Page 2 of In Love with her Bodyguards

I flopped down onto the couch, pouting. No way was I going to put up with this. Sure, he could stick me with a couple of bodyguards, but that didn’t mean I was going to let them control my life. They were going to have serious problems keeping me in hand. If they thought they could just stroll into my life, tell me how I was going to live, follow me everywhere, they had a whole heap of other shit coming their way.

I should have known there was something up when my father had given me the keys to that apartment, a few blocks away from his. He’d told me it was somewhere I could stay while I was figuring out what I was going to do with my freshly-earned degree, but clearly, he’d made sure I had a place he would have some control over, a place that he would be able to call the shots in. I couldn’t believe I hadn’t seen it before; I should have never taken him at his word. I knew the way my father worked, and every little detail was usually part of some long-term plan he had in mind to make everything work to his advantage.

I dragged myself to my feet, and sloped out of the door, not seeing any more reason in sticking around now he had told me how things were going to be. Maybe I could move out, find another place of my own, make it so he couldn’t install his men there...but I didn’t have any funds that didn’t come directly courtesy of my father, and I knew there was no way I would be able to find a job fast enough to put down rent and a deposit on a place in the next few days. Shit!

Outside, it had just started to drizzle, the rain reflecting my terrible mood. I couldn’t believe it. All my friends from Budapest, all my old school companions here in New Ruska, none of them were having to put up with any shit like this, were they? None of them had to worry about keeping themselves safe against some imagined threat that their father had invented for them...

And, okay, I got it. New Ruska was a Bratva city, through and through, and my father was the head of one of the most powerful families in the place – I could see why he might be worried about the danger that would put me under. But didn’t he see how ridiculous he was being? I wasn’t going to give up my freedom to have two guards trailing after me in everything I did. How was I meant to go out and have fun? Or even get a job, for that matter? I was going to be totally limited, they were going to cramp my style, no matter what I was getting up to. Just the thought of it had me fuming.

I couldn’t believe it. But, at the same time, maybe I should have expected something like this, after being away for so long. My father had always been protective of me, ever since my mother abandoned me on his doorstep all those years ago; she had never wanted me, and he had always gone out of his way to make sure that I knew how much he really, truly did. I appreciated the effort, but right now, I wished I could just tell him he didn’t need to worry that much. There was caring about me, and then, there was going to all these lengths to try and control me. I didn’t like it. Not one little bit.

I arrived back at my new apartment and trudged up the stairs to my new home; I hadn’t even gotten around to unpacking the boxes yet, but I guessed I was going to have to leave the guest rooms empty for the bodyguards who were about to move in and live with me. I hated having roommates; I had been so looking forward to having some real space of my own when I was back in New Ruska, but, obviously, I wasn’t going to get quite that lucky. God, it just pissed me off so much – right when I thought I had gotten things the way I wanted them, my father’s interfering was going to ruin it all.

I threw myself down on my bed, staring up at the ceiling for a moment. I knew him well enough to be well aware that he wasn’t going to change his mind anytime soon. If he had it in his head that this was how it needed to go, then he was going to do just that, whether I liked it or not. I wished I could just convince him I wasn’t this useless little girl anymore, I was a grown woman, and I could handle myself, no matter what the world threw at me. I had just made it a whole year living in a new city, for God’s sake, wasn’t that enough for him? Wasn’t that proof that I wasn’t the kid he so obviously thought I was?

Well, I was going to have to accept it. I didn’t know what these bodyguards were going to be like, but I got the feeling they would be as uptight and stoic as my dad was. Hardly fun to have around, especially not after the good times I had been having lately.

Good times ended here. I should have been ready for something like this. And, whether I liked it or not, all the freedom I’d gotten used to was about to vanish into thin air.

Chapter Two – Alex

"You know much about the Antonovs?" I muttered to Solomon, as we rode up in the elevator together. He shrugged.

"Enough," he replied.

"Enough?"

"Enough to know that when you get a meeting with one of them, you don’t turn it down," he replied, cocking an eyebrow at me. "Which is why we’re here."

"You have any idea what this mission is about, exactly?"

"None," he replied, shaking his head. "Just play it cool, alright? The last thing we want is to make an enemy of Maxim Antonov."

If there was one person in this world I trusted to give it to me straight, it was Solomon, and, when Maxim had reached out to us last week, he had insisted we meet with him. Whatever the job was, he told me, it was worth finding out just how much we might get paid for it – these guys had pretty much all the money in the city to their name, and we would have been stupid to turn our backs on it.

And money was the one thing that decided what our next job was going to be. Solomon and I had been working together for the better part of a year now, when we had been paired up to deal with a Francone family matter; taking out a whole compound of their enemies in a single night, the payout had been worth it, but, more than anything, I had been impressed that Solomon had actually been able to keep up with me.

With my military training, I was disciplined and focused in a way that not many of the Bratva freelancers were. No, too many of them were easily distracted by money or girls or booze or whatever the hell was put in front of them, but that had never been my game. When I took on a mission, I saw it through, no matter what obstacles were put in front of me. Nothing got in the way of doing what needed to be done.

And Solomon was exactly the same way. He might have been a little looser in how he went about pulling these missions off, but he wouldn’t back down until he had delivered exactly what had been asked of him. The two of us had clicked immediately, and we’d been working together ever since we had first met, doubling our coverage – and our prices – in the process.

And now, apparently, we had caught the attention of one of the most influential families in the whole city. I would be lying if I said I wasn’t a little nervous. Though I’d been part of this world for a long time now, that didn’t mean that there wasn’t a part of me that worried about how I was going to be perceived, coming from the background I did. The Bratva crew, they were often doubtful of anyone who hadn’t been born and raised in the business. I had proved myself a hundred times over now, but that didn’t mean people didn’t look twice when they found out I had once worked for the state.

Though that was long behind me now, long behind me. I had seen the shit the military did in other nations, and there was no way what this Antonov guy was going to ask us to do could have been worse than that...

The doors to the elevator opened, and, just like that, I found myself looking at Maxim Antonov; an older man with dark hair that was gray around the temples, in a suit that probably cost more than a month of my rent.

"Solomon, Alex," he greeted us, shaking us both by the hand in turn. "Thank you for coming. Please, follow me to my office..."

Solomon and I exchanged a look, but did as we were told. The penthouse we were in was seriously fancy, with a view over the entire city. Probably so Maxim and Damyan could keep an eye on their whole empire. With their hard work, they controlled the better part of New Ruska, and that was only expanding with every passing day. I had no doubt that we had been called in to help with that.

In his office, Maxim poured both of us a generous measure of vodka; I took the drink, knowing better than to turn down one when it was given to me, especially in circumstances like this. Maxim would expect us to play by his rules as long as we were in his home, and I was willing to make that happen, if it meant we would have a chance to work with him.

"So, this job I have for you," Maxim began, clasping his hands on the dark, polished wood of the desk before him. "It’s...a little different from what you might have done before."

"We’ve done almost everything you can think of," Solomon replied, a slightly cocky smile on his face. He prided himself on being able to handle anything that this line of work threw at him – a good approach for the most part, but sometimes, it would get him in trouble. Like when he didn’t know how to keep his mouth shut at the bar when we went out for a drink after a tough job, and I had to pull him out of there before he said more than he was supposed to.

"I’m well aware of your reputation," Maxim replied. "That’s why I brought you here today."

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