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The penthouse isa ghost town when I finally get home. It’s been a week. A long, torturous week, but I’m home. Flying with Igor Romanov was not as easy as I had thought it would be when Nikolai asked me to travel with his father. Igor isn’t the man he once was. He’s bitter and distracted. It’s time for him to retire, and moving back to Russia is the best decision for him.
Avery’s cell phone was destroyed in the warehouse. I tried catching her at the library during her shifts, but she was either on break or not working. She’s angry, and rightfully so. I took the coward’s way and hid behind my work instead of confronting this situation, but I’m home now.
I still think she doesn’t deserve to be tied down to a monster like me, and I was hell bent on trying to protect her from the mess of my world. But she saw it. With her own eyes, she saw the bloodshed, she felt the fear, and she didn’t run away. When she confessed that she knew exactly what I was, it threw me. How could she look at me the way she did, knowing what I am?
When I got the call to meet Gregor at the warehouse to deal with Stepan, I should have woken her up and explained everything. I should have told her exactly what was happening and where I was going and when I would be back. But when I opened her bedroom door and the light poured over her sleeping features, I realized just how innocent she was and how tainted I was making her. I would destroy her even more if she stayed with me.
“Mr. Romanov.” Rene, my housekeeper, startles when she walks through the foyer toward the living room. “I wasn’t expecting you.”
I drop my jacket on a table. “Is Avery home?” It’s the only question I want answered. She’s the only person I want to see right now. I left word with Maxim to tell Avery when I’d be home. She should be here.
Rene pales at my question.
“What?” I probe. “Is she home? It’s after six. She should be home from work by now.” Her fucking job. That she’s going to quit first thing tomorrow. She’s quitting her job, and next semester she’s going to school full time. And fuck the medical assistant degree. If she wants to go into nursing, she’s doing it. If she wants medical school, that’s what she’s going to do. The world is open for her now because I’m not letting her put a limit on us anymore. She passed being a ‘tryst’ a long time ago. I said forever, and I fucking meant it.
“No, Mr. Romanov.” She swallows hard. “Avery hasn’t been here all week.”
“Where’d she go?” I stop myself from yelling, but only barely.
“I… I think she went home.” Her voice is small, like she’s confessing some horrible sin. “She was here, with that other man, and they left again shortly after with her bag.”
“What other man? Maxim?” I question. He sent me a message saying he’d dropped her at home, but I had assumed he meant the penthouse—because this is her fucking home.
“Yes.” She nods quickly.
I fist my hands at my sides. The travel has worn me down. I could sleep for a full day, but now I’m ready to fight someone. Anyone who gets in the way of me getting to Avery.
I grab my jacket again and turn back around to the elevator.
“You took her to her apartment and didn’t tell me?” I bark into the phone the second Maxim picks up.
“I told you I took her home,” he says.
“Home is the penthouse.”
“She didn’t see it that way.” He sounds like he’s grimacing. “I swear if you touch that again, you’re going to regret it,” he says to someone in the background. A feminine huff comes through after his threat.
“Where are you?”
“I’m dealing with something,” he says. “Avery is fine. I had Osip take her to school, but she only let him do it one day. So now he just follows behind the bus she gets on and then does the same on her way home.”
At least there’s that.
“Why didn’t she stay at the penthouse? Didn’t you tell her I’d be home? She should have called me back. Didn’t you go see her like I told you to?” My teeth ache, I’m clenching my jaw so tightly.
“She didn’t want to stay at the penthouse. I could either take her to her apartment, or she was going to just leave on her own anyway.”
A fair point, but not one that improves my mood. “You should have made her call me.”
“I offered to do just that when you were calling me every damn day. You’re the one who said not to push her.”
“Because she’s not yours to push.” I bark into the phone. “Didn’t you tell her I said to call me?”
“Of course I did, Luka. The woman told me to fuck off, so I did. And then you told me not to push, so I didn’t. If you don’t like the way I handled this for you, the next time you run away in the middle of the night so you don’t have to have an uncomfortable conversation with your woman, you can handle it yourself.”
“She told you to fuck off?” The image of her hurling these words at him while her cheeks are flushed with anger flies through my mind.
“She did. I have to go. She’s fine. Go talk to her.” He disconnects the call before I can get anything else out of him.
