Page 78 of Crimson Oath
“No.” Mika shook his head. “I agree with you that we need to find out what’s going on, and probably we need to kill Ivan. But I question the urgency. What’s the rush? Why not wait until the fall?”
Because by the fall she could have formed a connection to someone else. Someone equally as powerful. Someone who didn’t have the history that he did.
“Because the Poshani people are choosing new leaders at the end of this season.” Oleg stood up. “The Vashana Zata only happens onceevery hundred years. Radu might be thinking to retire. If Vano is going behind the backs of his brother and sister—putting the safety of their entire clan at risk—then I owe it to my old friends to let them know.”
Oleg returnedto his private apartment in Odesa before dawn after hours of dealing with tedious business matters that Elene should have been handling.
His fucking daughter.
He wanted to kill Zara all over again. For many things, but mostly for killing one of his dearest friends, and then he would kill her again for giving him more paperwork.
Oleg couldn’t find it in his heart to regret Tatyana becoming a vampire even though he regretted how it was done. But Elene?
He missed her dearly. Perhaps he would see if Elene’s daughter and grandchildren would like a holiday. He missed the sound of children.
There was a strange buzzing somewhere in his room, and he went on alert.
What could it be? Could someone have secreted an explosive device in his apartment? That wasn’t possible. Mika’s security team regularly swept for any electronic devices and…
Oh.
He had an electronic device of his own now.
Oleg walked to his desk and opened the drawer. The phone—the one with a number that only one person had—was ringing.
He picked it up and touched the green button, putting it flat on his desk and glaring at it. “Hello?”
“You really got a mobile phone.”
He sank into his upholstered leather chair and spread his handson his desk, trying not to grab the device as he listened to her voice. “I did.”
This wasn’t a dream.
She kept talking. “Have you given the number to Mika yet?”
“No. If I did, he’d just want to talk to me.”
He heard a low laugh from her, but the speaker wasn’t good enough. The mobile phone didn’t capture the richness of her voice. It was tinny and irritating.
“Your voice doesn’t sound right.”
“The connection should be good.” Her voice dropped into that absent, thoughtful tone that she often had when she was mulling over a problem. “But I’m using a VPN, so it’s possible?—”
“You’re not here.” Oleg sat back in his chair and looked at the phone. “I can’t hear your actual voice, just the electronic version of it.”
“Ah. Yes, that’s the way phones work.”
“So I’ve heard.”
“Which shouldn’t be a surprise since youplanted a phone on me.”
“I gave you a brand-new phone with my number programmed into it,” he said. “In case you wanted to call me.”
“You wanted to track me, Oleg.”
“If I wanted to track you, I would have planted a tracker, not given you a phone.”
“Oleg—”
