“You haven’t grown up as much as you think you have. How’s school?”
“Nuh-uh. I didn’t call to talk about me. We’re talking about you today.”
“There’s nothing to say. Just work stuff. I may have exaggerated slightly in the text.”
“You never exaggerate.”
“No, I don’t.” I sigh. “But there’s a first time for everything.”
Like locking an infuriating little kiska in my basement with a purple dildo and all the time in the world to use it.
She sighs. “You need to take time for yourself, too, you know. You can’t look after all of us all the time. You’ll burn out.”
I grit my teeth. “I’m fine. Tell me about school.”
She answers me with another pointed sigh melodramatic enough to match my own. “School’s fine. We dissected frogs today in biology.”
“Foul.”
She giggles. “Dissecting frogs is gross but dissecting people is fine?”
I freeze for a moment, before I realize that there’s no way she knows about the finger. She’s only fourteen. Smart as a whip, but a child nonetheless. Nikolai and I have tried too damn hard to shield her from the more unsavory parts of our lives—but you wouldn’t believe how much a kid notices, especially when she’s not supposed to.
“We do nothing of the sort.”
“Sure, sure.” I can practically see her disbelieving eye roll. “And Lev is fine?”
“He’s sleeping in my bed as we speak.”
“Told you the upstairs room wouldn’t take.”
“No one likes a smart ass, Pol.”
She laughs. “Okay, you’re in a mood, so I’m gonna hang up now. It’s way past curfew and I have an early track practice tomorrow. See you this weekend.”
Shit. In all the chaos, I completely forgot that Polly was going to be coming home on weekends this semester. I check my watch. It’s Thursday. Fucking hell—there’s no chance this mess is cleaned up in time.
“Yes, see you this weekend. Oh, and one more thing—”
“Yes, everyone in school is treating me well,” she interrupts, beating me to the punch. I smirk. I usually end our conversations with that question. “Don’t order a hit on anyone, mmkay?”
“You’ll let me know if that changes?”
“Goodnight, big brother.”
“Goodnight, printsessa.”
All I hear is a cranky “ugh” before she hangs up.
My smile disappears the moment I drop my phone. Lev is one thing, but Polly? She notices everything and she can smell a secret a mile away. And this particular secret isn’t a mile away at all.
It’s right below our feet. In my basement, with a box full of sex toys.
19
ALYSSA
Uri Bugrov may be hotter, taller, and richer than the average man, but in the end, he’s no different.
He breaks his promises just like the rest of them.
Not that he had technically promised to visit more often, but considering he’d apologized for having been a no-show the entire day, he made me think that he would work to correct it.
I don’t actually want to see him. But I do want the comfort of human contact. I want to hear another person’s voice, smell another person’s scent. And if I don’t have a choice in who I get to see, then I’ll settle for him.
Except he’s not interested in comforting me. Since bringing me back a bunch of my stuff and a handful of sex toys (cringe), he seems to think that he has handled things. Like, la-di-freaking-da, I’ll now be totally content with my knitting basket and my crossword puzzles. Thanks a lot, Uri Claus.
To be fair, those things help for the first twelve hours. I knit a full-sized scarf and tear through half a dozen crossword puzzles. But now, every time I close my eyes, I see either a swirling pattern of wool or a black and white interweaving maze.
#8 Across, six letters: A foolish woman who thinks that sharing a couple of dinners with a man means that she knows him.
I think we all know the answer to that one.
When I finally hear the bolt unlatch, I’m in the bathroom flossing my teeth. Not because I’m about to sleep or anything. Just because it’s something to do and I’ve exhausted all my other options.
I drop the floss mid-swipe and rush into the room.
But it’s not Uri who walks in.
It’s a petite maid with dirty blonde hair pulled back so tight I can almost see her scalp. She’s carrying a tray of food and, despite the mouthwatering scent emanating from underneath the silver cloche, my heart sinks with disappointment.
“Who are you?”
It comes out sounding a lot harsher than I intended. She stops short halfway to the kitchen. “I’m Svetlana, ma’am.”
My gaze flickers towards the door. It’s closed but I saw her walk in. She certainly didn’t lock it behind her.
This is the opportunity I’ve been waiting for!
“Oh. Right. You could just set that in the kitchen. Thanks.”
Svetlana nods and disappears around the corner without the slightest bit of suspicion. I don’t waste any time racing for the door. I’m vaguely aware that, even if I manage to clear the basement, I’ll have security cameras and security guards to deal with. Probably, like, a moat filled with hungry alligators and sharks with laser beams on their forehead, too. But I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it.
I pull the door open. It’s heavy and I’m weak, so it’s a struggle—but when it finally opens, I get one glorious glimpse of freedom…
Before I find myself face-to-face with a minotaur.
Well, not literally a minotaur. But he might as well be. He’s a huge, hulking security guard, big enough to block the entire staircase.
“Um—hi.”
His face does not change. “Good evening, ma’am.”
What’s with the “ma’am” business?
“How’re you doing?”
Still stone-faced. “Well.”
“So, yeah, your, um, boss told me that I could head upstairs whenever and grab a book from the library.” I don’t know if he even has a library but let’s face it, any house as big as this one is bound to have a library, right? “So if you wouldn’t mind letting me—”
“Write down the book you want and I’ll get it for you.”
I narrow my eyes. “I don’t have a book in mind. I want to browse. Your boss said he didn’t have a problem with it.”
His nose twitches. It’s the most expressive thing he’s done yet. “Actually, my boss told me to stay alert because you would undoubtedly try and escape the moment the maid was inside.”
I grit my teeth and dig my heels in. “Let me pass!”
“No. Sorry.”
“You’re an ass. Just like your boss.”
I twist around and make a show of slamming the door in his face. Of course, this particular door is too heavy to be slammed. So instead, he stands and watches solemnly as I put all my strength behind pushing the door shut slowly.
It takes a minute. An endless, excruciating minute.
Smooth, Alyssa. Real smooth.