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“Ya ves’ tvoy,” I repeated, raising my voice, and I chanced looking at him.
The blankness was gone, replaced by the heated obsession that made me forget about all my doubts. “I ya vsegda tvoy.”
I didn’t know what he’d said, but it made me ache hearing the emotion in his voice. Maybe he would come with me for the summer. The university had gotten him to take over Professor Miller’s classes mid-semester. They could find someone else for the history seminar.
“What did he say? Wait, what did I say?”
“You told him to chill out,” she assured me. “And he promised he would. Right, Vaughn?”
He grunted and switched lanes again. “I promise to try.”
“Good,” I huffed before turning back to my friend. “Teach me more, Sammy.”
* * *
The noise of the city faded as we drove through a more secluded neighborhood. Houses became more spaced out until miles separated them, each one grander than the next. I barely took them in as I watched Sammy remove the IV from her hand and bandage it up.
If the private plane hadn’t given me an inkling of how rich Vaughn was, then his rolling to a stop in front of the entrance to the huge estate was a blaring sign.
My family had money; I would never deny that. Between our large beachfront house in Malibu, my private education, and the number of zeros in my trust fund, no one could ever say I hadn’t grown up on the high end of the income spectrum.
But there was rich, and then there was whatever the hell Vaughn’s family was.
Sammy snapped something at Vaughn as he put the SUV in park while a guard dressed in a three-piece suit walked toward us. Walls at least twenty feet high wrapped around the property as far as I could see, with huge double metal gates in front of us and a guard shed on each side.
“More Russian,” I grumbled. “But seriously, you live here?”
“I grew up here,” Sammy said with a shrug as the man neared.
“Jesus,” I breathed, but I quickly pressed my lips together, realizing how rude that sounded.
She didn’t seem to notice as she powered down her window to speak to the guard. “Open the gate. I’m tired and hungry.”
I tensed at the coldness of her voice. That was definitely not the Sammy I knew, but this time, I didn’t think it had anything to do with her head injury.
“Miss Vitucci.” The guard stood up straighter as soon as he heard her voice. “We weren’t expecting you.”
“Obviously,” she sneered. “Open the gate.”
“Your brother has given strict orders not to allow anyone through until he returns home.”
Vaughn twisted his neck left and right, as if loosening himself up. I bit my lip, a tension filling me that I didn’t understand. Danger. It kept screaming inside my head, a warning that I should have listened to.
“Including me?” Before I could blink, Sammy reached through the open window and grabbed the guard by his tie, jerking him forward so abruptly that his head knocked against the top of the vehicle. “Open the gate, or I will do it myself. And then I will tell my mother how you refused to allow me into my own home.”
“But—”
Vaughn caught my startled gaze in the mirror, and instinctively, I shook my head at him, but I had no idea what I was telling him not to do.
“Last time I was here, Number Two was…fired after the way he treated me.” Sammy’s voice dropped to a purr, sending a chill up my spine. “Open the fucking gate, or you’ll be joining him.”
Sweat dripped down the poor man’s pale face that had nothing to do with the weather. Lifting his hand, he motioned to the other person in the shed, and the gates slowly began to open. Sammy released his tie, a bright smile lifting her lips.
Fuck, did everyone in Vaughn’s family switch personalities so easily?
“Now, that wasn’t so hard, was it?” The guard gulped convulsively as he shook his head. “Thanks for being cooperative,” she cooed, giving him a little finger wave as the window powered back up.
“You were kind of rude to him,” I voiced, not hiding my frown at her while Vaughn drove through the now-open gate.
