AllFreeNovel
Share Us
She looks up at me with her big, sad eyes and my heart breaks knowing I have to keep her here, that the Alekseev compound is the only safe place for the two of us, even though no teenager should have to live like she’s in a prison, even in a nice one like we have here.
I sigh and rub her back. “You know that’s not going to happen, Evie. I’m sorry. I wish things were different.”
She squirms, throwing my hand off her.
Punk.
“Did Pops really sell you to these guys? Is that why you can’t leave?” she suddenly asks, her eyes drilling mine like she’s daring me to lie.
My God.
“Where did you hear that?”
She shrugs. “I heard bit and pieces. I sort of put the story together.”
I look around the room, wondering where to start. “Look Evie, someday I will tell you the whole story, but Pops got into some financial trouble. It was… decided that I’d go to work for the guys. I waitressed for a while until… they said I didn’t have to anymore. And I’ve been here, with them, since. They feel it’s safer. Just like it is for you.”
Skeptical, she frowns. “Do you like them?”
Hmmm. How to answer that. “They have their good sides. So, I guess I could say I’m still deciding.”
If only I believed that. Any decision to be made already has been. They might have kidnapped or stolen me, or whatever the hell our arrangement can be called, but they’ve also stolen my heart, and that’s not something I’m going to get back.
* * *
CHAPTERTEN
Kir
“ThePakhanwants to meet with you.”
Charleigh frowns, playing with the locker around her neck. “What?Me? Why?” she asks, trying but failing to hide the tremble in her voice.
I knew she wouldn’t be happy about this. After all, last time she was in front of thePakhan, he dismissed her as an inconsequential female, as he does all women. Someone who grew up in our world might be used to such treatment by the older, more traditional men in the syndicate, but to Charleigh, it was pretty fucking insulting.
It pissed her off. Actually, she’s been pissed off a lot lately.
She needs to control her anger when she’s with him. She can vent with us guys, afterwards, but trying to put thePakhanin his place is a waste of breath at the very least, and downright dangerous to her, at worst. If the man hasn’t learned by now that women deserve more respect than his generation doles out, Charleigh certainly isn’t going to change his ways, much as she’d like to.
I speak slowly, hoping to calm her nerves. “He wants to hear your version of what happened with Dimitri. He listens to both sides and then decides how he wants to settle matters,” I say like this is business as usual.
I know this won’t placate her. She has no patience for thePakhandeciding anything. But if she doesn’t bide her time, she won’t accomplish a thing, and she’ll never get close to the revenge that is driving her soul right now. We’ve got to get that through to her.
Her fingers drill the arm of the chair she’s in, and she shifts like she’s uncomfortable. “Youalready told him everything. I have nothing to add.”
I reach for her hand. “It will be fine. He’ll be perfectly nice. Take it as a compliment, that he wants to hear the story straight from you. That shows he believes you.”
Her eyes widen. “Hebelieves me? Was there ever any question? We know exactly who took me, what they did to me, and why. Are you saying he needs some sort of convincing or something?”
The pitch of her voice rises as she speaks faster and faster.
She throws her arms up. “What more can I tell him? I mean, does he think I made the whole thing up?”
I shake my head. “It’s not like that, Charleigh.”
She juts her chin out. “What if I don’twantto meet with him? He’s… a scary man. And besides,Iknow what Dimitri did, and that’s all that matters. And I know what I’m going to do to him in return. So who cares what thePakhansays.”
I try not to laugh. What she is saying makes perfect sense.
