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For a long moment, she stares up at me. I can almost hear her thoughts. Can she trust me? Is it dangerous to tell me? But finally, resolve settles on her expression.
“He’s my brother. I’m looking for him because he’s gone missing.” She jerks her chin from my grasp and snatches the flyer from me. “Now you answer me. Do you know where he is?” She shakes it at me. Gone is the uncertain girl, replaced by a mother hen of sorts.
“When’s the last time you saw him?” I pull my phone from my back pocket as it starts to buzz. Several messages that need to be dealt with. I hadn’t planned on spending the night here, or the morning. I have business to get done, but not before I settle this.
“Three years ago. He’s older now, twenty-two.” She sighs, looking at the picture. “He was eighteen in the picture, about to turn nineteen.”
“Where did you last see him?” I ask.
“At home. We had an apartment together… just please, you seem like you know him. Where is he? Is he okay?” She grabs my wrist. “Please. Do you know him?” The desperation leaks out into her tone, and I wish I had the answers she’s looking for.
“I don’t know where he is now, but I know where he was a while back.” I shoot Nikolai a text to be sure he’s home before I go over there. “He’s not there now. I can ask around to see if anyone knows where he went after. They might have kept tabs on him. I don’t know.” When Nikolai picked up Viper and put him in rehab, I wasn’t involved. Maybe he or someone closer to him will know where he ran off to once he was clean. It’s not a great sign that he didn’t come to his sister.
“Where was he?” she asks, rushing to the nightstand to get a small notebook and a pen. She flips through to a blank page and readies herself to take notes.
Viper was getting himself into serious trouble with dangerous people. I don’t want her near this until I know what’s become of him.
“I just ordered breakfast.” I tuck my phone into my back pocket. “I have to get to a meeting. I’ll be back this afternoon, and I’ll try to have the information you need.” I point to her phone on the dresser next to her purse. “I put my number in your phone; call me if you need something. But I don’t want you going out looking for him again. Not until I find out what I need to find out.”
Her shoulders drop at the same time as her jaw. “No. You’re insane. I’m not going to just sit here and wait like some… some… some… whatever.” She throws her hand through the air when she can’t come up with the word she wants. “I’m going with you.” And with that, she immediately runs to the dresser and opens the first drawer, pulling out a pair of jeans.
“No.” I grab hold of the pants and toss them onto the bed. “You’re going to stay here, take a shower, eat your breakfast, and have some water to help with your hangover.”
“I’m fine now. I don’t need that.” She reaches for another pair of pants in the drawer, which I relieve her of and toss on top of the first pair.
“You’re going to stay here, eat your damn breakfast, and get some rest. I will be back this afternoon.” I shut the drawer before she can reach in again. “If you don’t do this, do you know what will happen to you?”
She pinches her lips together so tightly they take on a tinge. “You don’t get to tell me what to do.”
“Yes,moy malen’kiy voin, I do.”
Her mouth drops open slightly while she shakes her head. “No. You don’t.”
“I do.”
“You’re nuts. Does Anya’s husband know you’re crazy? You can’t just insert yourself into my life and decide you know what I’m going to do. You can’t do that.”
She fully believes what she’s saying. It’s unfortunate, but it’s best she understands the situation.
“I can.” I put my finger over her lips when she starts to speak again. “I can, Mandy, because you’re mine now.” At least for the time being. It will be easier to help her and protect her this way.
“Anya never mentioned how crazy her husband and his friends are. She should have said something.”
I should probably take offense, but she’s looking up at me with a flush on her cheeks that gives her too innocent a look for me to get angry at. Even more proof she needs protection. The world her brother was living in isn’t for someone with her purity, her beauty.
“Breakfast will be here soon.” I brush the hair away from her cheeks and cradle her face. “Don’t leave before I get back. Yes?” I pin her with my glare.
“I can’t be yours,” she says and there’s a sincerity to it that gives me pause.
“Why?”
“I just can’t.” Her nostrils flare. It’s adorable, her frustration.
“That’s not a good reason,moy malen’kiy voin. It’s not even a reason. I should warn you, when I want something, I get it. No matter the price. And I want you.”
“But why?” She’s almost as exasperated as I am with this conversation. She should just give over, it’s easier for her, but the fact that she won’t makes me want her all the more.
“Because I do.” Before she can ask another question, I press my mouth against hers. Her warm lips soften beneath my kiss as I deepen it, brushing the tip of my tongue against her bottom lip until she opens for me. My cock is already steel-hard from earlier, and now, having tasted her, I’m hungry for all of her.
