Page 36 of The Bratva's Arranged Virgin Bride
I shook my head. Not happening. “It’s only six shows,” I told him. “Short term, not worth your time.”
Yes, it was a hell of a lot of money, but negligible to someone like him. He did seem desperate, though, which might have been part of the problem. There might have been reasons for wanting in other than making my life miserable. If he was hurting for money, that might make him even more dangerous,so I hoped letting him know it was only temporary would send him somewhere else.
“It’s worth your time,” he said slyly.
“Yes, but it’s fun for me.” Vissarion didn’t understand the concept of fun.
“It might be fun if you’re in charge, which I plan on being,” he informed me. “I’ll let you stay on as a partner for now. I need someone to keep the artists in line and run the shows.
I was never huge on killing people, but I wanted to shoot the man under the table right then and there. I would so much rather have been with my wife than dealing with this. But I wasn’t giving up my venture to my enemy, either. Talk about opening a door I’d never get shut again.
Suddenly, I thought of something that almost made me crack up in Vissarion’s face. All I had to do was get my six shows out of the way and then alert the authorities and everyone who bought one of the forgeries. At the very least, Vissarion would be deported and would be out of my hair for a while. I could always resort to killing him later if he got too troublesome. Either way, I’d be getting him out of my new territory for good.
“Fine,” I said, pretending to still be pissed off.
Which I was. This meant I’d have to be at the gallery more often, since I didn’t trust the big lug as far as I could throw him. He’d find a way to screw things up, and then I’d be the one getting the free ride back to Russia, not him.
We hammered out a few details, and his sly grin at thinking he’d gotten one over on me was almost too much. But it would be worth it in the long run, getting him out of my life for good. And I could still always kill him. That was a nice, comforting thought.
I let him leave first, making sure he was long gone before I took off, also making doubly sure I wasn’t followed. I already had plenty of guards staking out the beach house, but I notified the head of my security detail to be on high alert.
“Not him,” he groaned when I told him Vissarion had popped up like a recurring pimple again.
“Yes, him, and we’re going to take him seriously.”
He didn’t have to be told twice; he was well aware of how important Nat was to my ultimate plan. Not yet knowing how important she was becoming to me, because I could hardly admit it to myself. The woman was intoxicating, and I couldn’t wait to get back in the house and start where we’d left off.
However, she was Nat. Her curiosity about where I was and who I was meeting wasn’t about to be cajoled away with kisses. I liked thinking she might be jealous, but the truth was she was probably just trying to gain information for her own cause, whatever it was. I wasn’t about to tell her about the gallery, and I wouldn’t even utter Vissarion’s name in front of her, so I had to be cagy, dance around her questions.
It wasn’t the right move, but it was the only one I had to keep her away from my old enemy. It put her in a bad enough mood that there was no chance of rekindling that fire between us. No chance at all, when she finally gave up grilling me and stormed off to her guest room to sleep alone for the night.
