Chapter 7 Sergei
SERGEI
Andre furrowed his brow as I checked my watch. Again.
I didn’t mean to be that obvious, but I was eager to leave.
“You got plans?” my cousin asked sarcastically.
My younger brother, Roman, had already taken off from this family gathering.
Birthdays were never celebrated with official parties before.
Before my seventeen-year-old cousin Anya, Andre’s sister, had come to live here, we welcomed birthdays with lots of drinks or exotic vacations.
Wealthy and without women in our lives, we were free to spend and party as we saw fit.
Now that Anya was here, Mikhail was more of a “traditional” fatherly figure.
And now that he was engaged to Claire and she was pregnant, things were tamer yet.
Not for Roman. He’d left to go find some women to end the night with. If I had to guess, he was at one of his favorite clubs with at least two or three dancers vying for his attention.
“Just tired,” I lied.
I was eager to go see Natalie. Returning to the Diamond Mirage had become a habit, a routine I couldn’t give up.
I couldn’t stop seeing her if I tried, and I had no interest in shutting off this intrigue with her.
Especially after she tossed out that line about my being her boyfriend when she was cornered again.
“Yeah?” Andre asked, arching one brow, clearly skeptical and not believing me.
I nodded.
“Anything going on?” he asked.
I shook my head.
Nope. Nothing to see here. Just my fascination with a woman I knew nothing about. A scared bartender I gravitated toward.
At first, I dismissed my obsession with needing to see her as a convenience. She helped me dispel this listlessness. Going to check on her at work wasn’t a duty or chore, but a pull out of my boredom.
Ah, fuck it. It’s more than that. The second after I had that mild taste of her lips, I was ravenous for anything else she’d give me.
I remained patient, though, just exiting on the periphery of her orbit, present in case she’d decide that she wanted something more.
I didn’t need to be a genius to pick up on how skittish and nervous she was.
If I pursued her like I really wanted to, I would guarantee that she’d run off terrified.
Sometimes, the chase and the hunt were the best parts of a conquest. Natalie was something else, though. Someone to cherish and respect. Without needing to know anything else about her, I could intuit that.
Andre was my cousin, though, the guy I’d grown up with. It wasn’t right to lie to him like this. “I might check out this bar.”
He nodded slowly, all ears. He knew better than to ask me for details. His presence demanded that I tell him.
“It’s some shitty little place I stumbled across one night. I went back again, just because I had a feeling about it.” I shrugged, feigning nonchalance. It wasn’t a fucking “feeling” that drew me back. It was a gorgeous woman I couldn’t get out of my mind.
“I saw one of the Giovannis’ low-ranking dealers there,” I admitted.
That much was true. I couldn’t recall which visit it was that I spotted someone affiliated with our enemy, but I had noticed him.
He wasn’t anyone important enough to take out, but I was curious about his showing up there in unsanctioned no-man’s-land.
The Diamond Mirage wasn’t part of Orlov territory any more than it was Roberto Giovanni’s turf.
But any movement that they were making could be important.
I added the mention of those drugs I’d found on the bodies in the alley. Again, it was a partial truth. I didn’t tell him that I’d killed those men because they bothered Natalie. But telling him about those specific marked drugs was intel, I supposed.
“Do you want backup?” He sat up, as if wondering if he could leave the tail end of this family dinner to celebrate Anya’s birthday. “I can come with you.”
I set my hand on his shoulder as I stood. “No. There’s no need.”
“I don’t mind.”
But I fucking do. Buttoning my suit jacket, I gave him a slight smile. “Why waste your time on something that won’t end with any action?”
Fuck. I should ask myself the same thing.
Nothing was ever going to happen between me and Natalie if one of us didn’t make a move.
I left and hurried to get to the bar, finding her as busy as ever. No matter how hectic it got in here, I almost always managed a seat directly in front of her.
“Hey,” she greeted shyly, taunting me with that innocent smile.
I resisted a growl of desire. Her coy looks.
Her oblivious nature to how much I was holding myself back.
I doubted it was a game of her playing hard to get or leading me on.
Her sweet air of na?ve ignorance eliminated that.
She was just that… good. Pure. Denying myself the chance to go after her was wearing on me.
“Hi, Natalie.”
For the next several minutes as I slowly nursed my beer—which was more of a prop than a beverage I wanted to finish—I watched her bustle around behind the bar. She was busy, no surprise there, but not as skittish and nervous.
“Hiya,” Rosa greeted cheerily, like usual.
I nodded at her. “Busy night?” I guessed.
“Meh. I’m betting it’ll pick up soon.” She moved off toward her side, and I couldn’t help but wonder if she realized that I knew what she was doing.
Checking on me. Letting me know she had her eyes on me.
I didn’t mind. In fact, I liked knowing that Natalie had someone looking out for her. Other than me, of course.
It wasn’t feasible for me to be here all night, though, not even every night. Although I wished I could. I wanted to have Natalie as a more lasting and permanent fixture in my life for as much as I thought about her and worried.
When Andre offered to come with me, I wanted to avoid any chance of his finding out about her. She was my “secret” for now. But if and when she could ever be a real part of my life, I’d need to bridge that gap.
I recalled too clearly how hard it had been for Anya to acclimate to the bloodthirsty and violent elements of the Orlov organization. Claire, too, had struggled to shift from normal society to living under our rules and way of power.
Natalie would undergo a culture shock as well, and that was all the more reason to approach my fascination with her slowly and carefully.
For now.
I set my beer down and watched a few men as they started to stare at both of the bartenders. They looked like trouble, and I was alert.
For now, keeping Natalie my secret was working.
Eventually, when I could find the right time and place—with hopefully the right words—I could try to introduce her to who I really was and what I did.
Because if I was this stuck on coming to see her, she was just as guilty at looking forward to my appearances.
I wouldn’t call it a friendship, but something more tangible and demanding in its own right.
She was still so nervous, always tense with wary glances at me and everyone else. Her fragility was hidden and layered behind her strength, though, because no matter how horrible customers were and how overworked she and Rosa were, she didn’t quit.
“That’s enough,” Rosa told the trio of drunk men.
They looked like body builders but without the knowledge of how to actually use the bulk their steroids netted them.
She set her hand on the bar and gave them a stern glare, continuing to rant at them to behave.
Slipping back and forth between English and Spanish, she bitched at them to watch it or they’d be kicked out.
She caught my attention, and I dipped my chin once.
“Oh, you gonna be the unofficial bouncer around her now or something?” she teased while Natalie was bringing more things out from the walk-in cooler.
I shook my head. “No.” I wouldn’t let anyone think I was here to officially protect this place.
That wouldn’t be a simple good deed. It would be political.
Placing a stamp of Orlov security on Peter’s shitty bar would be perceived as Mikhail claiming this territory, and that wasn’t a move I intended to make.
One I didn’t have the power to make as his enforcer.
Natalie, though, was mine to protect. Whether she wanted it or not. Looking out for her had become less of a game and more of an honorary responsibility. Like instinct.
“You really care about her, huh?” Rosa guessed, glancing over her shoulder to track where Natalie was and that she was still out of earshot.
I didn’t reply, using my beer bottle as an excuse not to answer her while I drank some of it.
“She needs someone to look out for her,” she said conspiratorially. “But I can’t get a good read on you to know if your intentions are solid.” Narrowing her eyes some more as she kept her hands busy with glasses and bottles, she gave me an expectant order to throw her a bone.
I would not. I didn’t answer to her. I wasn’t revealing myself as a member of the Orlov family who was interested in her coworker. The second I did, Natalie would risk being a target by association.
“How come she needs someone to look out for her?” I asked once I lowered my bottle.
She wagged her finger from side to side. “Uh-uh.”
“What?”
“You’re not getting away with that. Answering my question with a question of your own.”
“I’m not certain what my intentions are with her. Yet.”
She smiled at how I added that last word for emphasis at the end. As if that implied hope for something good.
“I don’t know enough about her to determine what my options are with her.” That was the truth, too.
She shrugged. “Don’t look at me. You’re not getting her story from me.”
“Because you don’t know it either?” I assumed she might not. Whatever had Natalie behaving so scared and timid couldn’t be a trivial moment of nothing important. She wasn’t tight-lipped with only me.
“Because I don’t gossip,” Rosa stated bluntly, giving me a smirk before moving back toward her side of the bar.