Page 31 of In Her Blood
“I do.”
She drew a breath and raised her chin, trying to project poise and strength. “I’m going on a last-hoorah shopping expedition this weekend—upgrading my wardrobe. I leave tomorrow afternoon, return Sunday evening. I want the information waiting for me. That will be your first assignment, stacked on top of making sure my personal residence within the main house remains unviolated while I’m away. Understand?”
Artem pushed to his feet, stepped around so that he was beside her chair, and lowered to a knee. “I’ll get it done, ma’am.”
Evelina stared at the back of his bowed head and prayed her expression didn’t give away how lightheaded she felt. She was sitting in a worn, faux-leather chair in someone else’s home, yet a man technically old enough to be her father wasbowingto her. And maybe, for the first time, ‘ma’am’ didn’t rub her so wrong. The way he’d said it sounded downright respectful, like a title that carried authority.
Chapter ten
Declaration of Intent
A flicker of uneasecrawled up the back of Evelina’s throat and brought her brief burst of forward momentum to a pause. She stared at the back of her door, knowing she needed to walk through it, knowing she absolutely needed to make an appearance that morning and probably again at midday before her departure. But that wasn’t all she knew. “Pyotr’s going to lose his shittoday.”
She felt Otto move in closer, his presence warm and steady at her back. He was a constant comfort, her ceaseless strength, and she was sure she should express her gratitude better than she did. She only didn’t know how to do that without telling him too much.
Evelina pushed the familiar, distracting, conflicting emotions aside. “Promise you won’t wander too far from me out there.”
Otto scoffed and settled his hand over her outer hip, his chest brushing up against her back as he moved close and said, “I never do.”
The breath stalled in her lungs. His touch was gentle, easily breakable, yet so similar to the night she’d feared she had pushed too hard. The night she’d refused to acknowledge since. He’d come up behind her the same way, but his words and the weight of his touch had been so different.
She couldn’t help but turn her head to look up at him, couldn’t help but wonder if this was some kind of sign to press her luck. She still didn’t know what his warning really meant. “Otto…”
He met her gaze, his blue eyes warmer than usual. Then he gave her hip a reassuring squeeze and took a half-step backward, his touch falling away. “If at any point you want me to just shoot him so you can be done with it, you only have to say the word.”
Evelina looked away and pulled in another breath.What was I thinking?She was doing what she’d so often done before, but in perhaps the worst way. She was avoiding.I can’t do that shit anymore.Giving herself a mental smack to the head, sherepeated Otto’s words to herself and actually listened to them. “You’ve really got to tone down that bloodlust, Otto,” she teased. She even managed to flash him a grin before reaching for the door. “But yes, I promise, I remember the codeword.”
Many years prior, when he’d taken over as her lead bodyguard—back when she’d still had two—he’d insisted on instituting a codeword system. One word she could easily remember and wasn’t likely to say at leisure that would act like ringing a fire alarm. She could continue acting natural, presuming she had felt threatened or otherwise unsafe and that was the entire reason she’d spoken the word, and her protectors would leap into action as if of their own accord. Since he’d pushed this plan when she’d been a smart-mouthed teenager, her genius self had saddled them both with the word ‘misfit.’
She supposed it still worked as well as any other word, though.
She nearly jumped out of her skin at the sight of an unfamiliar man standing beside her door when she finally stepped into the hall. Her hand flew up to her chest as Otto wedged himself between them.
The unfamiliar male, probably in his early thirties, stepped from the wall and raised a fist to his chest in a salute. “Good morning, ma’am. Apologies for startling you. Artem sent me to keep watch over your residence while you’re away. My name’s Tolya.”
Evelina exhaled slowly and patted Otto’s arm. Shehadasked Artem to help provide security to her suite, she just hadn’t expected the man to get started so early. “Tolya? Thank you for your dedication.” She offered him a brief smile. “I want you toexchange contact information with Otto. Make sure he’s kept apprised of who’s on duty when, and any suspicious activity. I want to know the name and face of whichever man is expected to be posted beside my door when I walk up next.”
Otto pulled the phone from his back pocket.
Tolya nodded sharply. “Understood.”
Evelina watched as the men quickly exchanged their information and Tolya apparently sent over a handful of photos—presumably the men already assigned to the other shifts—before finally making her way down the hall. It was early enough that breakfast would only have recently gotten started, and it wasn’t like she’d miss out. She was mostly just anxious about dealing with Pyotr.Like that’s new.
Pavel cut her off halfway down the final corridor, pushing from where he’d been leaning against the wall and stepping fully into her path. His expression was tight.
A different kind of anxiety twisted up Evelina’s spine and she curled her fingers into fists at her sides. “Pavel,” she greeted cautiously.
He flicked a glance past her, surely to Otto, before focusing on her again. When he spoke, his voice was low and hurried. “You have a visitor, Miss Nikolaev. I took the liberty of bringing him to your father’s study for privacy.”
Her stomach churned. Her father’s study. That was where he’d been found the day he’d died. She’d been in the room twice since, in an effort to organize his things rather than let Pyotr make off with them all. But she couldn’t stand being in that space. It felt like death to her now—which was probably a natural progression from all her earlier associations of painand suffering. Regardless, there was a part of her that wanted to refuse this mystery visitor for no greater reason than where Pavel had stashed them.
Pavel’s involvement and the choice of waiting place were also curious, objectively.
Evelina narrowed her eyes at her father’s former guard. “There are a lot of presumptions in that decision, Pavel. Why even allow this person inside? Why let them past the front sitting room? Why not have me notified immediately so that I could make the choice for myself?” She raised her chin. “And above all, why should I bother meeting them?”
Frustration seeped into Pavel’s eyes. “Give me some credit, Miss. I’ve been doing this for—”
“Miss Nikolaev,” Evelina said, her voice hardening. “As indaughterof the late pakhan Mikhail Nikolaev. You will speak to me with respect or not at all, Pavel. That is not up for debate.” She folded her arms across her chest. “Now. Give me one reason I shouldn’t consider you letting an outsider into a private office a violation of trust.”
