Chapter 19 Sera
SERA
Ihaven’t seen Alik all day.
Not that I want to. Nope. I absolutely don’t.
Still...it doesn’t matter how many times I walk laps around the garden or how tired my legs get, I can’t wipe his image from the inside of my eyelids.
The way he looked at me when I was touching myself, like he wanted to eat me alive. Like he could come from just watching me get myself off. The way he looked at me when he was licking my fingers clean…
Oh, God. It’s below zero outside and my cheeks won’t stop burning with the memory of everything I did, everything he saw me do.
Everything I want to do with him. Very, very badly.
I press my gloved hands to my face, hoping Dimitri blames my fiery cheeks on the cold and not the insanely lustful thoughts I’m having about his boss.
The same man who left me in the pool without so much as a goodbye.
Jesus. There’s nothing like having one of the sexiest experiences of your life turn into one of the most humiliating to get a girl’s heart rate up.
I pick up the pace on my next lap, fighting like hell to keep the embarrassment in check.
Dimitri grunts something as I walk by. He doesn’t look happy about being out here.
I have to be on my hundredth lap. Maybe one hundred and twentieth.
The lawn is massive, complete with meticulously maintained gardens, currently dormant, several empty fountains, and one giant hill that leads down to the rocky shore of the lake.
There’s a gravel path that slopes down from the house to the water before looping back up again.
Every part of my lower body aches from navigating the terrain, but in a way that tells me I’m getting stronger.
My head is still a mess, but I feel like less of a visitor in my own body.
Like I can trust it to do what I need, when I need it.
I don’t care how long we stay out here, I’m not ready to stop yet. Not even when Dimitri begs.
“My nuts are turning to ice, Miss Sera. Not an easy thing to happen to a man who grew up where I did, but that fucking lake—” He jerks a hand toward the water, and I know what he’s saying.
The wind that whips off Lake Michigan in the winter can freeze eyelashes together in minutes. Two hours of this and there’s no promise any extremities will be spared.
“I’m not ready to go back in, but you can go. You don’t have to hover like this.”
“I do, Miss Sera. Boss’s orders.”
I divert off the path, circling around Dimitri where he’s standing on dead, frozen lawn. “What are his orders exactly?”
Dimitri’s answer is a non-committal grunt.
“Okay, if you want to be that way….” I give him a little wave as I speed up into a jog. It feels so good to move. The doctor says running is still off-limits and each breath burns the back of my throat until my eyes are watering, but the little bit of speed makes me grin.
Dimitri sees my happiness, represses a grin of his own. “As cruel as you are beautiful,” he grumbles, cupping a gloved hand over his groin.
“Flirting won’t get you anywhere,” I huff out, circling him. “But I might agree to going inside if you tell me exactly what Alik’s orders are.”
Something flutters across Dimitri’s face when I say his boss’s first name, gone before I can decipher it. “There’s not much to tell, Miss Sera. He wants you looked after. Make sure you’re eating, resting. Safe. That’s all.”
That’s all—and he’s done doing it himself. The thought shouldn’t bother me as much as it does.
I don’t have any claim on Alik’s time or attention.
The only things that bind me and Alik together are a mutual hatred of my uncle and a shared desire to see Rocco and the men he’s working with die in the most painful way possible.
Babysitting a broken stranger isn’t on his to-do list. Not anymore. He’s outsourced it to Dimitri.
I trip over my feet, stumbling to an awkward stop. Dimitri steadies me with a giant hand. He barely touches me, but I pull away almost instantly, recoiling at the contact. Step back until I don’t feel like I’m going to jump out of my skin.
Guess men touching me is still a general no-go.
Unless it’s Alik.
It hurts to remember how easily he left me in the pool last night. He heard my secret, stared into my soul, licked my cream from my fingers, and then walked out like nothing had happened.
“You’re shivering, Miss Sera. Time to go in.” Dimitri hovers by my side, blocking the worst of the wind as he guides me toward the rear terrace. “Boss will kill me if I let you get frostbite.”
“I’m not sure he’d care,” I grumble.
“Oh, he’d care alright. He’s promised to disembowel me if you get hurt in any way. You lose digits to frostbite, Boss will consider you hurt. I bet my little intestine on it.”
“Eww. Gross.” Despite the gruesome image, I’m feeling slightly less dejected when Dimitri and I head inside, dusk darkening the sky behind us. We cut through the rear of the house, heading toward the central grand staircase that leads up to my room.
There’s a cluster of men standing in the foyer. We both go on alert when we see who is holding court in the middle.
Alik is dealing out orders to his soldiers in Russian. I have no clue what he’s saying but he sounds agitated. Looks primed to tear someone’s head off. Dimitri nods at his boss but keeps us moving, corralling me toward the stairs with his giant body, cutting off my view of whatever Alik is up to.
The man in question doesn’t acknowledge my presence. Doesn’t even look at me.
It’s like I don’t even exist.
Except, I do. There’s no way we could share what we did in the pool and not be molecularly aware of the other. Even with stretches of marble separating us, I can feel his presence like a warm hand on the base of my spine. Lips on the nape of my neck. Intimate, potent, impossible.
I’m so tired of being nothing, of being dismissed. It doesn’t matter how we’ve ended up here, but we have. And Alik doesn’t get to dismiss me anymore.
I make a break for him before Dimitri has a chance to stop me, Alik’s men scattering like cockroaches as I approach. “Something’s going on, isn’t it?”
“Hello to you, too.”
“Nuh-uh. You don’t get to brush me off after—”
“After what?” Alik levels me with a dispassionate look and I trip over my words.
I might be thinking about it, but that doesn’t mean I’m going to bring up that explosive orgasm in front of Dimitri and the men still loitering in the foyer.
I square my shoulders. “After you promised me revenge. Something is going on. You moved us to this place. There are suddenly tons of armed minions around. No keeping me in the dark, it’s not fair.”
Alik stands his ground, looking entirely unimpressed by my argument.
“Fair has nothing to do with it, Sera. You’ve lived in this world long enough to know that.
Go upstairs. Eat, rest. Remember what we agreed—I decide when your revenge quest starts, not the other way around.
Tonight’s not the night. So…” He waves at Dimitri, still standing sentry at the bottom of the stairs.
Undeterred, I shove Alik in the chest, vaguely registering the surprised sound Dimitri makes behind me.
“Enough with the eating and rest! It’s all I’ve been doing and I just can’t anymore.
Tell me what’s happening. If it has anything to do with the men my uncle was going to sell me to, you’ve got to tell me. Please.”
There’s no hiding the anguish in that last word.
Please. Alik’s expression softens the tiniest bit and I press my advantage.
“Revenge is all I have left,” I say. “Everything else is gone. My friends, my home, my future. I barely know who I am anymore, Alik. The one thing I’m clinging to, the only thing giving me purpose, is the promise of getting revenge against Rocco and all the rest for what they did to me.
” I don’t realize I’m reaching for his hand until I feel his fingers stiffen beneath mine.
“If whatever’s happening tonight gets me closer to that revenge, I’m asking—please don’t cut me out. ”
It feels like everyone in the hall is holding their collective breath, waiting for Alik’s answer. He studies our linked hands then steps away, severing our connection. “No.”
“But—”
“I said no.” Alik wears the expression of a general commanding his soldiers. The one that confirms his word is law. This is a different side of him, a more ruthless side, and I’d find it ridiculously attractive if I wasn’t so pissed off.
“It’s too dangerous,” he continues. “There are too many unknowns. I barely know what I’m walking into; I can’t have you there too. Your revenge will have to wait one more night, Sera. I’m sorry.”
“You’re sorry?” Alik’s already walking away and, goddamnit, I don’t have enough self-respect to stop from running after him. “But not sorry enough to change your mind? Not sorry enough to treat me like someone who has as much skin in this fight as you do?”
He pauses, back to me. We have an audience of at least a half-dozen men and they’re all silent. “I am sorry, moya voitelnitsa. But no. I’m not changing my mind.” He gestures to his giant enforcer. “Dimitri, take Miss Sera upstairs.”
“Da.”
Alik is gone before Dimitri reaches my side. I’m vibrating with frustration, feeling even more dejected than before, and the oaf gives me no choice but to fall into step beside him. “Time to go, Miss Sera.”
“Yeah, yeah. Whatever.” The combination of physical exertion and point-blank rejection has zapped my energy. I’m barely moving under my own steam by the time we reach my suite, lagging several steps behind my guard.
Dimitri tries to make conversation as he ushers me inside, but I brush him off. I’m too tired to banter with him. His boss is breaking my spirit.
And maybe your heart?
I kill that idea almost as fast as I shut the door in Dimitri’s face. It’s rude, I know. The man hasn’t done anything but follow orders. In his profession, that’s the bare minimum if you want to stay alive. I shouldn’t be a brat to him, but I’m too depressed to care.