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Okay. Done. Decision made. Goodbye forever, Ruslan Oryolov.
So why don’t I feel right about it?
7
RUSLAN
I’ve had a single question circulating in my head since seven minutes and twenty-three seconds after the top of the hour, when Emma walked out of my office with the contract tucked under her arm.
Will she surrender?
There’s a chance she’ll turn me down straight-up. I’m prepared for that. What I’m not prepared for is the nauseating churn in my gut when I consider her walking out my door for good.
Which is fucking bullshit, of course. What do I care about one woman in a city of millions? I could hurl my desk chair out of my office right this second and hit a dozen willing prospects on the way down. A dozen eageryeseswho’d sign without bothering to read a single line of my love life contract.
Correction: not my love life, mysexlife. I have no interest in love. I made that decision thirteen years ago when I saw what loving a woman would cost me.
I’ve dawdled away the evening, left aimless by the lack of an assistant. Without Emma to keep my life in line, I’ve simply canceled everything on my calendar, clearing a block of empty time to do nothing but obsess over what answer she’ll bring back to me tomorrow.
So I’m glad for the distraction when my father and uncle stroll into my office. Both are working members of Bane Corp., with offices in the building, though neither one bothers to actually come in very often.
That’s the secret to keeping up the appearance of legitimacy: sometimes, things actually need to be legitimate.
“Where’s your assistant?” Uncle Vadim asks, taking the left chair opposite my desk.
“She’s taking a sick day.”
My father, Fyodor, scans my desk. “You should have two assistants. For just such an instance.” He has just a hint of an accent, unlike my uncle, whose Russian bark is anything but subtle.
“It’s hard enough findingonecompetent assistant. I can’t imagine finding two.” I really don’t want to talk about Emma any more than I have to think about her, so I change the subject smoothly. “How about dinner? Kirill’s on his way here. He can pick something up for us.”
I text Kirill and tell him to bring food. Then I turn my attention to the elder Oryolov brothers.
At sixty-five, Vadim is still spry. His piercing blue gaze carries a touch of menace from the old days, back when my father waspakhanand Vadim was his second.
Fyodor, on the other hand, who’s just five years older than his brother, looks every bit his age. People call time the subtle thief of youth, but they’re all wrong. It’s not time that’s the thief—it’s sorrow.
“Why are the two of you darkening my doorstep today?”
Vadim speaks first, which is strange. There used to be a time when Vadim wouldn’t even sit until Fyodor gave the word. But that was a different time, a differentpakhan.
“We signed another client. Williamson something or other.”
I loft a brow. “The basketball player?”
“That’s the one.” There’s a note of smug satisfaction in Vadim’s voice. “He wasn’t happy with his previous security company. Enter Bane Corp.”
That’s easily a ten-million-dollar account, but I merely nod. I learned a long time ago that my uncle considers praise to be offensive. Or rather, he considers praise frommeto be offensive. In his eyes, he was the one who was supposed to be handing down orders. He was the one who was supposed to wear the mantle ofpakhan.
But he got short-changed when Fyodor decided to pass him over in the wake of the accident. Instead, at twenty-one, I assumed the crown and my uncle was forced to fall in line behind me. But fall in line he did, because no one fucks with apakhan’s decision.
By the time Kirill walks in with our food, I’m starving. We spread the takeout boxes across my desk and fall silent as we eat.
I stuff my face with pita and shawarma and try not to think about Emma. But despite the conversation rotating through half a dozen equally irrelevant topics, my mind keeps sliding back to her. She showed up today looking extra put-together. Probably intending to counteract her dazzling lack of professionalism from yesterday. High heels, a moss green skirt, a cheap leather choker around her throat. Her hair was pulled back so tight that it made me want to rip it out of the bun just so I could use it to rein her in.
I can just imagine the filthy things she would whimper to me with those plump, red-stained lips.Punish me, Mr. Oryolov. Fuck me. Do whatever you want, sir.
Kirill snaps his fingers in front of my face. The fantasy dissolves. “Yo, bro? Where’d you go?”
