Deceitful Vows (Marital Privileges #2)

17. Andrik

17

ANDRIK

M y jaw throbs as manically as my cock when Zoya glides past a conglomerate as focused on the bottom line as the federation is. A handful of heads twist her way. They’re all male and will be dead by the end of the day if they don’t shift their focus off her ass before Konstantine scans their credentials into my database.

Once they’re on my radar, they’ll only be removed one way.

With a bullet.

Don’t misconstrue. I understand their instant fascination. Zoya has a body that should be worshiped for twenty-four hours of every day, but her defiance deserves an equal amount of attention yet seems forever overlooked.

I’ve always been good at reading people. Zoya’s story would have most men backing away with their hands held in the air.

It’s a pity for her I’m a stubborn fuck who always gets want he wants.

I want her, so I will have her.

No contest.

I just refuse for it to occur under the eyes of the puppeteers controlling my grandfather’s and father’s every move. They’re coming out of the woodwork faster than I could have imagined when I orchestrated my scheme, making me hopeful it won’t be as lengthy as first perceived.

Though I doubt anyone would see a lifetime commitment as a brief proceeding.

After slanting my head to hide my words from my father, who is approaching me as fast as Zoya is endeavoring to get away from me, I say, “She’s coming out the west entrance. Mikhail is hot on her tail.”

A conceited grin curls my top lip when I recall the cause of Mikhail’s slow chase. Since comms were back in operation, we knew who would enter the elevator on level sixty-three before the doors opened, but Mikhail refused to follow my ruse until I kicked him hard enough to give him a permanent limp.

Not even the full deeds of Brody’s could get him over the line during our rushed negotiations to find Zoya before anyone in our father’s crew.

I should be pleased I pulled the wool over Mikhail’s eyes as well as our father’s, but I’m not.

I am too tenacious to admit my worries center around Zoya also believing our meeting was solely about a payout for her silence, so I’ll blame it on knowing there’s currently more than one woman in Chelabini with my sperm inside her.

That’s fucked to even consider, and my mother would be mortified.

The remembrance places on my game face with barely a second to spare.

My father is at my side, signaling over a woman most men would hand over a fortune to bed.

Arabella has class, sophistication, and beauty. She just lacks the tenacity that makes Zoya such a firecracker. There’s no stubbornness to crack, no willfulness to bend. She was made to fit the mold instead of demanding its reproduction to ensure the perfect cast.

She’s boring, and I’m a prick who struggles to hide her deficiencies when she holds out her hand in offering as any gushing bride-to-be would when approaching their spouse. I stuff my hands into my pockets before shifting on my feet to face my father.

“What’s going on?” My tone speaks the words I can’t say with an audience. Why the fuck are you railroading me again?

This is his third incident today.

There is pushing the limits, and then there is completely overriding them.

His interference today is the latter.

My answer comes from a woman who needs to learn her place. “We figured with the media in surplus from your father’s first visit home in years, that it would be the prime opportunity to announce your engagement.” Dina, Arabella’s mother, curls her hand over the one I left hanging before tugging Arabella in closer like she has more say than my soon-to-be wife. “Kolya is confident it will increase your father’s lead in the latest polls by two percent.”

She gleams like I should be impressed.

I am far from it.

Her response is the exact reason I want to return my family name to the notoriety it once held. My ancestors didn’t hold press conferences to settle a debate on who is the most powerful. They battled like Vikings and siphoned enough blood from their enemies’ veins to fill the rivers of Russia.

They could marry who they wanted, when they wanted, without the absurdity of multiple events in the lead-up to the exchange of vows they had no plan to uphold.

It wasn’t about giving constituencies something to discuss around the watercooler with the hope of securing their vote at the next election.

They did what they wanted when they wanted.

So as you can imagine, it took everything I had to pretend I’m fine with the federation’s decision to refuse to acknowledge any paperwork I endorsed this morning until my family’s dynasty receives some sort of shebang from my fuckup, and that a future presidential puppet wasn’t conceived last night.

The only reason I agreed to go along with their suggestions was because Zoya was leaving my premises faster than my sleep-deprived head could come up with a better solution.

My smarts dip when I’m tired.

They’re wholly obliterated when my dick takes over the reins.

It wants Zoya as much as I do, and although my “marriage” will have her vying to deny her attraction to me, she won’t ever pull the wool over my eyes.

Betrothed or not, she wants me.

Her thirst is as obvious as the front row of journalists hoping they’re misreading the brief my grandfather’s head of staff is giving them. They’d rather I announce a bid for candidacy than an alteration to my relationship status.

Though I doubt either revelation will simmer their efforts for an exclusive for long. I’m propositioned more by members of the media than by any other field.

Freebies from high-end prostitutes is a close second.

Desperate for two seconds of peace so I can work through some of my confusion, I head for the podium-like stage my father’s team would have ensured was covered with his campaign flyers seconds after being erected.

Arabella and her mother fall into step behind me when I tap the microphone to announce the start of the conference I was unaware would be occurring this morning, much less with the scent of another woman’s arousal on my cock and lips.

With my thoughts immediately veering to how delicious Zoya tastes, I keep my statement as brief as the one Dina issued earlier in my office before I step back to allow the press the opportunity of adding images to the featured stories they’ll run within the hour.

When the flash of cameras doesn’t reach one tenth of the glare Zoya and Mikhail’s entrance caused, my grandfather’s chief of staff leans into my side and mutters, “It needs to look authentic. If it doesn’t, call this off now and tell your grandfather you’ve changed your mind. A loveless marriage will turn voters off even more than your father forever knocking up his mistresses.”

Word to the wise, don’t mock a man who has nothing to lose.

It never ends well.

Kolya is seconds from learning that the hard way before he distracts me by nudging his head in the direction Zoya went. “Let’s just hope they don’t blame her for the first out-of-wedlock bastard birthed into the Dokovic realm if the procedure last night was effective.”

He doesn’t need to announce who is behind his underhanded threat. The shakiness of his voice tells me everything I need to know.

He fears the wrath of the federation and believes I should depict the same trepidation.

I will never bow at the feet of an organization so cowardly they refuse to show their faces. But since I can’t announce that yet, against the protests of my cock and the small snippets of morals my mother drummed into me before she was forcefully removed from my life, I band my arm around Arabella’s slim waist and tug her into my side.

A vein in her neck thuds louder than Kolya’s relieved sigh when I tilt our hips with an intimacy only someone who has bedded her would have before I brush my nose against hers.

I inherited many traits from my father the past thirty years. This is the only one I’ve ever replicated from before my mother disappeared. Despite the many stepmothers I endured during my youth, my father only ever used this move on my mother. It is the perfect skit to have those around me believing I am in love because my father has never loved anyone but himself. My mother, however, let him get away with murder the instant their noses brushed.

The journalists eat up my rare public display of affection. They snap a hundred pictures, and the heat of their shouted words as they ask a range of questions about our “supposed” upcoming nuptials doubles the hue spreading across Arabella’s cheeks.

I’m barely touching her, so her mother’s claim of her purity must be accurate.

Only yesterday, the knowledge would have sparked a fierce interest in me.

Today, my cock doesn’t feel the slightest flutter.

It is as uninspired as the names listed on the files Dr. Hemway delivered to my hotel this morning, and as insipid as my mood becomes when Petr, the man assigned to trace Zoya’s every step, announces into my earpiece that he’s lost visual of his target.

Arabella squeaks when my grip on her waist turns deadly. I wring it like I want to Petr’s neck while my glare at the security camera in the corner of the new apartment block has him coughing up an excuse that makes me instantly hard despite my fury.

“She kneed me in the balls before popping her fist into my mouth.” His next set of words comes out with a stutter of a man on the verge of peeing his pants. “I-I didn’t retaliate. Bu-but she kneed me hard enough that by the time I caught my breath, she was long gone.”

“Kon—”

I don’t even get out his entire name before Konstantine announces he is tracking Zoya’s movements from when she left the hotel and that he will have an update on her location within minutes. “Where do you want me to send the coordinates?”

With my arm wrapped around the waist of my alleged fiancée, my reply shouldn’t be immediate. But it is. “Send them directly to me.”

I don’t wait for Konstantine to respond before I move away from the media endeavoring to work out the cause of the groove between my brows. He would follow my orders even if it instigated the massacre of an entire family. He’s good like that.

Unfortunately, not all members of my team are as observant of the rules. My return to the foyer of Mikhail’s building casts numerous shadows on the pristine marble floors.

I haven’t even conjured up an excuse to leave, yet Dina is already bitching in my ear about how it’ll look bad if I leave now. “Your father?—”

“Knows when to shut his mouth,” I snap out, annoyed I’m having my authority questioned by someone who should only ever be seen in the background of every frame. “I have an urgent matter I need to take care of.”

“Okay. That’s fine,” Arabella murmurs at the same time Dina asks, “What kind of matter?”

Again, her tone better take a back seat before I place her behind the scenes permanently.

She strives to wipe the fear from her eyes. It is still prominent when she leans in and whispers, “I’m only asking, Kazimir, because Arabella is in a prime ovulation window.” I am lost, and for once, I’m glad. “It is the perfect time for conception.”

Suspicion echoes in my tone. “As you stated this morning when you used that as your excuse to have her turkey basted with my sperm. You said it was prime breeding time and that you didn’t want to miss the opportunity of fulfilling the sole term of my contract at the earliest possible convenience.”

My wording choice could be better. I just don’t have the time or the patience to flick through a dictionary for a better definition of the jargon she hit me with this morning when she used the procedure Arabella undertook last night as a reason to deny my request for an annulment.

“That is correct,” Dina replies, her throat bobbing. “But the attending physician announced that the probability of conception would be higher if… it was administered again.”

“It?”

My cock shrivels when she thrusts her hand at my crotch. Its withered response isn’t solely because it is the first time it’s had a wrinkly hand within an inch of it. It is also compliments to what she says next. “He encourages an old-fashioned approach to conception.” She grabs my arm and pulls me deeper into the curtains flanking the floor-to-ceiling windows of the foyer. “Arabella is exceptionally trained in all aspects of matrimony. She is ripe and ready to please.”

Ripe?

She’s sporting off her daughter’s assets as if she is selling me a piece of steak.

After what I’ve seen in my industry, I shouldn’t be surprised. Women are bartered for as often as cocaine is traded. Their value rarely surpasses the white bricks of snow I’d hand over for free if forced to pick between banking its profits or burying my head between Zoya’s legs again.

I will always pick the latter.

“You just need to give her a chance to show you she will far succeed your greatest expectations.”

Before I can remind Dina of the exact wording of my contract with her daughter, Konstantine announces he has unearthed Zoya’s location. “She just entered Stoltz and Hemway’s office complex. She isn’t alone.” My back molars crunch when he says, “Mikhail is shadowing closely behind her. Want me to send someone in?”

“No,” I reply, aware nothing is done right unless you do it yourself. “I will handle this.”

Konstantine hums like he knows a cleanup crew will be called to Stoltz and Hemway before close of business, but then a harsh swallow cuts off its lengthy rumble.

“What is it?”

I’m seconds from signing Mikhail’s death certificate, when Konstantine shifts my focus elsewhere. “Man entering at your six. Blue suit. Seedy stache. One too many undone buttons. And a four-carat ruby on the custom piece on his left pinkie.” My eyes bounce to each feature he points out as I tighten my jaw more and more. “Does that crest look familiar to you?”

I squint, then cuss. I can’t see shit from this angle.

“The sun is?—”

My phone buzzing in my pocket interrupts my excuse. With my eyes on the man greeting my father as if they’re long-lost acquaintances, I dig my phone out of my pocket, then apprehensively drop my eyes to the image Konstantine forwarded.

Vengeance burns through my blood hot and fast. It isn’t an exact replica of the emblem I drew over a decade ago, but it is pretty fucking close.

“Who is he?”

A keyboard being punished sounds before Konstantine’s gravely tone. “Running him through facials now.”

Forever impatient, I say, “Tell Mikhail to move in closer until I get there.”

I don’t want to lose Zoya’s tail for the second time, but I’m too curious about the unnamed man’s identity to wait for facial recognition software to find a match. I’ve been seeking the owner of a large ruby ring with an engraved family crest on it for over thirty years. It was on the hand of the man my mother slapped mere seconds before she vanished without a trace—the same hand that left my cheek with a hairline scar.

“Warn Mikhail what will happen if he loses sight of her.”

“I’ll send exterminators to Petr’s location now,” Konstantine replies, announcing he knows what my unvoiced threat entails. “Anything else?”

Conscious he has eyes everywhere, I shake my head before yanking the bead-size communication device from my ear and dropping it to the floor.

The crunch of its demise is softer than the whack I hit my father’s back with before demanding an introduction to the man who has the focus of my entire team.

Even Arabella is gawking at him in surprise, and I’m really fucking curious to unearth why.