“Then, you show up to help with my initiation when I know you don’t approve, even if you appreciate that it’ll be beneficial for business. I’m your princess and your kitten one minute, but the next you’re advising me to kill someone!”
By the end, she’s breathing heavily.
“Feel better for getting that off your chest?”
“GAH!” She shoves me away. “You drive me CRAZY.”
I smile into the darkness.
Into my silence, she snipes about pigheaded Russians who don’thave the decency to do things that make sense, and I let her blow off some steam.
“Are you bored, Victoria?”
My silken question has her freezing.
Words. Actions. Everything.
In the smallest of voices, she mutters, “No.”
I hum. “Let me show you your home.”
“It’s my home if I furnish it and not a second sooner.”
“It’s your home.”
“I might hate it.”
“Then I’ll buy you another one. But don’t dismiss it out of hand. I have the air rights to the property so no one can fly drones over it. There is shelter for our guards to live in comfortably, as well as an exterior fence that’d fry a man like he’s a piece of bacon if an intruder came into contact with it.
“The walls might look like the original colonizers stacked them together, but the insulation has a variant of Kevlar imbedded into it because the previous owner had more money than sense as well as an inherent belief that the government was out to get him,andit’s five minutes away from your school while being on the outskirts so I don’t have to be surrounded by petulant college-aged brats who are smart enough for an Ivy League school but not enough to recognize that the world doesn’t revolve around themorthat they’re future cannon fodder.”
“Wow, that’s one run-on sentence.”
I ignore her to continue, “Now, you can dress it up how you want and Icanlook for another house if you loathe this one, but it had better be for a damn good reason and not just that you don’t like the color of the floors.”
She whistles. “Feel better for getting that off your chest?”
Despite myself, I laugh. “Brat.”
The gravel of the driveway crunches as she approaches the porch. “Funny, I bet someone called you that once upon a time.”
“I don’t make bets I’ll lose. You haven’t met Nikolai, have you?”
“Nikolai?”
“Veles.”
“Oh. No.” For the first time, unease settles in her expression. “You know him?”
“I call him brotherbuthe’s more like a father. Not that I tell him that. He has enough power over me,” I grouch.
The concession has her reaching for my arm again. “When will I meet him?”
“At the wedding most likely.”
She hisses. “WHEN, Maxim? WHEN?”
“The wedding?” I shrug. “Set a date.”
