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“Did you come in here for a purpose?” I grimace. “I’m working.”
“Ilya has been asking for you.”
“Is everything okay?” I pull out my phone and check the notifications tab. “I haven’t gotten any calls. No one said anything to me. How did he seem?”
“Fine. He’s fine. There was a small episode this morning, but—”
“The fuck? Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I’m telling you now,” he says. “Sonya took care of it. You’ve taught her everything you know. She’s a pro at this point. Plus, everything was fine. He misses you. That’s all.”
I push off the couch and stretch my arms over my head. “I didn’t stay long when I visited last night. I was tired.”
“Chasing tail all day can have that effect on you.”
I glare at my best friend. “I was with you all day yesterday, wise ass.”
“You wish,” he scoffs. “You couldn’t handle this tail. Besides, I heard from an unnamed source that you took a little joyride last night.”
The damn guards at the gate can’t keep their mouths closed. I’ll need to talk to them about that. Information about my comings and goings should be private. For safety reasons, but also because I don’t want German pestering me about where I’ve been and who I’ve been with.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“From what I hear, you were about three feet shy of your property line yesterday when you whipped around and picked up one of your maids from the side of the road. They said you drove off with her. I don’t think I need to look at the footage to know which maid that was.”
“You spying on me?”
“Do I need to be?” he asks, grinning wildly. “Will I see anything juicy if I do?”
“It was a ride. Stefano nearly abducted her two nights ago. I didn’t want to deal with covering up her murder, do you?”
He waves a dismissive hand and leans against the door jamb, thumbs hooked in his pockets. “Stefano has already forgotten about her by now. He was just doing that to fuck with you. The girl isn’t worth a war. Especially not one he’d lose.”
The fact that German is right doesn’t make it any better. Stefano crossed a line for no other reason than he thought that he could. I intend to show him how wrong he was.
I sigh and push past him into the hallway. “Mind your business, German. I’ll mind mine.”
He hustles after me, jogging to keep up. “But yours is more interesting. I mean, I’m your second, but I don’t understand a damn thing you’re doing lately.”
“You don’t need to understand it. You need to do as I ask.”
“Yes, Your Almighty Magnificence.” German bows low at the waist. When he stands up, he falls into a casual, slouchy walk beside me. “But it would be nice to know why the fuck I’m setting up meetings with motorcycle clubs around the city.”
We’re crossing the entryway when I hear a car approaching. I move to the window next to the door and watch the red sports car I saw parked at Rayne’s house last night pull into the drive. She climbs out of the passenger seat one long leg at a time. It’s indecent how good she looks in a pair of stiff maroon pants.
“Is this about her?” German asks. I look back, and he’s watching me from the base of the stairs. His usual humor is gone. We’re getting serious, apparently. “Or is it something else? I like to think I’m pretty good at reading you, but you’ve been all over the place since we got here.”
“I’ve been working. Visiting Ilya. What the fuck else is there to do?”
“Somewhere out there, Viktoria is waving her hand wildly in the air, screaming, ‘Do me! Do me!’” He chuckles. “The bitch is annoying, but you usually cut her more slack than anyone. But not lately.”
I glance back out the window. Rayne is bent down to talk to whoever is driving. My guess is it’s her brother-in-law. But I can’t get a good look at him from this vantage point.
“I’ve cut Viktoria too much slack. Maybe that’s the reason she can’t take a fucking hint.”
“Yeah,” German says. “Or it could be that the two of you are engaged. Maybe that gave her the wild idea you might get married one of these days.”
“Our fathers arranged it when we were teenagers,” I remind him coldly. “I’ve never said a word about it to her. If she thinks I’m committed to the deluded promise of my old man, especially after what he did, she’s fucking crazy.”
