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“I believe Mr. Ivanov would have woken us,” I replied. I could tell how badly the boy missed his grandfather and felt guilty for taking him away. That said, Nikolai would have been shot dead while waiting for the school bus had I left him. His grandfather wouldn’t have loved that alternative either. “I’m going to put on a fresh suit in my room. Meet you downstairs in 15?”
Nikolai nodded his head, running the ring finger on his left hand along my jaw. I bent over to kiss him and then walked out.
Even those 15 minutes away from him hurt, somehow.
Chapter 17
Nikolai
This time, as I sat at the dining room table drinking my coffee with Mr. Ivanov and Damien—the others had already finished breakfast and were going about their business—it felt like home to me. I’d only been there a handful of days, but this felt like the norm. I was just having coffee with my family.
My mafioso family.
Who kidnapped me and told me I was a billionaire heir.
Who told me my second cousin was trying to murder me and that I’d have to murder him back.
Who taught me how to shoot guns and identify poisonous plants.
I should be careful with the word “family,” though. Damien wasn’t a brother, for example. He was even more than that to me.
Only, my Grandpa—my real family—wasn’t there. Maybe I’d hurt his feelings the other day. Maybe he just needed some time.
“Nikolai, can I show you something?” Damien asked. Was this his funny little of way of whisking me off somewhere to fuck or make love without saying so in front of Mr. Ivanov? Or was there more training? My brain was too foggy with the fact that I was falling in love for the first time, and allowing myself to, to concentrate much on the fact that we hadn’t made a real plan. I mean, how exactly were we going to go about killing Vladimir, anyway?
“Sure. Where?”
“Follow me,” he said, getting up and leaving the table.
Damien walked me through the lobby of the manor. I remembered arriving there just a few days earlier, completely bewildered while meeting this group of people I now felt so close with.
We walked past the grand living room where he’d first told me the truth about my parents. Where I’d shed my first tear with him. As we passed that room, Damien looked back at me and smiled.
Down the hall, he opened the door to a home office, which exuded a vintage charm with rich mahogany furniture and intricate, dark wood paneling that enveloped the walls. Sunlight streamed through heavy velvet curtains, casting a warm glow on the aged Persian rug beneath an ornate wooden desk.
On the desk, I noticed one golden frame containing a photo of my parents. To its right, in another golden frame, was a photo of me as a baby.
Towering bookshelves, filled with leather-bound tomes and dusty volumes, lined the walls, bearing witness to centuries of knowledge. An antique globe rested on a small side table, accompanied by a brass magnifying glass and a quill in an inkwell. The air was imbued with the scent of aged leather and parchment, creating an atmosphere of timeless scholarly refinement.
“Was this my mom’s office?” I asked.
“Your father’s,” Damien replied. “But your mother often sat here with him, working on their plans. All the ways in which your parents were trying to make the world a better place, well, a lot of those ideas were born here.”
I walked around the desk and sat on the plush, brown leather chair, where my father used to sit and work. Damien came and sat down on top of the desk. In that day’s sunlight, he looked impossibly handsome.
What a man.
“Do you feel like a boss?” he asked me, teasingly.
“I do,” I replied. “I demand a kiss from my minion.”
Damien crawled his big hands forward on the desk and leaned in to kiss me.
I couldn’t get enough of those lovely vanilla lips.
“But this isn’t what I wanted to show you,” Damien said.
“I had a feeling,” I said. “So then, off with those pants.”
