Chapter 11 - Konstantin
I didn’t enter the apartment with any intent to surprise Tati, so it was unsettling to find her so lost in thought that she didn’t hear me or the guard enter.
All alone, standing at the kitchen counter, completely in another world.
She was breathtakingly beautiful, and that strange heat filled my chest.
Her head was tilted downward as she studied something she held in her graceful hands.
Her long, dark chestnut hair fell in waves down her back, bunching up a bit in the thick collar of the borrowed robe.
While the robe was oversized and swallowed her up, there was no hiding the curve of her hip as she shifted her weight to her other foot.
I paused for a moment in the hall leading into the kitchen, my eyes moving lower, down her smooth, bare calves. The fire inside me burned hotter.
Not lust. Not only lust. There was no denying how damn gorgeous she was. Any man would want her. Not that any would ever lay a hand on her. Not now. Not with this strange feeling consuming me.
This was the same wild, fiery thing that had me completely throwing all reason and caution to the wind to take her off the street. But she had been in actual danger then. Riku was just around the corner. I had acted on instinct, if not good sense.
While she was alone in the apartment, there was a guard outside the door, another at the ground floor.
The place was rigged up with cameras, and the penthouse suite was hundreds of feet above the floor.
She was in no danger unless Spiderman was somehow suddenly working with my enemies.
Why that rush of protectiveness that had me wanting to rush to her side, grip her arms, and begin inspecting her for injuries?
Instead, I sidled up behind her, getting much too close.
I couldn’t stop myself. Until I saw what she was studying so intently.
Before Sofiya left, she had this picture from the last time we were all together on her phone.
She wanted me to keep it close, offended that I refused to have it on my phone at all, least of all set it as my lockscreen.
“Have you not been paying attention?” I asked. “The moment anyone grabs me, they’d know instantly who to go after first in order to hurt me the worst.”
My brave daughter had gone pale until I quickly assured her that no one was going to get a hold of me. That I’d live through this threat like I lived through all the others. “You and your brothers are my good luck charms,” I told her. “Ones I can’t keep near, but always right here all the same.”
I thought it was a very touching gesture, laying my hand over my heart to try to get her to stop worrying about me. But she still had the picture printed out and framed before she left, after I made her swear up and down to stop keeping personal information where anyone could get to it.
Now Tati stared at the picture as if she was studying for an exam, and all the warnings Sofiya tried to get me to take seriously came back, making my hackles rise at the back of my neck.
Tati could be in league with her father. She could be working with the Yakuza.
She could be dangerous to everything I held dear.
What she was as soon as she realized I had snuck up on her and brought all her things from the hotel she’d been staying at, was simmering with barely contained fury.
She shoved away and stomped to where the guard had left the one lone suitcase she’d brought with her from Moscow on this mission of hers, whatever it was.
“You should have worn that black wig that’s in there,” I said. “I might not have recognized you.”
“It didn’t fit,” she said, then huffed. “It’s not any of your business, and how did you know what’s in my bag, anyway?” When I only gave her an exasperated look, she railed at me for invading her privacy.
She seemed to think I utilized some vast network of spies to track down where she’d been staying, but I had her phone and the purse she was carrying when I nabbed her.
It took all of three seconds to find her hotel key card and the credit card receipt with the name of the place on it, but I let her believe she’d somehow been hoodwinked.
As she roughly grabbed the long handle of her suitcase, one of the wheels twisted, and it fell over. Muttering some Russian curses under her breath, she held out her hand in a halting gesture as I moved to help her.
“Just leave me alone. I don’t need anything from you.”
Her stomach growled the moment that declaration was made, and I decided not to be a gentleman and ignore it.
“Too busy searching the place to remember to eat anything besides those two bites of toast this morning?” I asked, smiling at the rising blush on her face.
She didn’t smile back. “I’ve been a little stressed,” she snapped.
“As if I’m not?” I said. “Go get changed, and I’ll throw something together for dinner. It just so happens I’m starving too.” At the mere mention of food, her stomach growled again. “It’s not worth being stubborn. Think of it as keeping up your strength for your next escape attempt.”
“You. Are…” she decided whatever I was was beneath her to say, and dragged her suitcase down the hall to slam herself in her room.
“You’re a pain in my ass,” I said under my breath, all while enjoying the view as she stormed down the hall.
The housekeeper had come that morning with fresh bread and pastries for breakfast, but the cook wasn’t due to return for another couple of days. However, there was still a nice variety of food stocked in the refrigerator, and being a single dad, I knew my way around the kitchen enough to survive.
Sure, I always had a full staff of housekeepers, cooks, and nannies, but I made a point to be around as much as humanly possible while they were young, so they’d never feel the loss of their mother.
That woman didn’t deserve to be mourned by the only good things she ever did on this earth, and when the kids reminisced about family meals, it was often one I had made myself.
My mood already wasn’t great. There was no way I needed to be thinking about my dead wife.
The only reason she wasn’t my ex-wife was that she had managed to keep me in the dark about her true nature until it got her killed.
I shoved those thoughts back to where they belonged, deep in the recesses of my memory.
The only reason I didn’t expunge the woman from my thoughts completely was that the way she destroyed my trust was a good lesson in betrayal.
One that I would never allow to happen again.
Tati. That was who was important right now. Keeping her safe, finding out what she knew, punishing her father. And if she was involved?
There’d be time to figure that out later.
Right now I stared at the food in the fridge.
I had gotten lucky, recalling that Tati liked dumplings.
Now I was at a loss, and the fact that I cared so much about what my irritating prisoner wanted to eat had me grabbing the first thing that was closest to hand.
If she didn’t like steak, there was no saving her. And why did I care so much about saving her, anyway?
I was beginning to think she was going to starve herself to spite me, but by the time the two sirloins were perfectly seared, and the fresh green beans were tender and dripping with butter sauce, she came out of her room.
Her hair was damp from a shower, and she wore a loose sweatshirt with the emblem of the university she’d dropped out of for unknown reasons.
White leggings clung to her curvy hips, and ridiculous pink socks stuck out of the top of suede slippers.
Like she was going to the grocery store after a workout at the gym.
I’d never seen anyone look sexier in my whole life, despite clearly not trying.
Dragging her feet, she still forced a smile. One I couldn’t help but return. “That’s the spirit,” I said. “I like a positive attitude.”
“As if I care.”
“What are you, twenty-two or twelve?” I asked, but my tone was light.
She pursed her lips, pulling several bottles of wine from the rack and perusing the labels. “I know I’m old enough to drink in this country, and I think I deserve it.”
“We both do,” I said, waving to her to have a seat as I found the corkscrew. “We’ll start with wine and move on to vodka closer to dessert.”
“I’ll start and end with the wine,” she said primly.
“Don’t trust yourself to get a little tipsy around me?” I asked. Why the hell did her sudden blush please me so much? Perhaps it was the thought of Tati losing control around me. With me.
“I don’t trust you at all,” she said.
Ouch. “Smart. And believe me, little girl, it’s reciprocated.”
Her fork and knife were poised to slice into her perfect piece of meat, but she slapped them down on the table, turning to glare at me as I was about to pour the wine. “Why?” she wailed. “What have I ever done to you to make you not trust me?”
“Where to start?” I said, ignoring the desperation that flared in her eyes.
I poured the wine, set her glass in front of her, and sat down, calmly picking up my knife and fork. I wasn’t going to let this delicious steak be wasted by anyone.
She didn’t follow suit, still staring at me as if I’d kicked her dog. “Well?” she asked. “Go ahead and start.”
“That was rhetorical,” I told her around a big mouthful. “Fuck, this is tasty. Eat up, Tati, before it gets cold.”
Her stomach rumbled again, and she tore into the steak, chewing and swallowing a mouthful, unable to keep her eyes from rolling back in her head.
“Good, right?”
“It’s amazing. Great job. Now tell me why you have a grudge against me.”
“I don’t have a grudge against you. Yet. So don’t give me a reason. Like your father.” My hand whipped out to grip her wrist as she started to rise. “Stay where you are. Let’s talk. If you really don’t know where Grigor is, perhaps you can help me find him.”
“So you can torture and kill him?”