31. Chapter 31
Addy
I would like this to be noted for the record.
To be fair, this was an improvement. A week ago, they wouldn’t have acknowledged me at all. Sasha had been reluctant, to say the least, about letting his men speak to me. But evidently, even he recognized the unsustainability of keeping me in a state of conversational isolation all day.
I adjusted my sunglasses and peered over at them. “Be honest … is guarding me considered a perk, or did you both lose a bet?”
Neither of them smiled, though I caught the faintest twitch at the corner of Misha’s mouth.
The other one — Danil, I think, or maybe Dmitri, I was still learning — shifted his weight slightly and stared resolutely at the horizon like the ocean might commit a crime at any moment.
Rude.
Another new development was being allowed to “choose” my own guards.
This sounded empowering in theory until one remembered the selection pool consisted entirely of large, heavily armed Russian men who looked as though they had been carved out of concrete.
Still, Sasha had presented it like a concession, and I’d taken it.
If I had to be watched, I was at least going to choose the ones who blinked occasionally.
“I’m just trying to understand the job satisfaction level here,” I continued, rolling onto my stomach with a small grunt. “Because from my angle it looks like you’re supervising sunscreen.”
Neither of them reacted.
“Wow,” I sighed. “Tough crowd.”
I propped my chin on my arms and squinted up at them. “You know, if you’re going to guard me while I tan, we could at least make it a team activity.”
Still nothing.
“You know, most pool days involve at least one person pretending to enjoy themselves.”
Misha finally glanced down at me. “You are comfortable.”
“That’s not the point.”
He paused.
“I mean you,” I clarified, pushing myself up onto my elbows. “Are you enjoying this? On a personal level. As a life experience.”
Misha blinked once.
“I see.” I nodded sagely. “So that’s a no.”
“I did not say no.”
“You also didn’t say yes. You just blinked like a disappointed owl.”
There was a brief pause between us.
“We are … content,” he offered carefully.
“That’s the saddest word anyone has ever used next to a pool.”
His brow furrowed slightly like he was trying to decide if the comment was a criticism.
Danil finally glanced over. “Do you want us to pretend?”
“Yes,” I said immediately. “At least a little.”
Misha considered this with the gravity of a man evaluating a diplomatic treaty.
“I am having a … pleasant time.”
I stared at him for a long moment.
“Unbelievable,” I muttered. “I’m trying to run a morale program here.”
Danil shifted his weight slightly. “Morale was not low.”
“That is a wild standard,” I said, pushing my sunglasses back up. “Your bar is literally ‘not miserable’.”
This was my life now.
I lived in a villa on a hill overlooking the ocean. My closet was so big it could have housed a small, tasteful cult. There was always a driver on standby. There were men with guns to make sure nobody scaled the gate — including me.
Yet somehow, I was still little ol’ me.
I still forgot where I put my phone. I still talked too much. I still tried to befriend people who carried guns all day, every day.
Sliding my sunglasses down my nose, I looked at them again. “You know you can sit, right? Like, rotationally? I’m not going anywhere.”
“We’re fine,” Danil said.
“You say that, but you look like two men waiting for a disciplinary meeting.”
Neither of them reacted. They were probably counting the seconds until Sasha got back and relieved them.
Which, honestly, was fair. They must have had the most boring job in this place.
I rolled over with a sigh, letting the sun warm my skin as I listened to the distant murmur of Russian drifting from the terrace above.
Sasha had this strange gravitational pull. Even when he wasn’t visible, you could sense his presence.
When Sasha stepped into a room, it felt like the entire space aligned around him, like something inevitable had just arrived.
When I walked into a room, it felt more like someone had misplaced a golden retriever and now everyone was trying to figure out how it got there.
And yet, the guards no longer looked at me like I was a strange thing out of place. They looked at me like I was … part of this place now.
Which was both flattering and mildly alarming. It shouldn’t have felt this pleasant to be surrounded by hardened criminals, yet I couldn’t help but feel right at home. Like I was always meant to end up here.
I sat up when I heard raised voices from inside. Whoever it was wasn’t yelling exactly, but there was a sharp edge to the hum of the conversation. The kind of tone that meant something inconvenient was happening.
A few minutes later, Sasha stepped out onto the terrace above the pool, still holding his phone, his expression carved from something harder than usual.
He spotted me immediately. He always did.
His hard gaze flickered over the guards, then back to me, assessing, cataloging, making sure nothing had changed in the ten minutes since his last check.
I lifted a hand and gave him a fingerwave. “Hi.”
Sasha didn’t smile, but something in his posture loosened. Warmth spread through my chest. I liked the thought of being a small beacon of happiness in his dark world.
At least I hoped that’s what I was.
He said something brief in Russian to the men upstairs, then descended the stairs connecting our room to the pool. My guards straightened slightly.
I sat up fully and smiled at his approaching form. “Okay, you have your ‘there’s a problem but I’m pretending it’s minor’ face on.”
“There is a problem,” he said calmly.
“I knew it.” I snapped my fingers. “I should’ve worn a different swimsuit.”
His eyes dropped, just for a second, and darkened before snapping back to my face.
“Not that kind of problem.”
“Shame.”
He stopped a few feet away from my chair, close enough for the guards to subtly redirect their attention outward and give us some privacy without actually leaving.
I glanced between him and the house. “What’s going on?”
“A territorial disagreement.” He pursed his lips. “It’s … irritating to say the least.”
“Irritating like paperwork, or irritating like someone’s about to get shot in the kneecap?”
Look at me embracing my new lifestyle. Here I was making jokes about the Eric incident already.
Sasha snorted and shook his head slightly. “Somewhere between.”
I quirked a brow. “Okay. What’s the issue?”
“Curiosity killed the donkey, baby.” Sasha booped my nose.
“What?” I snorted. “You mean curiosity killed the cat?”
He shrugged. “Sure. Donkey, cat, whatever. They’re both stubborn animals doing whatever they want. The bottom line is, curiosity gets you killed.”
The irony. I wonder how many lives I had left at this point?
I rolled my eyes. “You’re making it sound like I’m about to march down there with a peace treaty.”
“Oh, so that’s not something you’d do?” he replied flatly.
Okay, rude. Accurate, but rude.
“You will not visit the warehouse,” he said calmly. “You will not speak to anyone about this, and you will not attempt to fix it.”
“Seems like a lot of assumptions about my personality.”
His jaw flexed. “I’m handling the situation. All I need is for you to stay here.”
Something in my chest dipped in a way I wasn’t thrilled about. He watched me carefully, like he’d noticed the part where my tone stayed light but something underneath it didn’t.
Sasha lifted his head and addressed my guards, barking something in Russian at them. The sound of their boots crunching across the gravel path betrayed their departure.
“I don’t need you near this,” he added, piercing me with his intense blue-gray eyes.
I swallowed hard. “I get it. This isn’t my wheelhouse. But … if I’m going to be here, as part of your life, maybe I deserve to not be treated like a prop.”
His jaw shifted, the movement so faint, yet conveying everything he didn’t say: warning, calculation, obsession. The air between us thickened and became charged as if we were the only two things mattering in this moment. Somehow, he understood that pressing too hard would backfire spectacularly.
“You know you’re so much more than that.” Sasha exhaled out his nose. “Just trust me. I’ll handle it.”
“How?” I couldn’t stop the question from slipping out. Sue me, I was nosy.
“It requires a … ah, specific type of response.”
I held his gaze, unabashedly. “So what happens? You go somewhere, you threaten someone and suddenly everyone agrees to stop being territorial?”
“It will be resolved one way or another.” He shrugged.
“That’s not really an answer.”
“It’s the only one you need.”
Sasha crouched down to a squat, elbows braced on his knees.
God fucking damn it. It was just plain unfair how hot he looked right now.
I needed to fucking focus, and not on the way his forearms flexed.
He pursed his lips and twisted one of his many silver rings around his finger. “Because I will not have you exposed to any of this.”
“I just want to be your equal,” I blurted out before I could stop myself. “I know I can’t be in the middle of things. I’m aware I’m not a hardened criminal, but you never know if a different perspective couldn’t be useful.”
“You are my equal.” Something flashed in his eyes. His hand shot out to caress my thigh almost reflexively, as if being close to me would solve everything. Never breaking eye contact, he said, “You’re the most important person to me.”
Sasha’s fingers stroked up my leg and came to rest at my hip, where his thumb pressed into my flesh. I bit the inside of my cheek, trying to focus on the conversation rather than the sensation of his skin against mine and his fingers sending sparks up my spine.
A muscle in his jaw jumped. “The thing is, this is not just my problem. It reaches all the way to the top. I’m merely the one who has to fix it.”
For a moment we just stared at each other, with the sun on my back and the pool glittering next to us.