By the time I pressedsend, Elena had scurried out of the room, her hair swaying from side to side over her back and her skirt dancing around her slender thighs I wanted wrapped around my waist again.
Not now.
Not any time soon, either.
I couldn’t bank on her making my life seem fuller when she’d just dropped a bombshell on me, one that could make the future seem like a landmine of hellish danger.
16
ELENA
Irushed out of the dark-toned office as quickly as I could. My footsteps were silent as I raced away from the behemoth of the antique desk, that massive thing made of hardwood and polished so prettily. The plush white carpet acted like quicksand as I escaped.
Adrik hadn’t needed to order me to go like that.
But I hadn’t jumped when he dismissed me the first time.
Partly because he hadn’t been dismissive of me at all since I’d been here. Even though I wasn’t here as an employee he set out to hire. Even though I was supposed to be here as some discard that my father handed over to him.
Adrik didn’t dismiss me. He—or one of his brothers or cousins—walked me home to the lavish guest house each night. They walked me home like I mattered and I needed to be seen to the door. At first, it seemed like a safety precaution, like they wanted to make sure I wouldn’t be the captive on their property who’d try to run away.
Lately, it had seemed like a courtesy. A consideration I never counted on having.
Right now? I was frantic to bolt out of this mansion and put as much distance between me and that furious man.
He was back there in that gorgeous office, pacing and ranting. Ticking like a freaking bomb about to detonate. I’dneverseen him that mad. I wasn’t sure I’d ever witnessed any human reaching that volcanic level of pure fury before.
A deep stroke of vulnerability hit me as I reached the stairs. Jogging too fast, no longer slowed down by the thick ply of a carpet but skidding over the smooth wood and marble floors, I gripped the handrail before I’d go too fast and trip and pitch myself down the stairs.
I betthatwould be inconvenient.
A death on their hands that they hadn’t caused.
Morbid, intrusive thoughts weren’t helping me. But as I panicked with how mad he’d gotten at my report, and how much it hurt to be dismissed and sent away so violently, I didn’t know how to calm down.
He’d been so attentive, respecting my hard work and noticing my effort. Almost like he was a normal boss and I was just an ordinary accountant and researcher.
That wasn’t the case at all.
Whatever that name meant, whoever this Gregori individual was, it was enough to trigger Adrik Volkov into a fit of raw fury. He looked like a Mafia mobster then, a scary leader of violence and fully capable of it at that moment.
I don’t want to know.
I don’t even want to be involved.
I cringed at a stitch in my side from running and breathing so shallowly.
I don’t want any part in anything that makes you so furious.
As I slidmy hand over the handrail, I realized that I was empty-handed as I fled. I’d left my phone in the office. Notmyphone, the piece of junk model I’d had before my father gave me to Adrik, but the one he’d given me. The one he’d ordered me toalwayshave with me. It was an order. A requirement. Probably issued so he could track me. But it was an order, and with how mad he was now, I feared that if he tried to contact me—not that he was likely to now—he’d bemorefurious that I’d disobeyed an expectation he’d given me.
Dammit!
I didnotwant to go back up there. The very last thing I wanted to do was return to him when he was still fuming and raging at seeing that name on the laptop.
But I had to. I had to go up there and retrieve that stupid phone.
If I hadn’t been so spooked, I wouldn’t have been so scatterbrained to leave it at all. I’d taken off in such a rush, though, not even thinking and only focusing on escaping.
