Deceitful Vows (Marital Privileges #2)

71. Zoya

71

ZOYA

W hen my footing slips, I stab my nails into the moss-coated brickwork bordering the massive gardens of Andrik’s family estate. The weather in this part of Russia is as poor as Myasnikov’s nine months of winter. It is dewy out, and the denseness of the fog almost had me tumbling out of the window I pried open with a letter opener I’d found on Andrik’s desk.

As I take a moment to settle my frantic breaths, I think back to the news Dr. Leverington announced seconds before ignoring my request for him not to share the results with Andrik.

I wanted to tell him myself, under better circumstances.

I didn’t want it shared as if it was an asset he was purchasing on the black market.

In a way, I’m glad Dr. Leverington has no respect for women’s rights. If he hadn’t told Andrik the news, I wouldn’t have overheard Andrik organizing an abortion for our unborn child.

I’ve never read someone so poorly before. Yes, it is sudden, and I’m shit fucking scared of stuffing this up as badly as my mother did, but Andrik’s contract with Aleena demanded haste. Immediate steps were put into place so she could fulfill his wish to become a family man, so why is he so quick to disregard the welfare of our unborn child?

I don’t have time to sit around and deliberate, so I continue scaling down one of the many rock fence walls that divide massive country estates. I’m wearing a raincoat over the shirt I stole from Andrik’s room and rain boots I found in a garden shed on the edge of the pebbled driveway. It is freezing, but the raincoat and rain boots are lined with fleece, so my heart is the only thing needing defrosting.

Untrusting of the people in properties directly bordering Andrik’s country estate, I follow the road for several miles before crossing into familiar territory. I haven’t been in this part of Russia before, but all projects are the same. They’re filled with people more willing to help since it is those who have the least who give the most.

“Thank you,” I murmur when a lady with a mouthful of rotting teeth places a blanket over my shoulders. When a banana is thrust my way next, I shake my head. “I’m good. Thank you.” I can’t take her food, especially not with my stomach as full as it is. “I will get this back to you.” I tug on the blanket keeping my shoulders warm. “I promise.”

She sheeshas off my promise before pushing a cart full of blankets down the street dotted with homeless people. She hands them blankets similar to the one she gave me and smiles a toothless grin when they greedily accept the banana I denied.

When I made my plan to escape, I had no clue which direction I should walk. I can’t immediately go to Nikita because that is the first place Andrik would look, though she is also the one person I need to speak with the most.

I lose the chance to deliberate when the bang of a truck’s loading doors booming closed break through the quiet. I race to catch the delivery driver before he can slip into the driver’s seat. He could be going in any direction, but the symbol on the side of his van has me confident he is heading in the same direction as me.

It is the catering company responsible for feeding Myasnikov Private Hospital patients each day.

“Hey, I was wondering if I could get a lift with…” My words trail off when the face that peers back at me registers as familiar.

Nikita was right. Boris’s mother gave him a nickname that matches his bulldog face.

The farce is worse when his features are weighed down with confusion. “Zoya?”

I wipe my riled expression from my face before stepping out from beneath the shadow of the streetlight. “Hey, Boris. What are you doing out this way?”

“Um…” He hooks his thumb to the van. “Dropping off some supplies for my side gig.” He nervously shifts from foot to foot. “The hospital doesn’t pay enough to cover all my expenses.”

“You’re preaching to the wrong girl.” My underhanded invitation for him to bring Nikita into our conversation works well.

“Is Nikita here with you?” He peers past me like my raincoat and rain boots are designer, and we’re on the sidewalk of the hottest nightclub in the country.

“No. She’s… Ah… She is…” After a groan of a defeated woman, I snap out, “She’s at home with her husband.”

Boris gives off creeper vibes, so I can’t thrust Nikita under his spotlight no matter how desperate I am.

His eyes snap back to mine. “She is?” When I nod, he stammers. “ Oh… ” He wets his mouth like the knowledge she is at home is more shocking than the news she is married. “I didn’t realize she had gotten married.”

“Yeah. It was a couple of weeks ago.” I have no trouble placing myself in danger, though. “Now I’m the only one single and ready to mingle.”

“Oh.” This is a different “oh” from his earlier one. It is the one of a man suddenly interested in what I am endeavoring to sell him.

When his eyes lower to my left hand to authenticate my claim as if he’s heard differently, I slip it behind my back before trying to remove the diamond ring that’s fit so snug I’d have a better chance of removing it if I had a hacksaw.

Boris is smarter than he looks. “I should go. Take care of yourself, Zoya.”

I thwart his exit with a shameful plea. “Can I get a lift, please? It’s freezing out here, Boris, and you are the only one capable of saving me.” I want to gag when my voice is similar to the one Aleena used to convince Andrik’s security guards to leave their post, but its effectiveness keeps my cringe on the down-low. “Can you help me, Boris? Please.”

“I-I shouldn’t. I’m not meant to let anyone know about this gig.” He’s telling me no even with his actions doing the opposite. He looks seconds from scooping my hand into his and asking if he can keep me forever. “It pays well because the materials I distribute are confidential.”

“I won’t tell anyone. It will be our little secret.” When his pants tighten at the front, I scrape my teeth over my lower lip and then fan open my raincoat. Andrik’s shirt would look baggy if I didn’t have Es. “I’m good at keeping secrets, Boris. You can tell me anything and I won’t tell a soul… Not even your mother will know all the wicked things we’ll share.”

The diamonds in my wedding band should announce to him how much of a liar I am, but since he’s a mommy’s boy who will never stop sucking on her bosom without a woman like me forcing him from her tit, he wants to believe me.

“Okay. But you can’t tell anyone about this.”

“I won’t tell a soul,” I promise while following him to the passenger side of the van with my fingers crossed behind my back.

After he removes a handful of invoices that look familiar to the one I paid three nights ago, he gestures for me to enter. Since he is so busy ogling my ass during my climb, I get a glimpse of the “packages” he’s delivering. They don’t look like produce.

“Eyes to the front,” Boris demands when my backside’s plonk into the seat returns his focus to his job.

I hold up my hands as if I am being arrested. “I was just trying to latch my belt.”

My skin quivers when he finds and latches it for me. He smells funky. It isn’t a sweaty smell. It is more chemical based than body odor, and it doubles my assumption that he’s transporting more than fruit and vegetables.

“Where to?” Boris asks after slipping behind the steering wheel, startling me. He moved so fast that I didn’t hear his steps.

It isn’t the time to expose my I-want-you act was a ruse to get a ride, so I reply, “I will direct you once we get closer to Myasnikov.”

He eyes me for several long seconds before he eventually commences our across-territories journey.