Guarded Rebellion (The Baranov Legacy)

9. Lev

9

LEV

E very call I received pulled me further from Eva.

She was just supposed to be a job. The Boss’s expectations of me were that I supervise her while she attended her classes on campus. Being her shadow, warning her from considering any risky behavior, and dismissing any threats. Those were my primary tasks, and without anything of substance to report as intel on the Petrov student here, it was all I concentrated on.

Still, I was tied to the family and held to the obligations to take the calls from my fellow soldiers and other leaders within the organization. As of late, over the course of the week since I caged Eva to the wall and pushed the boundaries of wanting her under my submission, countless messages and calls had come in to me.

I was required to answer them all. My assignment of staking out, hunting down, and killing Yusuf Ilyin was over, but lingering questions and concerns kept me accountable.

“Do you know who he was?” a supervisor asked. He wanted the same information others in the Baranov Family had been inquiring about.

“No,” I replied, not breaking my stride as I walked with Eva. She glanced over her shoulder, noticing my one-word reply. I was careful never to speak about specifics out loud, and that included watching what I said around her. She was an insider. Eva was tied to the family and would otherwise be safe to hear anything I said, but I couldn’t trust this college campus. In this crowded corridor that led to another lecture hall, anyone could be listening.

“You have no clue?” the man asked.

I just fucking said that. “No,” I repeated, keeping my voice level and dull, emotionless and sans the frustration that built within me.

A month had passed since I’d taken out Yusuf, and it seemed those four weeks were all that were needed for lots of questions to arise. Another man had been around Yusuf throughout my stakeout before I could get to him and kill him. And that man was an outlier. I failed to identify him as an Ilyin soldier. I couldn’t place him as a man from another organization either.

I’d killed him, though, catching him near the cabin when I had the clearance to kill Yusuf. Only now, reports were coming in that he was a dead man walking again. That he hadn’t died by my hand. That I hadn’t killed him that day.

Eva reached the doors to the large auditorium and flicked a hand at me. I couldn’t tell if it was a wave or a shooing gesture of her wishing me to leave her be. Since that close moment where I’d held her neck and warned her off flirting with anyone here, she’d been more aloof than ever.

Or maybe it just seems like that because I’m always on the fucking phone. Being tugged in another direction with these rising questions about the day I’d killed Yusuf weren’t aiding anything between us. I’d been distracted and distant.

But isn’t that for the best?

Rurik didn’t need to advise me to forget about having Eva. Any tryst or intimacy would be frowned upon and forbidden. I hadn’t lost sight of my place and I knew what hers was. Yet, I couldn’t click off this bone-deep desire that flared to the surface when I witnessed her sassy expressions and pouts of annoyance with me.

“We can discuss it tomorrow,” the leader replied, clearly irked that I couldn’t provide him with any other details or answers.

I wouldn’t shirk from dutifully answering any questions about Yusuf’s death, but I couldn’t abandon my post with Eva, either. “Yes,” I replied anyway, knowing that another soldier could stand in for me while I returned to the Baranov mansion to speak with the Boss and other concerned leaders tomorrow morning.

The soldier, Marcus, arrived on time, but I scowled when realizing one of the newest, cockiest soldiers would be taking over Eva’s guard in my absence.

“She’s to go nowhere. Only her lecture, with your presence,” I told him when he arrived at the apartment. Turning my head from side to side, I tried to lose the nagging ache of strain in the muscles of my neck. The pillows were too damn soft to be comfortable.

“Yes, sir,” he replied at the same time Eva huffed and carried on to the kitchen.

“Nowhere but her lecture hall,” I repeated, directing the order to her this time.

“Why would I assume otherwise, overlord asshole?” she quipped.

What I wouldn’t do to spank that sass out of you… I bit my tongue and ignored Marcus raising his brows in surprise. After I gave him one more stern look, I left to drive back to the house she’d wanted to leave so badly just to go to school.

The entire drive back, I thought about her. Why she’d be so adamant to go to college. If she really thought she could have a career. But mostly, how she seemed happy about being gone. Eva wasn’t “happy” around me. Near me, she was rude and impatient, but I could call her on that act and know that her attitude was directed in retaliation for how strict I was with her. When she wasn’t aware of me watching her, I picked up on how calm and satisfied being an academic woman made her. She was peaceful when reading. She was pensive and looked intellectual when studying.

On one hand, I could sympathize with her need to not be idle. That she could feel better about herself to apply her smarts and have a goal like acing a test. I, too, loathed being still and without a purpose.

But what the hell are you going to do after, Eva? She’d be married and bearing children while her fancy diploma would rot and mold in storage.

At the mansion, I tucked away all my thoughts about the sexy smartass I was supposed to be watching over. Facing Oleg and a few of his top leaders, I switched into pure soldier mode, ready to answer any questions they had for me.

“I killed him. Whoever he was, he was dead,” I replied once the meeting started.

“You confirmed it?” a leader asked.

I nodded, trying my best not to get irritated as I showed them the picture on my phone. “I took a picture for proof of death.” No one disputed the grisly, gory image on the screen. “I felt for a pulse. After I took out Yusuf, I checked on this man’s body, as well as the two other Ilyin guards I killed to reach Yusuf. They were all there, right where I left them. Dead.”

Oleg nodded. “We will follow up with these reports of that man appearing.”

“Where has he been reported?” I asked.

“Throughout the city,” someone answered. “At clubs. Mostly glances in passing, though, from the soldiers on the street.”

“And no one can confirm who the fuck he is?” I asked.

“You didn’t either,” another leader replied hotly. He crossed his arms, narrowing the one eye he still had. The other had been removed as he was tortured twenty years ago.

“I didn’t have time to hesitate and confirm who he was. He was acting like a guard, so I treated him like one. I had that single opportunity to get close enough to kill Yusuf, and I took that chance, just like I was trained to.”

“How was he acting like an Ilyin guard?” another asked.

I shrugged. “He was with the other guards. He was aware of them and speaking with them, as if they were a team. At no time did any of the Ilyin guards with Yusuf act as though he was a trespasser or enemy.”

Oleg sat up and cleared his throat. “That doesn’t mean he couldn’t have been a mole, though. A plant on their staff.”

“Who would plant him there, though? The Petrovs?”

Oleg drummed his fingers on the desk. “It wasn’t us.” He pointed at me. “You were the only Baranov man I had assigned to take out Yusuf.”

I nodded once. I had been solo on that assignment.

“Speaking of,” the Boss said. “What news do you have of the Petrovs?”

“Nothing.” I shook my head. “She’s had one class with her, once. They didn’t seem to speak much, from what I could see through the door’s window. I’ve supervised all her interactions with classmates. Eva and Irina Petrov have not formed any alliance or friendship, and they both seem to be steering clear of each other.”

Oleg nodded. “Good. She knows better. She’s not stupid enough to speak with the enemy or insert herself into politics.”

“And the soldiers on site are minimal. Just one or two with her at a distance. More are nearby, as backup, but in a similar fashion to the security detail I’ve arranged for Eva.”

“Very well,” Oleg replied.

Well? I didn’t think any of this was well . It wasn’t good news that questions were popping up about someone I had to kill to reach Yusuf. Hearing reports about a dead man being spotted alive and mobile would never constitute as a positive development.

Nor was it favorable that I lacked intel about the Petrovs on campus. Even though my main job was to be Eva’s bodyguard, he had also asked me to spy on the Petrovs there. Without any news to offer him about our rivals’ movements, even on a college campus, I felt like I was failing him in that.

“You’re managing?” Oleg asked. “You have enough men?”

I don’t think I even need the men I have now. “Yes, sir.”

His questions struck a nerve, though. Just what was he expecting to happen? What was his ulterior motive in allowing Eva to attend her classes there? This man never did anything without at least one or two other goals, but I had yet to figure it out.

“Is there anything I need to be updated on?” I asked.

“No.” The Boss shook his head. “Nothing yet.”

Yet? I didn’t like the sound of that. If Oleg had me watching Eva on campus because he counted on a threat or danger there, then I wanted to know now . Not later.

Eva’s safety and security were elements of my job, but the more I tolerated her sass and wondered how I could tweak this slow build-up of sexual tension into something far more fulfilling, I struggled with the thought that the younger woman could matter to me on a personal level.

Staking out and killing Yusuf Ilyin was just a job. It was a done and dusted job, one well done with his death.

But it wasn’t as easy to convince myself that Eva’s protection was also just a job anymore. It couldn’t be when she was always on my mind, when she was taking over my thoughts and spearheading my desire to focus on her.

“Am I dismissed?” I asked a half hour later when topics shifted from the day I killed Yusuf and how Eva’s security was going at college.

“Eager to get back?” Oleg replied teasingly, smiling as he reclined in his chair.

I did my best not to shift my weight on my feet. Keeping them shoulder width apart, my hands clasped behind my back that I held with perfect composure, straight and alert, I looked still and unruffled.

“I am eager to resume my duties and succeed,” I replied.

“Spoken like a true soldier,” another leader remarked.

“Or an ass-kisser,” another joked.

I didn’t flinch. I didn’t budge. They could laugh all they wanted but I refused to break my cool. I wasn’t kissing the Boss’s ass. I was just well aware of why I was allowed to be here in his presence. Oleg had taken a chance on me, accepting me into the Baranov family. And I would always do my duty to ensure I had a place here.

“Eva’s not giving you trouble, is she?” Oleg asked, still keeping that teasing tone.

“No, sir,” I responded, feeling like that was only half a lie.

But I can’t say the same about anyone else.

On the drive back, I did my best to ignore the worry that Eva might have taken a chance to be free of my guardianship and go to the library, the only place I had instructed Marcus to allow her to go to.

She would study there. However, if that Bryce fucker forgot his lesson about getting too close to her…

I gripped the steering wheel tighter, anxious about being separated from Eva this long. Yet, I was more anxious as I realized this clinginess to her couldn’t bode well for me when I knew I had to resist her.