Chapter 21
Chapter Twenty-One
Kazimir
My office door creaked open mid-conversation with Nikolai and Lev, revealing a nervous-looking Caroline.
“Good morning, Sir. I’ve sent the itineraries for the week to your email and synced them with your calendar. I’ve also updated the minutes of the meeting with Karl and Karl and—”
“Where is my assistant?” I cut through her robotic voice in one beat.
She swallowed, shifting her weight from one foot to another. “She’s still sick.”
I dismissed her with a nod, not caring to look at the updates she made.
There was something inherently wrong with not working with Genevieve.
I’d never noticed how Caroline fidgeted around me or her robotic relay until a certain brunette with a smart mouth and gorgeous tits started working with me.
In the past two days of her absence, I’d slipped up twice, forgotten an important meeting and almost missed a review.
She took me from barely seeing the importance of an assistant to not being able to function without one.
The reason for the lack of functionality was, however, still under debate; was it her effectiveness or was it how I’d grown used to her presence and looked forward to watching her squirm whilst talking a big game like I couldn’t see her squeezing her thighs?
“Can we proceed?" Lev’s voice pulled me back to the moment, reminding me of the issue at hand.
My jaw tightened in reflex, rage seeping back into my veins.
“Clean up everything those bastards left behind and make sure no one is left to mourn them.”
“Noted.” Lev rose, gathering his keys and leaving the office with a single bow in my direction.
Nikolai, however, decided my office had the perfect atmosphere and the seat was the comfiest thing he’d ever sat on.
I ignored him, making a show of reviewing the files on my table even though I could barely understand the words.
“Maybe if you glared at them harder, the words would sink into your brain through osmosis.”
“Osmosis requires a semipermeable membrane, idiot.”
“Given the situation, your brain qualifies as such.”
I slammed shut the file, looking up to find him slowly picking at his lifted finger. “Watch your tongue.”
“How about you watch yourself first?” he said, his accent swallowing most of the words.
I studied him for a bit. Nikolai sounded perfectly British, an accent he’d perfected to improve his image as the perfect gentleman, except for the few moments when he was upset.
“Out with it.”
I didn’t answer, which was answer enough for him. Nikolai had known me too long to need confirmation for things he already understood.
“She’s called in sick twice,” I said eventually.
“Maybe she’s actually sick, Kaz. People have this thing called immune systems and sometimes—”
“I know what a fucking immune system is.”
“Could’ve fooled me with all that brooding.”
“I am not—” I paused when I realized I was getting riled up. “What did you want to say, Nico?”
“The obvious: let her be.”
“I am not hounding her.”
A moment passed before he spoke again. “Ever considered Moscow was too much for her?”
My nostrils flared at the confirmation of my suspicion. “She barely has enough details.”
“Really?” Nikolai cocked a brow, sitting up. “Let’s see. A loan shark, shooting off people’s fingers in a club, turning up with blood and a couple of undisclosed meetings. Even a toddler would have it all pieced out. You barely tried to conceal anything from her.”
I hated how he sounded, but I knew he was right. I never tried to hide anything from her. Granted, I never took her where she didn’t belong, but I also never tried to disguise anything.
“She’s not sick. She hadn’t seen anything in Moscow that could make her sick.”
“Maybe it’s for the best,” he said in a calmer tone. “She’s not of this world and barely knows how to navigate it. Hell, I’ve spent over ten years with you and I still struggle sometimes. Give her room. It might be the best thing for both of you.”
I didn’t like the advice. I liked it less because some part of me, the part that had spent thirty years building an empire on patience and calculation, knew he was right.
I gave it one more day. One more day of silence, one more day of walking into my office and hoping to see her appear with her journals and rattling off a to-do list I already knew by heart.
By the third morning, patience had run out.
I told myself I was checking on an employee.
I told myself it was simple due diligence, the kind any responsible employer extended to someone who’d been absent for three consecutive days, and if that employer happened to drive across the city himself instead of sending one of his men, that was a detail not worth examining too closely.
It took less than a minute to get her address and even less to find her apartment.
My lips curled when I saw the new model of the security lock installed in her door.
So trusting.
She answered the door in sweatpants and an oversized shirt, her hair pulled back in a messy knot, with a few strands matting to her reddened face. The sight of her stopped whatever speech I’d half-prepared in the car.
She looked pale, worn down, hollowed out at the edges, like something had been quietly draining her for days.
“What are you doing here?” she asked, her voice rough, like she hadn’t used it much.
I cleared my throat. “You’ve been gone three days.”
“I texted you.”
“Three words at a time isn’t a conversation, Genevieve.” I stepped past her before she could decide whether to let me in. “You look terrible.”
“Thank you. Very kind.”
Her apartment was spacious and filled with light.
As far as I knew, she had moved after becoming my assistant.
Good. And the same telecast I’d watched on the flight to Moscow was playing on the centrally placed TV screen—a detail I would’ve appreciated more if I hadn’t been feeling the heat of her seeping into my skin.
“What’s wrong with you?”
“I don’t know. Stomach’s been off. Headaches. I’m just tired.” She wrapped her arms around herself, a small, unconscious gesture that made her look smaller than she already was in those clothes.
Wait a minute, why were they so big on her? Did they belong to an ex? Maybe a current lover? Did she—
“It’s probably nothing. I’ll be fine by tomorrow.”
Genevieve’s voice might have distracted me from my thoughts, but it didn’t shake off the realization that had dawned on me.
I lowered myself onto her couch. If there was a man in her life, he was bound to show up and I would be waiting.
“Don’t you have work to do?”
“No,” I said flatly. “And why are you standing awkwardly by your door? Expecting someone?”
She let out a sigh, walking into the kitchen. I followed after her partly because I was curious, and more because I was scared she might fall.
“Have you seen a doctor?” I asked as she began pouring what looked like orange juice into a glass.
She went still, just slightly, a hesitation so brief I would have missed it if I hadn’t spent years reading smaller tells than that across negotiating tables. “No.”
“Why not?”
“I don’t like doctors,” she said evenly. “But I took some painkillers.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“It’s the only one you’re getting.”
I didn’t push. It surprised me, the restraint, because pushing was usually the only tool I reached for, but something about the rigid set of her spine told me this particular door needed a different kind of key.
“Have you eaten?” I found myself asking.
The words surprised me as much as the expression on her face, if not more.
“Sorry?”
“You look barely alive,” I replied, mostly because it was easier than repeating the initial question.
“Apples.”
“Chort voz'mi,” I swore under my breath as her unsteady hands lifted the glass.
“Sit. You look like you’re about to fall over, and I’d rather not catch you.”
She gave me a look that suggested she wanted to argue, purely on principle, but exhaustion won out and she settled onto a stool at her small kitchen counter, watching me with open suspicion as I rolled up my sleeves and started opening cabinets.
“What are you doing?”
“Making you soup.”
“You know how to make soup?”
“You know nothing of what I can and cannot do, little bird. Sit there and look surprised. It suits you.”
I worked in silence for a while, listening to her breathe behind me and refusing to pay attention to the voice asking what the hell I was doing.
I haven’t touched a cooking utensil since my grandmother passed. She loved to cook, and joining her had been our little ritual despite my father’s disapproval, but after her passing, I couldn’t find a reason to light a match besides setting something on fire.
“You’re doing it wrong,” she said eventually, watching me stir. “You’re going to burn it.”
“Then come fix it,” I replied instead of telling her the caramelized onion was an essential part of building the flavour.
“You asked me to sit.”
“I changed my mind. Get up.”
She huffed but slid off the stool anyway, standing close enough beside me that I could smell whatever soap she used, something clean and faintly floral, and she reached past me to adjust the heat.
“There,” she said. “Now it won’t taste like a crime.”
My lips curled. “High praise.”
“I’m a generous critic.”
It was almost funny watching her inspect everything I was doing like she was waiting for a disaster.
We stood there longer than the task required, close enough that turning my head even slightly would have put her mouth within reach. I didn’t move. Either way, she would drink the soup first. Then she would see a doctor.
I called my doctor instead, stepping into the hallway while the soup simmered, keeping my voice low.
“I need you at the address I just sent within the hour,” I said when he picked up.
After confirming he got the address, I ended the call before he could ask further questions I had no interest in answering.
When I came back into the kitchen, Genevieve was tasting the soup straight from the spoon, her expression caught somewhere between surprise and disbelief.
“Wow.”
“You’re welcome.”
She set the spoon down and looked at me, her expression shifting a little. “So why are you here?”
I considered lying, but it was difficult to lie when you couldn’t tell what was a lie and what was true.
“You took care of me in Moscow.” I settled for the easiest thing I could think of. “I’m not in the habit of leaving debts unpaid.”
It wasn’t the whole truth. It was an excuse at best, but it was the only thing I could make up for standing in her cramped kitchen with soup on the stove and a doctor on his way, and from the way her expression shifted, I suspected she knew it too.
I was blurring lines I’d spent a lifetime keeping sharp, and the worst part was, I was yet to figure out why or in what direction I was blurring it.
All I knew was, I’d started going to work more often than my weekly turn-in for meetings, and when she was absent for a few days, I’d realized my frequency at the office was not a result of a renewed passion for my job.