Chapter 21 Cartier
CARTIER
It feels wrong to be this excited when I’m halfway around the world during the holiday season, and I know that Mika and Gianna are coping without me.
I can’t even remain angry about Andrej drugging me and bringing me here without my consent.
It’s impossible to be angry when you’ve found the person who completes your life.
I literally feel as if this is the first day of the rest of my life. It’s such a cliché, but it’s true. Andrej makes me feel special. He makes me feel alive. He makes me feel things that I always believed only existed in fiction.
Inside the bedroom, I lean against the door and squeeze my eyes and fists shut.
This is my life now. I’ll be part of a Bratva family and will have to accept all that comes with that status, but it doesn’t faze me because I’ll be with Andrej every step of the way.
I cross the room to the dresser, sliding open the drawers in the hunt for some sexy lingerie. It probably won’t stay on for long, but I want to see Andrej’s expression when he comes back and finds me waiting for him on the bed in something black and silky.
It doesn’t surprise me when I open the third drawer. Andrej has thought of everything: there’s enough underwear in here to open a store.
I rummage through lacy thongs, transparent bralettes, satin camisoles and silky tap pants. Finally, I settle for a luxurious champagne-colored set, lace-trimmed tap pants, and a camisole as light and sheer as a feather.
Peering at myself in the floor-standing mirror, my nipples instantly harden, and I can already feel the damp patch between my legs.
Satisfied, I lie down on the bed and try to strike a seductive pose. It’s hard when excitement is gurgling inside my chest, and I’m conscious of my reflection staring back at me from the mirror across the room.
It’s too contrived.
It isn’t me.
And Andrej fell in love with me, the clumsy inexperienced book nerd who fantasized about being fucked in a nightclub wearing cowboy boots and nothing else.
I plump up the pillows and lean back against them, pulling my knees up to my chest and hugging them tightly.
Then I wait.
And wait.
When he doesn’t come back with the champagne, I wonder if he got sidetracked by one of the security guys. It must be that. Or maybe Ivana wanted help with something. Or he decided to make food too.
I give him a little longer. He wouldn’t waste time preparing a three-course meal, and I’ve seen the kind of snacks that he likes to make.
Then I replay the conversation in my head. He definitely told me to head upstairs to the bedroom. He didn’t want me to follow him to the kitchen.
Did he?
When uneasiness starts to congeal inside my gut like cold oats, I drag my clothes back on over the top of the lingerie, slide my feet into my fluffy slippers and head back downstairs to find him.
The house is silent.
Too silent.
The walls are thick, which means that, with the doors closed, I can’t hear the crackling fires from the upstairs hallway, but it isn’t that. It feels as if the house is holding its breath, waiting for something to happen.
It’s just my imagination I tell myself as I make my way down the grand staircase. I allowed my thoughts to spiral while I was waiting for Andrej, and now they’re creating all kinds of impossible scenarios when he’s probably in the kitchen making waffles or toasting crumpets or popping corn.
I’m almost at the bottom of the staircase when I hear footsteps.
The hairs on the back of my neck stand on end, and I flatten myself against the stairs, heart thudding dully behind my ribs until they recede.
What the fuck is wrong with me?
Bodyguards have been crawling all over this place since I arrived, so why are they freaking me out now.
I haul myself upright, legs shaking from the adrenaline pumping through my veins, and keep on moving.
It’s impossible for anyone to get past the guards posted around the perimeter.
And if there was something wrong, they’d have informed Andrej immediately so that he could handle the situation before it went too far.
I can’t believe I’m thinking about enemy intruders, but I guess this is what I signed up for when I slid that engagement ring onto my finger.
Only when I reach the bottom of the stairs, the first thing I realize is that there’s no bodyguard posted at the other end of the hallway.
Maybe now is the time to panic.
Something must’ve happened outside, and Andrej took control.
My mouth is dry. My legs have turned to jelly. I’m about to turn around and head back upstairs to the safety of the bedroom when a disturbing sound cracks open the heavy silence.
My ears ring with the shockwaves.
Was that a gunshot?
I’ve never heard one before. Not in real life. Only in the movies.
But whatever it was, my brain-leg coordination has fallen to pieces, and I’m rooted to the spot. Numb. Waiting for the world to correct itself again and keep on moving in the right direction. One that I can understand.
Only, the world is suddenly way off-kilter, and I’ve no idea what the hell is going on, and when more gunfire rings out, I let out a strangled yelp before I can stop myself.
I cover my mouth with my hands.
Too late.
I hear voices I don’t recognize, muffled from behind a door. I need to move. But my body is spreading roots, and Andrej should be here to protect me from whatever is going on, and I don’t know where he is because he went to get champagne and didn’t come back.
Then someone grabs my wrist from behind. Before I can protest and try to wrench my arm free, they clamp another hand over my mouth and pull me back against them.
“Don’t make a sound.” I recognize this voice in my ear.
Ivana.
“Library. Now!”
She drags me along the hallway and releases me when we’re standing outside the door to the library.
Pressing a finger to her lips, a warning to be silent, she slides a gun from her pocket, opens the door, and enters the room first, checking for danger before she gestures for me to follow.
She closes the door carefully behind me.
“Ivana, what’s—”
“Ssh.” She shuts me down, then starts moving around the room, checking behind the smaller freestanding bookcases and underneath the desk. She even pulls the cushions off the sofa and examines the frame in case someone is hiding inside.
I follow her movements, mesmerized.
She is in control. No fear. No panic. To Ivana, high alert simply means following protocol to keep safe and minimize loss of life.
When she is satisfied that we’re alone, she gestures with the gun in her hand for me to hide behind a bookcase.
I don’t argue. But before I crouch behind the shelves, I ask, “What about you? Will you stay with me?” I sound needy. Frightened. A deer facing a hunter’s bullet.
But I don’t care because that’s exactly what I am.
This kind of thing doesn’t happen to people like me. I’m the person who picks up the pieces when other people’s lives are in tatters. My life has always been simple … until now.
She holds my gaze for several beats and then nods once. “Don’t come out. No matter what happens, you stay hidden. Understand?”
“Yes.” My voice cracks. “Who—”
“No questions.”
I crouch behind the bookcase on my knees.
I feel nauseous, and I pray that I won’t be sick.
Not here. Not now. I want to ask Ivana if she knows where Andrej is.
I want to know who managed to compromise security and infiltrate the house; whoever they are, they must know what they’re doing. They’re professionals.
Bratva. Just like Andrej and Leonid.
The gunfire is still echoing around my brain, overwhelming the silence of the library, and my mind chooses now to picture a bullet entering Andrej’s chest and piercing his heart. Like Cupid’s arrow. Only with deadly results.
My breath hitches in my chest. Adrenaline makes my heart skittish, and my brain cells swimmy, and I sit on the floor with my head between my knees waiting for everything to settle.
Keep it together. I have to keep it together for Andrej’s sake. And Ivana’s. I can’t expect her to help me breathe through a fucking panic attack while there are people outside with guns.
When I suck in enough oxygen to see clearly again, I get back onto my knees and peer between the books on the shelves in front of me.
At first, I can’t see Ivana in the unlit room.
But then her head comes into focus, and I realize that she’s sitting on the sofa facing the door as if reading in the dark is a regular occurrence in her world.
She’s expecting them. Which means that they haven’t found whatever they’re looking for. They haven’t found Andrej.
My heart leaps so hard, I’m frightened I’ll have a heart attack. As long as they’re still searching the house, Andrej is still alive; we’re simply providing a distraction.
Despite Ivana’s warning to stay out of sight, I’m about to crawl out of my hiding place and tell her that I’ll give myself up if it buys Andrej some time, when the faintest sound snags my attention.
What was that?
The door handle?
My resolve is squashed by the panic coursing through my veins. I have no idea who they are. They might be the ‘shoot-first, ask-questions-later’ kind of Bratva. They might be grenade-wielding psychopaths with orders to blow the entire place to smithereens.
Ivana doesn’t move. She’s so still, she could be a shadow, or a figment of my imagination.
Then the door opens a crack, and a sliver of light appears between it and the frame.
My view is restricted by the books on the shelf, so I start at the floor, at the heavy boots crossing the threshold, and swivel my head a little as I make my way up. By the time I reach the person’s face, the contents of my stomach are threatening to spill all over the heavily patterned carpet.
But I recognize the intruder instantly.
Yuri Asimov. The man who claimed to be my biological uncle.