again.”
Cartier chews her bottom lip, and I tug it free with my thumb, placing my other hand on the small of her back and pulling her against my chest.
“She said that she didn’t want me to get hurt.”
She nuzzles my hand with her cheek, in a gesture that is so innocent, so pure, that I can picture myself pressing a gun to Ivana’s temple and threatening to pull the trigger for sucking up my baby’s beautiful smiles.
“I will never hurt you, Cartier. I promise. I would rather cut out my own heart and fry it in oil.”
“Ugh.” She grimaces, and I can’t help smiling.
“I’ve never met anyone like you before.”
I can imagine what Ivana said to her: He’s dangerous. Volatile. A liability. He uses women and then walks away once he’s gotten what he wanted.
In the past maybe. But not anymore.
What I can’t figure out is why Ivana thinks that she can interfere in my life.
Why now?
Why Cartier?
“It might sound cliché, and you’ve probably heard it all before.” Jeez, I’ve never been so desperate for someone to believe me as I am now. “But I’ve never wanted anyone the way I want you.”
A smile tugs at the corners of her mouth.
“Name a romantic gesture, and I’ll beat it by a million miles for you.”
She’s chuckling now, and some of the tension eases from my spine.
“I’ll do whatever it takes to prove that you’re mine. And I’m yours.”
She smothers her amusement by sucking on her lip. “Whatever it takes?”
“Name it.”
“Will you cut the ends off the flower stalks and arrange them in the vase?”
I glance behind me at the blossoms in the sink. If my family’s enemies could see me now, they’d piss all over our business before I could even blink.
But they’re not here, and I’m not about to lose the most beautiful person to ever walk into my life.
“Not sure about my flower arranging skills, but I’ll give it a bash.”
I slide a knife from a hook on the wall, spread the flowers across the counter, and start slicing through stalks.
It must be a picture of domesticity, me standing at one counter, while Cartier finishes preparing the food and drinks for the residents.
I could get on board with helping out more often if it makes her happy.
Which is why I’m caught off-guard when a voice says, “Can I help?” from the kitchen doorway.
It’s familiar. A voice from the past. One that I didn’t expect to ever hear again.
I spin around to find the woman staring straight back at me as if she’s seen a ghost.
She doesn’t realize that I’m the one who is looking at the specter.
“Elena?” I say at the same time as she whispers, “Andrej?”
Cartier’s gaze hops back and forth between us. “You two know each other?”
I hear it in her voice: the suspicion, the mistrust, every reason she ever had for avoiding men until I tore down her walls. It’s all bubbling under the surface like molten lava thanks to Ivana.
Elena looks nothing like the woman who was once engaged to my brother Leonid. Painfully thin, her cheekbones could cut glass, there are dark shadows circling her eyes, and her once lustrous hair hangs limply over her shoulders. She looks hollow. Broken.
And something inside me snaps when she says, “I was engaged to his brother Leonid. A long while ago.” As if she recognized the silk ropes binding me to Cartier and wanted to put the record straight.
“Leonid?” Cartier blinks.
“How is he?” Elena asks. Even her voice is a shadow of the woman I remember.
“He’s married,” I say. “He and his wife just had twin baby girls.”
Too much fucking information because Elena’s eyes fill with tears.
She blinks hard. Forces a smile. “I’m pleased for him. Will you tell him that, Andrej? Will you tell him that I’m happy for him?”
I nod. I don’t trust myself to speak because someone beat the life out of this once-vibrant woman, and I’m not going to let them get away with it.
I finish arranging the flowers in the vase, because I promised, and because I can’t let Cartier see how badly Elena’s presence in the refuge has affected me. Then I make an excuse that I have business to attend to, and head outside.
My feet barely touch the bottom step when my sister Victoria picks up my call.
“I need you to find out everything you can about Elena Midori.”
There’s a pause, during which I can picture my sister rolling her eyes while she types the name into her computer.
“Elena Midori,” her voice speaks to me through the handset. “As in the woman who almost married our brother.”
“The very same.”
She sucks in a deep breath. “Okay, Andrej, what’s this all about?”
I ignore the question. “How soon can you get the information to me?”
“Depends what you’re looking for.” I hear the resignation in my sister’s voice. She knows me well enough to understand when to fight and when to back down and just do what I want.
“Personal stuff. Husband. Kids. Family. Lovers.”
“Give me thirty minutes.” She ends the call.
Twelve minutes later, I’m pulling weapons out of my apartment’s safe when the information pings through on my phone.
Victoria has been thorough as always. I skim the information until I find what I’m looking for. The name of Elena’s husband.
Michael Swinney.
Attached to his name is a list of criminal charges, all of which he seems to have somehow dodged serving time for. Assault. Sexual assault. Domestic abuse. Attempted homicide.
The guy is a walking talking fucking shit ball.
I can picture him sucking up to the cops investigating the claims that he was abusing his wife.
Men like Swinney know how to play the system, and the system makes it too fucking easy for them to get away with it.
He probably threatened to kill Elena if she took the charges further, and she was so damaged that she believed him.
Guys like him need to learn some respect.
Failing that, they need to suffer.