Page 26 of In Her Blood
Something like nausea churned in Otto’s gut. He knew what he’d been training for, as a concept, and he’d heard that the Nikolaev princess’s current guard was lacking. Supposedly, her previous primary bodyguard had fallen in the line of duty and at present she was being attended by a rotating circle of on-staff security, rather than a permanent attendee. But she was also a teenage girl. She was the daughter of the damn pakhan. And much to the displeasure of more than a few of their brothers, she was only half Russian.
Otto didn’t really give two shits about heritage. He was adopted, after all. No traceable Russian lineage to speak of. He considered himself honored that his father had given him a name and a home.
Iouri leaned forward and clapped Otto on the shoulder. “She’s just a girl now, my boy, but she’ll grow into a fine woman. She’llmake the Nikolaevs proud, I’m sure. And it’s going to be your job to see that she lives to do that.” He was still smiling, like Otto had already accomplished this great feat.
His job.
He knew what his job was, he knew what was expected of him and when and where it was okay to step over normal boundaries. Or maybe he didn’t know shit. Because more than twelve hours had passed, and he was no closer to having any fucking clue how to handle the notion that Lina had kissed him. He was no closer to even understanding what the hell had compelled her.
Had she been more out of it from the drugs than she’d let on? Maybe she was feeling emotional after the day’s events?
Otto gave himself a hard internal shake. In the end, it didn’t matter why she’d kissed him. It didn’t matter that she hadn’t acknowledged the entire exchange. A new day had dawned, she had important and time-sensitive business to focus on, and it was back to business as usual for him.
His father’s proud face from that long-past conversation flickered one more time behind his eyes and Otto felt something in his chest pinch. Sometimes it felt like he himself had still been a boy back then, perched at the edge of the grownup’s table and begging for scraps. He sure as hell never could have imagined what his pending assignment would come to mean to him.
Let alone how much it would hurt to see the anguish on her face when he did his job.
Fresh frustration filled him and he found himself biting back a sigh as he again cast his eyes around the room. It wasn’tas if the scene had changed. But staring straight at Lina, despite that she wasn’t currently paying him any attention, made him feel worse. Because he couldn’t stop thinking about her lips on his, the way her nipples had pebbled in her thin nightshirt, and how his hands fit so well in the curve of her hips.
Heat sparked in his blood and Otto bit down on the inside of his cheek until the tang of copper tainted his tastebuds. But it was a technique he’d used too many times, and just as he’d learned to ignore lesser injuries like those he’d received the previous day, he realized it had little effect. At least, until the thought of blood pulled up a new image.
Lina … with her own blood caked on her skin. Smeared across more than half of her forearm, more of it practically coating her knees down to her shins.
He exhaled slowly.
At the same time, Lina released a dramatic sigh. “Well, now I know why Pyotr only bothered with a stupid text.”
Otto blinked as he pulled his focus back to the present.
She gestured to the screen of her laptop, where presumably she had the contents from the flash drive open. “According to this, my father left me all but three of his properties.” She held up three fingers. “One he did not leave to me was the house Mamma and I lived in for her last years,obviously. But there is an amendment notation saying he was aware when he last updated this that he intended to sell it off after her cancer took her.” Lina’s voice choked and she cleared her throat. “The profits from that sale aren’t even coming to me.Otetsadded them to the chunk of money allocated specifically to paying off any outstanding debts.”
A familiar frown bent Otto’s lips. It was easy to see—and hear—how this information hurt her. She’d been ripped from that house unexpectedly, lost her patriarch before that dust had settled, and was now learning every trace of that history was being taken away. He didn’t need to be a shrink to understand how that might feel like a slap in the face.
Lina cleared her throat again, more roughly, and lowered the next finger. “He left his precious distillery to Pyotr, outright.”
Mikhail had been rather fond of that small business. It didn’t even produce vodka, but that had never mattered. It was a company Mikhail and his brother—Pyotr’s father—had built in their youths to deepen their pockets by feeding into the Americans’ love of beer. The business had never gained enough notoriety to expand far, but it did well enough to stay afloat, even beyond the fact that Mikhail later acquired his fair share of alcohol-serving venues.
Otto almost understood leaving the distillery to Pyotr. But not quite as much as he understood the betrayal in Lina’s voice.
She finally curled her fingers into a full fist and promptly slammed that fist sideways into the out-facing edge of her chaise. “And he leftthishouse—the clan house—tobothof us.” She nearly spat the words in a surge of anger. “Equally.”
Otto’s eyes widened.Motherfucker.Mikhail might as well have signed them up to claw out each other’s throats.
His own hands curled into fists as a dangerous, but necessary, question whispered through his mind. It would be unprecedented in their time so far as he knew, but then, they were in unprecedented territory. And that forced him to wonder … was it possible Pyotr himself was behind the previous day’s attack from Morozovs?
“So, I’m a landlady now, what a dream come true, and if I figure out how to prove this anywhere maybe I can access the money this also says he left me. Which isn’t much, because a shitload was held for outstanding debts, to pay off Crawford’s fees, and other minutiae.” She slumped against the backrest and sniffled.
Otto closed his eyes and rolled his jaw. “Lina,” he said, trying to keep his voice gentle because he could only do so much about the actual words. “I’m pretty sure you need to sign papers to claim ownership of property.”
Her ragged inhale sliced through him, but the anger behind the pain in her voice was not for him. “I know. Iknow. And Pyotr probably signed his yesterday, that piece of shit. There’s”—she jabbed at her screen without looking—“a note, like an explanation, about signing and time limits and shit. And after the lawyer sat on his ass with this for a goddamn week, I have untilFridayor I forfeit everything.”
“This Friday?”
“This Friday.”
Otto cursed.
Lina sniffled again. “And you want to know the worst of it?”
