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“I’m talking to you, obviously.”
He growls, which sends a shiver through my body, and I turn my eyes toward the guard, hoping he doesn’t notice. Thankfully, he keeps his attention averted. “Smart ass. What did I say about staying away from that woman?” I fucking knew it.
“I am staying away from her. What makes you think otherwise? Are you spying on my calls?”
“Don’t believe anything she has to say.” What does he think she’s going to tell me?
“Don’t spy on me again. I can’t believe you.” I end the call and go back into the kitchen to see Junior staring at me with a scowl on his face.
“She contacted you, didn’t she?” he asks, and I wonder if it’s because I’m angry or if he’s monitoring my calls and texts as well.
I take a seat and try to enjoy my breakfast because we shouldn’t let food go to waste, but my mood has soured instantly. “It wasn’t Jordan. It was our stupid godbrother because he’s spying on my phone messages.”
“It’s his job.”
“Oh.” I stab my fork into my eggs, losing my appetite with every dig into the soft, fluffy yellow food. “Why can’t you all just leave me alone? I don’t need a babysitter. I told you all I wasn’t going to be talking to her.” I drop my fork onto my plate, losing my desire to eat. With a scoot of my chair back, I slide away from the table. I’m about to leave the kitchen when my phone ringsagain, but I ignore it and toss my phone in my glass of orange juice. I can’t deal with this right now.
“Nat,” Dom says.
“Lia,” my sister calls out, but I keep walking. I have no interest in talking to anyone right now.
I spend the rest of the day in my room, refusing to speak to anyone. I’m sure my father will punish me for tossing my phone in the juice, but I don’t care. After the party, I didn’t know who to trust, so I cut off all my supposed friends, and knowing that I’m being spied on, I don’t want a phone they pay for. I’ll use the money I have saved and buy a prepaid if I want to use one.
For now, I’ll go without one. My parents are home, and there’s no one else that has a reason to contact me. The only person I want to speak to is Ilya, even though I’m pissed that he’s spying on me for my parents. It sucks that he’s only doing it as an order and not because he cares.
Chapter Five
Ilya
Being away from Natalya gets harder and harder every single day. Six months have passed since her birthday. I am halfway to ending my purgatory. The thought of her finding or falling for some young punk in the meantime weighs on my mind. Luckily, her father keeps a tight leash on her, and she’s not allowed to meet a lot of boys. Most of them are during her free time, and even that is monitored heavily, which she hates. If she only knew the truth.
Drago informed me that Natalya was pissed about the phone and destroyed it. She purchased a burner at the mall the following day, but it wasn’t like we didn’t have the info for it and hacked it too. She doesn’t use it, but she hangs on to the piece-of-shit device even though Natalya’s parents gave her a new phone that she only uses to contact them. I don’t like the damn thing because there are bad people willing to get their hands on Romanov’s daughter.
I’ve restrained myself and controlled my urges, refusing to call her again. Calling her was foolish the first time. A rookie mistake for any man in my world, but the thought of her defying me and putting her life in danger when I am thousands of miles away is unbearable. The thought of something terrible happening to her is torture, and it lives in my mind every single day.
If I’d waited for Drago to call me back instead of rushing to ensure she didn’t meet with Jordan, she wouldn’t have known I was tracking her phone activity. Everything would have been a little more peaceful. Right now, all of Drago’s men watch her ata reasonable distance while she tries to defy them at every turn, making things a little more unsafe.
Natalya is the perfect mix of her mother and father: sweet and tough, dark and light, and I want it all for myself. She’ll be mine one day. I count the days, but it won’t be soon enough. Every passing hour feels like an eternity and every shadow a potential threat.
The problem with the Fratellis almost disappeared from that day, which makes me apprehensive. It doesn’t make sense to me that they would stop just because that one scheme didn’t pan out, especially with that little drug addict. Something else is at play unfortunately, I’m too far away to dig deeper. My little incident has been ruled an accident given the fact that the hotel room had been messy and nothing, including the kilo of drugs, had been stolen. Drago was pleased to learn that there was no trace evidence left behind and the knife I left in his eye had been a standard-issue, everyday switchblade that was untraceable.
Even the Fratellis are under the impression the idiot accidentally tripped on the knife after getting out of the shower. The blade even had a hint of coke on it from when I dipped my blade in it, so he’d stabbed cocaine into his eye, or rather directly into his brain. I wanted to check them out some more, but that meant entering dangerous territory. Natalya territory.
I head into my family home to visit with my parents and find my father and mother kissing on the sofa as always. My brother chuckles. “They never quit.”
“You should be so lucky to find someone you can’t live without,” my father says, holding my mother close. My chest burns as I consider living without Natalya.
I swallow hard. I haven’t seen her in person in six months. It’s not that I haven’t had my ways to steal surveillance footage and stills of my princess, but I’m unable to touch her, kiss her, hold her. None of that is an option for me until she turns eighteen and I can greet her properly as my future wife. These days aren’t getting easier, and visiting my own family has become a burden. I’ve made my trips here less and less frequent, something my father has certainly noticed.
My phone mercifully rings in my pocket. “Excuse me. I must take this call.” I leave the room and head out in the cold Russian air to ice over my heart while I mentally repeatsix more months.
****
Anatoly and I meet at his gentlemen’s club before as he had some serious issues to discuss and wasn’t able to get away. Still, I hate coming here, but there are matters that require my attention.
I should be in America in two more days, so whatever it is, hopefully it doesn’t take long and I’ll be on my way to where I truly care to be and away from this debauchery. Finally, it’s time to go to my beloved for her eighteenth birthday.
My best friend and I greeted one another at the door, and I’m led straight to his back office, away from the strippers who are in the middle of a performance. I don’t give them an ounce of my attention because I’d never betray my bride.
