Chapter 28
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Kazimir
“You’ve read the same line four times. Should I come back when you’ve finished?”
“I read it fine.”
“Then what does clause twelve say?”
I glanced down at the page and had no answer, which annoyed me more than the question itself. I closed the folder. “Get to the point, Nikolai.”
“I don’t have a point. You’re the one staring at the wall like it owes you money.” He leaned back in his chair. “Something happen with Genevieve?”
I flashed him a look. “What does she have to do with anything?”
“What can I say? She has become the sole determinant of your mood lately.”
I didn’t answer him. I got up and walked to the window instead, because the alternative was probably redesigning his jaw, and I was not in the mood to wipe blood off myself.
My eyes darted to her office door. She was probably in there doing some work, or in Caroline’s office. She’d been around, but she’d never felt more distant.
This morning, she’d barely acknowledged me while dropping off a file, and during the meeting with the clients, she hardly took a single note.
She was usually the one to grasp the points before they were even made and fine-tune whatever didn't make sense. Suddenly, she was barely going through the motions.
“Get her file,” I said. “The brother. I want to know if he’s gotten himself into anything again.”
Nikolai’s brows went up. “You think this is about him?”
“I think it’s the only thing that’s ever put that look on her face before.”
“Or it’s about you,” he said lightly, but his eyes stayed on me a beat too long. “You’ve been unusually attached to her lately, Kazimir. In case you hadn’t noticed.”
“Get the file, Nikolai.”
I had initially thought her silence had something to do with me, or possibly the run-in with Svetlana a couple of days ago, but her issues with me had never reduced her competence.
She would simply avoid me or pretend I didn't exist while doing her job flawlessly. This, however, affected every part of her. As much as I would’ve loved to be important enough to affect her in such an integral manner, I knew my limits. I also knew of a certain culprit.
Nikolai got up without arguing further, which was its own kind of warning, because Nikolai never let anything go without at least one more comment. He stopped at the door anyway.
“For what it’s worth,” he said, “if something’s wrong with her, you’ll know before the day’s out.”
He left before I could tell him I had built an empire on knowing things before other people wanted me to.
Nikolai took more time than I anticipated, and after a few minutes of pretending to get work done, I found myself walking into her office.
Surprisingly, she wasn’t there, but her bag sat open on the desk. I wasn’t one to sneak through a woman’s bag, but I was almost desperate.
A quick peek wouldn’t hurt. I’d just find out what was wrong, and I’d fix it. If you looked at it the right way, I was doing it for her.
I gently parted the flaps of her bag, pulling it open to reveal a stash of chocolates, sanitary wipes, makeup, and a few wads of cash.
Any normal person would’ve stopped there and simply waited for the search they ordered to return, but I wasn’t normal, so I opened her laptop—which, to my utter dismay, had a padlock icon.
Still in the tight grip of curiosity and something I refused to name, I began walking around the floor under the guise of looking for Nikolai.
I’d get my head checked later, but right now, I needed to get to the bottom of whatever the problem was.
I found her an hour later in the small makeshift kitchen off the east wing, standing at the counter with a mug of tea she wasn’t drinking, staring at nothing the way she’d been staring at everything lately.
“You skipped lunch.”
She startled, almost like she hadn’t heard me come in, which told me exactly how far away her head was. “I wasn’t hungry.”
“You’re never not hungry.” I leaned next to the counter, folding my arms in front of me. “Last week you ate an entire tray of pastries meant for a board meeting.”
The corner of her mouth twitched, but the smile disappeared before it took shape. “I guess I’m just tired.”
“Tired.” I studied her face, the shadows under her eyes she’d tried and failed to cover. She wasn’t lying, but it felt like a tiredness that had very little to do with stress, and I would know because I had cut down her workload by a questionable margin. “Genevieve.”
“I’m fine, Kazimir.”
“You’ve said that every day this week, and every day you’ve looked less fine saying it.”
She set the mug down harder than she needed to. “It’s just family stuff. I don’t want to talk about it.”
So I was right.
I straightened. “Is it your brother?”
Something flickered across her face, too fast for me to read clearly. “No. It’s not him. Can we please drop this?”
I wanted to push. Every instinct told me to keep pressing until she cracked and gave me the truth, because that was how I handled every other problem in my life.
But something about the way she was holding herself, arms wrapped tight across her middle like she was protecting something, made me stop.
“Fine,” I said. “But if you need something, you tell me.”
She looked up at that, surprised, like she hadn’t expected such from me. “Okay.”
“Okay.”
I left before I did something stupid like reach for her in the middle of the kitchen where anyone could walk in. Back in my office, I found Nikolai already waiting with a thin folder in his hand.
“Nothing,” he said, before I could ask. “No debts, no threats, no contact with the men from before. Her brother’s clean. Whatever this is, it isn’t him.”
That should have made me feel better. It didn’t. It only indicated she was lying, which was far worse.
Genevieve didn’t lie, and if she felt the need to, I couldn’t help the feeling that the problem was worse than I thought.
“Then what is it?” I said, more to myself than to him.
Nikolai studied me for a long moment, the kind of look he only gave me when he was choosing his next words carefully. “Maybe it’s not our business to know yet. Maybe she’ll tell you when she’s ready.”
“I don’t like waiting.”
“Good thing it’s not about you, then.” I ignored the eye roll in his voice as he walked out.
I sat back down at my desk and stared at the same contract I hadn’t managed to read all morning.
When I came to work, I had three priorities: take care of the construction mishaps, wire money for shipments, and review the inventory on the ammunition.
I’d only succeeded in checking one item off the list, and now, somehow, I had an entirely different item of urgency.
For the first time in longer than I could remember, work was the last thing on my mind.