Page 31 of Bratva's Stolen Bride
I tiptoe across the room, waiting for him to wake and stop me, but he doesn’t. Miraculously, somehow, when I turn the door handle and look back, he’s motionless. The bedroom is dark because of the blinds that Feliks shut last night, and there’s the hum of air conditioning, so I pray that he won’t hear me or notice I’m gone.
I shut the door softly behind me, and pad silently to where Feliks stashed my phone.
I can’t reach, of course, that was the point. But there are lower shelves, and I’m not that heavy. I consider a chair, but I’m hyper aware Feliks could wake at any second. Moving furniture from the other side of the room is riskier because it’ll take longer, and the wood appears solid.
I go for it, putting one foot gingerly onto the bottom shelf and testing it. It holds. Of course it does. Everything in Feliks’ life is made of premium materials.
I take the next step up more quickly, then another, hanging onto the edge of the bookshelf. Ooo, is that a copy of…? No, I cannot get distracted.
I climb one more then snatch the phone and skip back down, heart thumping in my chest like our neighbour’s music at the house in Richmond.
My finger is pressing the power button as I hear a door handle turn.
Shit shit shit.
No pockets in these night shorts, and what if he checks for the phone? I don’t think. I just scale the bookshelves as quickly and nimbly as I can, slide it into place, and hop to the ground. As Feliks rounds the corner, I’m staring out at the ocean tinged with pale-yellow light from the sunrise.
“Lisichka,” he says warningly. “What are you doing?”
“Looking at the beach,” I say innocently, turning to him. And oof. He is somehow even hotter in the cool of the morning than he was last night. He’s naked except for a pair of black boxers that leave nothing about his size to the imagination. Even not erect, he has plenty to show off.
“I came to get a glass of water and got distracted. It’s so beautiful.” But I’m studying the tattoos on his chest, not the serene ocean. If he could stand in the sea, preferably naked and wet, that would be the ideal view for me.
“Just looking out the window?” he echoes sceptically. “If I check for your phone, it’ll still be there?”
I shrug. “Unless you moved it.”
The control required to keep myself from twitching as he reaches up—he’s ridiculously tall so it only needs him to stretch up an arm.
He feels for the phone, and when he finds it, surprise flits across his face. Our eyes meet.
“Good girl.”
And even though I know it’s not true, I can’t help but respond, heating everywhere despite the air conditioning.
“Breakfast.” He nods. “How do you take your coffee, moya lisichka?”
14
FELIKS
The sun rises, pink and creamy-yellow as we drink coffee and eat breakfast. She likes her coffee like her soul, nearly all white milk and sugar and froth. I slice mango, papaya, and pineapple for her, and she eats it all greedily, seeming to remember that neither of us have eaten properly since yesterday on the plane.
She stares longingly at the sea through the window. Maybe she’s a mermaid, not a little fox.
“Swim,” I tell her, though her brow furrows when I say I need to sort some things, so I won’t join her.
“Not worried I might escape?”
I smile. “I’ll catch you if you try.”
I set up in a chair in the shade, with a good view of the beach, and start dealing with the small crises that crop up for any organisation that turns over more than a billion a year. You’d think that being a mafia boss, I’d be able to avoid this gavno, but apparently not.
It’s earlier in the day here than back in London, so when I call my second-in-command I’m expecting news that he’s found Ivan.
“Still waiting for information to come in,” Evgeni says apologetically. “And there’s a stupid problem with the marriage.”
“Go on.” This sounds like the sort of bullshit I don’t want to deal with.
