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Another wave of regret washed over me. “I know,” I grumped.
“The dress code was Opera chic,” Mia continued.
“I saw the pictures. Tommie’s peacock outfit was out of this world.” I missed my friends, my life back home, my true family.
“What you didn’t see is how he got wasted, and Achilles had to grab him off the floor.”
My eyes grew wide. “No!” Tommie had had a crush on the sexy bodyguard slash occasional security guard for ages.
“Oh yeah.” Mia scrolled on her phone. I laughed at the photos of Tommie, draped over the huge guy’s shoulders, his head lolling to the side.
“I’m happy for him. Achilles is way better than that lifeguard he dated a while back. That guy kept on obsessing about calories. Remember his app?”
Mia shoved her phone in my face and mimicked the lifeguard. “Do you have any idea how many calories there are in a Mai Tai and Tequila Sunrise? Do you, do you? Let me show you!”
We burst out laughing until my stomach hurt. Unsurprisingly, Tommie had broken up with him after that night. No one got to harp on his cocktails.
“I miss you guys,” I said with a sigh.
Mia’s eyes turned serious. “Then maybe you should come home.”
“I want to,” I admitted, “but I feel like my time here isn’t over yet. Aslanov is…Well, he certainly isn’t an open book, but I learned so much about my mom since I’ve been here. It’s like the veil has lifted over a whole part of my life that was kept from me. At least now I understand why my mother never spoke of him. It wasn’t because she hated him, but because she was afraid.” I clenched my fists, but the gesture reminded me of Aslanov, so I immediately released my fingers.
“And she was right to fear his enemies,” I continued. “In the end, Aslanov’s past caught up with her. Rationally speaking, I know that he’s to blame for what happened to her. It’s just that, when I speak to him, I don’t see the monster people make him out to be. My brain knows about the awful things he’s done, but to me, he is also the man my mother gave up everything for. I think she’d want me to give him a chance. After all, the cat’s out of the bag—now his enemies know about me. I can’t hide anymore.” And I refused to cower behind Kristoff’s door forever.
Mia gave me another hug, just for comfort, and I relished it. That’s what I liked most about her; she didn’t come up with empty words of solace, she simply hugged.
She jumped off the bed and took in my room again. “You still haven’t told me about what you’ve been doing the last few weeks. What’s the trending club in Moscow right now?”
“I wouldn’t know.”
“OMG. We have to remedy that. You and I are going out tonight.”
She darted to my walk-in-closet and went through all of my clothes. I could hear her dismissing dresses and admiring shoes. She was worse than Tommie when it came to playing dress-up.
Hours later, after Mia had raided my closet and made me put on a catwalk show for her, we collapsed on the floor of my bedroom. My head spun a little as exhaustion seeped into my bones. Something poked me in the back, and I arched up to pull whatever it was from underneath me. It was the heel of a Casadei pump.
“I might have overdone it a bit with the shoes,” Mia said.
23.
KRISTOFF
According to Sokolov, in Moscow, I could only see my wife in neutral territory. That is, if I didn’t want to start a war.
In this case that place was a popular Bratva club, operated by a Bratva that was allied with neither Sokolov nor with Aslanov. I was lurking in the shadows with my entourage, so Katya hadn’t noticed my presence yet. She wore a white dress that clung to her like a second skin.
“Nazdrovnia!” Jorgev, who was a brigadier in the Sokolov Bratva, raised a glass. So did the half-dozen men who sat on the red plush couch next to him.
Leave it to the Russians to drink on the job. Never mind that their enemy sat on the other side of the red-marble dance floor of the club. Then again, I’d seen Bratva soldiers drink a whole bottle and still be quick on their feet when a shooting started. This was Moscow after all, and anything could happen at any time. It helped when you had certain media outlets in your pocket, so the reporting on Bratva street wars was kept to a minimum.
Jorgev elbowed me. “Want us to get your woman,bratan?”
What I wanted was to break his arm, then rip it off, and stuff it into his mouth. Sadly, I’d promised Sokolov not to murder any of his men, who he’d kindly added to my security detail. According to him, my father-in-law would murder me on the spot if he caught me near his daughter. Like that would deter me. I relished the thought of destroying Katya’s safeguard, her backup plan. I was sick and twisted in a way that meant I didn’t want her forming an allegiance to any other man but me. Not even if it was just a tiny speck of a man she didn’t really know. I wanted to be her one and only, in every aspect of her life.
When I didn’t answer, Jorgev jabbed me again with his elbow. I placed my hand on the back of his neck, and smashed my forehead to his.
“You poke me with your elbow one more time, and I’m going to rip it off and throw it in with the cage dancer.”
