Page 33 of The Bratva's Arranged Virgin Bride
Chapter 18 - Nat
After I ran away and hid in my room to recover from that bizarre burst of emotion, starting to think I was in too deep and unable to get out before I drowned, I heard Kolya go into his office. Creeping back into my studio, I grabbed the diary to distract me. It was just the thing to take my mind off everything, and it was working until he had to come in and give me an impossible task. Like I had never calmed down, I was all worked up again.
I watched him walk out, quietly closing my door behind him. To say the very least, I was disconcerted by his odd tone, his teasing manner. Was he messing with me? He had to be. Just when I was beginning to think I had the upper hand, too. Now, I wasn’t so sure.
Rolling onto my back, I stared at the ceiling. No answers there.
He was nuts if he thought anyone in my family was just going to blithely invite us over to Sunday dinner. Expecting me to finagle it was bad enough, but I hated being estranged from them. I wanted them to be on my side, even though I couldn’t tell them why I did what I did.
And I really wanted that car.
There was nothing to learn at the beach house, so the only way I could continue to spy on Kolya was to follow him around and learn what he was doing. I supposed he would let me go on shopping expeditions with a guard in tow, but that wasn’t what I wanted or needed. I needed complete freedom, and I was shocked that he was going to give it to me. He probably knew deep down it was impossible and was still messing with me.
Or maybe he really did trust me. Ha.
After staring at the ceiling for a long time, I decided Mat would be my best bet. He was the only one who thought I could handle the mission now that I had stuck myself in the middle of it, and he was the least angry with me.
As soon as I had him on the phone and presented the request, I had to wait a solid minute for him to stop laughing.
“Wait, are you serious?” he finally asked. “Because you can’t be serious. Masha’s still so pissed off at you that you might be in actual danger. At least from a stinging lecture.”
“Do I have to remind you who my father is?” I sighed. “I’m no stranger to stinging lectures.” It was time to admit the truth, or part of it. I lowered my voice. “Listen, I’m at a dead end here. He’s got this place locked down, so there’s not ever going to be anything to report. Kolya said he’ll give me a car of my own if I can manage this.”
“Is he holding you there?” Mat bellowed.
“No, he’s not, at least I don’t think so, but—”
“If you need a car, I’ll send you one right now. Just tell me where you are.”
Wow, it looked like Kolya really did have this place locked down if my uncles’ experts hadn’t found it yet. “Nice try,” I said. “I can’t have you rushing through the doors waving guns. I thought you said I could handle this.”
“I do think that,” he said, not very convincingly. “Nobody will break down any doors.”
There was no way I was risking it when I suspected they were trying to pull me out. I was in too deep now to back down.
“It’s just dinner,” I said, ignoring his insistence on knowing my location and getting back to the invitation. “Isn’tEmerson hosting them while Katie’s in Russia? Go over Nik’s head and ask her.”
“I won’t even try, Nat,” he told me, a bit mournfully. “Your uncles are still too angry. They’d blow the whole thing trying to extract you.”
“I don’t need extracting,” I huffed. “I’m perfectly fine. More than fine.” Maybe my voice turned a little too dreamy when I said that.
“I don’t like the sound of that. Is he sticking to the terms of the alliance?”
“Yes. Perfect gentleman.” My words were clipped. I didn’t have to share that I was the one breaking the rules. If any of them knew how I dissolved into jelly whenever Kolya was near, I would have been in Russia under my father’s direct supervision by now.
It was infuriating.
“I need that car,” I told Mat. There was a long pause as he thought it over.
“Lilia isn’t too upset with you,” he said slowly. “I could probably get her to agree to it. It would just be the two of us, though. Would that appease him?”
“It’s worth a try.” I breathed a sigh of relief. It had to work.
“I’m going out on a limb for you,” he said.
“You don’t trust me,” I accused him, furious.
“No, it’s not that. I don’t trust Kolya, or any Mikhailov. And you don’t have the intense training it takes to be undercover like that. It wouldn’t be your fault if he got the upper hand, and that’s what we’re trying to prevent.”
