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Which was the reason why I chose a tattoo of thorns and roses with smiling skeleton heads. I wondered how Andrei would react to it.
“That’s…weird.”
“It is.” I got up to my feet. “Thanks for the tattoo.”
“You’re welcome,” she said. I could feel her smile fade as I turned my back on her and left the shop with Mikhail behind me.
We got to the car and drove quietly to a clothing shop on the outskirt of the city where we were certain no one would recognize me. I was gone for a while and my papa was probably searching for me by now. We couldn’t risk letting him find out where I was.
Mikhail pulled over in front of the white giant building that was made up of more glass than concrete. I peered around cautiously before getting down from the car. Mikhail meant to come with me, but I leaned on the window, knocking on it and waited for him to wind it down.
“I’m not letting you come inside with me,” I said to him. “I don’t need a babysitter, especially not one so huge and grumpy.”
Mikhail stared bullets at me. “I do not take orders from you.”
“You don’t, and I am not giving an order.” I breathed. “Don’t you think it would be more suspicious if you followed me inside?”
He didn’t look like he thought so.
“You can wait here, to make sure I don’t run away.”
“I don’t care if you do,” Andrei said, peering at me through the rearview mirror. “If it will keep my brother safe, I don’t mind if you get on your heels right now and never look back. I wouldn’t run after you either.”
That was the first time I’d heard Mikhail say that many words. He mostly always replied with a nod or a simple word but for some reason, he looked pissed at me right now and I couldn’t even tell why.
“What is the matter with you?”
“You’re an Italian. Dante Paolo’s blood,” he said matter-of-factly. “I don’t trust you not to betray my brother or try to hurt him. I don’t know what your mission is but hurt my brother, and you die.”
I scoffed. I must’ve been hearing him wrong. “Dramatic much, Mikhail?” Rage made my vision red because how could he dare to act like Andrei was the victim here?
“You seem to be forgetting I am the one who was held at your brother’s mansion against my will,” I growled. “Do I need to remind you I am the one who was forced into a marriage I didn’t want in the first place?” My vision blurred because I was at the edge of crying out my fury. “If you hated and distrusted me so much, why didn’t you try to stop your brother from marrying me?”
Mikhail rubbed his face frustratedly. “I tried.”
“Well, you didn’t try well enough, Mikhail,” I said. “I didn’t want any of this. All I wanted was to pay back my father in the same coin he did me all my life. That was the reason I approached Andrei. But being held hostage, getting married, and growing these feelings were never part of the plan.”
I was being sentimental, but I didn’t care. I couldn’t care. “You’re his brother, but you sat back and did nothing but only now, you try to make me the villain and Andrei the victim?”
“I’m not making you out to be the villain, Adrienne.” His voice was calm and polite now. “I’m only trying to protect my brother?”
“From who? Me?”
“You’re Italian, you know exactly what I mean.”
I laughed. A sneer meant to mock Mikhail’s double standards. “And who will protect me if things were to go awry? Who would protect me if I woke up one morning and discovered your brother had been using me all along? Who would protect me if he started to think of me as boring and useless?”
“It won’t come to that.”
“And if it does?” I asked firmly. “Will you stand up to him and tell him it is wrong?”
Mikhail didn’t answer.
“I thought so,” I concluded. “Everyone in this world is the same. Cunning and selfish and looking out for their own.”
It was different for me, though. No one was looking out for me. Sometimes I thought that the reason I got so attached to Andrei was because he cared for me in the way no one else did.
He worried if I got hurt and tried to protect me. My papa was supposed to do all of that for me. He was supposed to love and protect me like other papas did for their little girls. But mine turned me into a dirty killer.
