AllFreeNovel
Share Us
ANYA
My father sat across from me at the dining table for our evening meal for the first time in months. I’d been nursing him patiently, and thankfully it was paying off. He looked like a corpse walking, but his doctor had visited today and assured me that was normal. Like always, mother was out “running errands” while the doc was in. It bothered me, but what was I to do?
“This goulash is incredible, Anya.” He slurped up a spoonful and smiled. “Better than your mothers. Shh… don’t tell her.” His grin was mischievous.
“Thank you, Papa.”
I ate in silence, still stewing over my interaction with Leo earlier in the week. I knew he was a man like my father, but I had hoped against hope that he was the sort of man I could place my trust in. It became painfully clear to me at that moment, overhearing his plan discussed with one of his cohorts, that Leo was just like every other man in this business. He was not interested in peace—only power.
The goulash swirled around in my bowl as I swept my spoon in a circle. The part that hurt the most wasn’t the fact that Leo had been proven a fraud. It wasn’t that his sex was incredible and I would be denied that now. Not even that I’d fully realized he was my enemy. What hurt the most was that I was falling in love with him, and now I had no one to tell my heartbreak to.
Maybe Lia would be there, or Isabella as Leo had called her. But given that she was now on the opposing side, maybe that wouldn’t be a good idea. The more I sat and obsessed about it, the worse I felt.
“What troubles you?” He took another bite of his soup before setting his spoon down. He dabbed at the corners of his mouth and I shrugged. I couldn’t tell him anything. As angry as I was with Leo, I cared about him. If father knew of my indiscretion, Leo was dead. It was that simple.
“Boy troubles.” I forced a smile and set my spoon down. “You ready for dessert? I mademedovik.”
His eyebrows rose. “Ah, honey cakes, my favorite. Thank you, yes. I’ll have a slice.”
I left the half-eaten soup and went to the kitchen, collecting a few dessert plates, forks, a knife, and the cake I’d spent hours yesterday preparing. I found that baking helped regulate my emotions somehow, or maybe it was licking the spoon after creating the sweet frosting.
Either way, the smile on my father’s face when he bit into the confection was worth it. He moaned out his thanks and scarfed the entire slice of cake down quickly enough that I was left serving him up a second before I had half of mine down. I was grateful for the slight distraction his enjoyment of my dessert had afforded me, but when he cleared his throat and said my name, the tension in the air leapt up.
“Anya.”
I tensed, setting my fork on my plate of half-eaten cake. I stared at it like I’d stared at that damn lemon pie the day I met Leo. If only I could take that back, the pie the day at the restaurant, meeting him for sex.
“Yes?” I did not look up at him. I knew the tone of his voice. He was upset about something. Dessert had only served to soften the blow for me.
“Dimitri tells me you have ordered our ladies off the street. Is this true?” I heard his fork scraping against his plate, but still did not look up. I answered truthfully, but shame still filled my thoughts.
“Yes, that is true.”
“Anya…” He said my name in that long, drawn-out tone of disappointment. Like I had let him down and broken his heart. “Without our ladies out there, we will lose territory, money, power. This is not how we work. I’ve told Dimitri to reverse the orders and send them back.”
My head popped up and I looked at him. I couldn’t hide the hurt; I knew it was coming through my eyes and my expression. I swallowed the words I wanted to say; lashing out would do no good. But I sincerely hoped that rational discussion might.
“Papa, those women—”
“Are my employees, and you are my beautiful daughter, but maybe I was wrong about putting you into a place of power. Maybe you’re not ready yet.”
Tears stung my eyes, not because I’d lost his respect or faith, but because I realized my father was not going to change. “Drugs, guns, schemes—none of them are the same as those women.” I stood calmly, pushing myself up from the table. “Those women are someone’s daughter. What if it was me on that street?”
“Would you like to do that job?” The coldness in his tone shocked me. I never thought my father capable of being so heartless.
Without speaking I left the dining room and locked myself in my bedroom. Leo was not who I thought he was, and though my father was exactly the man I knew him to be, my heart was still broken. I curled up beneath the covers and cried. I wished Lia was here.
10
LEO
Four days I sat outside that damn house waiting for Anya to surface, and not once did I see anything more than a passing shadow in a window behind a curtain. Several times, men who worked for me questioned what I was doing, why I wasn’t in the office or monitoring business. I ignored them.
If this was any other woman, I’d have given up long ago, but this wasn’t just any woman. Anya had hit me at a point in my life when I had given up hope of finding a woman who could go toe-to-toe with me. Any woman who approached me had one motive—to gain my money or my power. I had no interest in a trophy wife—I wanted a partner.
Anya was the only one who came close.
And it didn’t hurt that we had so much in common. Forget the fact that she was young enough to be my daughter; we were perfect for each other. So I sat there outside her house and down the street a block, watching and waiting.
