18
EVA
L ev telling me that I would skip another day of classes was annoying. This time, he wasn’t trying to ground me or keep me locked in the apartment as a punishment. No. Now, he wanted to drive me back home.
I stiffened, wondering if what we said earlier was being taken as a sign that I’d give up on this college experience altogether just because I’d admitted that I realized that frat party wasn’t somewhere I wanted to be and wasn’t something I wished to be a participant in.
“You’re not planning to drive me home and leave me there, are you?” I challenged coolly.
“For fuck’s sake,” he muttered. “No.”
Hmm. I wasn’t sure how to read him with that response. We had sex last night. It was hard and fast, a total surprise and an impulsive reward in my opinion, but it couldn’t have been so earth-shattering for him as it had been for me.
Could it really be enough for him to reconsider how he treated me and viewed me?
“So, let’s go,” he ordered gruffly.
Ah. There he is. Overlord Asshole.
Rurik studied me for a moment longer than I cared for, and I worried that he could be assuming anything that might resemble the truth of what happened in this room last night. All the soldiers knew I was to remain a virgin for my chosen husband, but there was no way he could perceive that Lev had taken that honor for himself. That I’d picked my bodyguard to have that right to my body.
“What?” I asked, uneasy about the idea that anyone could know about me and Lev. It went without saying that we had to keep this on the down-low. Obviously.
“Nothing.” He headed for the front door as Lev returned, tugging a new jacket on over his suit. All black. Dark and brooding. Serious and stern. Suits always helped a man to clean up well, but this man looked far better rough and ready to get dirty.
Stop. Stop thinking about it.
It was easier said than done. Forcing myself not to think back to how good Lev made me feel was impossible. On the drive back to the mansion where my father and uncle lived, the silence hung so heavily between us, it was a wonder I didn’t snap. Tension grew between us, but I resisted the urge to fidget and let him see that I was bothered with the mile-a-minute rate of thoughts in my mind.
I was ill equipped to discuss what happened between us last night, so not addressing it seemed safest. Instead of stressing about how badly I wanted to clarify my opinions about how he’d taken me so rottenly but so perfectly, I directed my thoughts to what Kelly had told me. And also what Rurik had shared with Lev. It wasn’t my proudest moment, but I’d cracked my door open to listen in to what they said.
If Irina was attacked at the same party I had been to, it wasn’t far-fetched to assume that I had been targeted in a similar manner. Someone clearly had to have picked Irina to attack because she represented power. She could be leverage. She was a thing that mattered to the Petrov Family, so if anyone wanted to give the Petrovs a message, harming her was a valid way to go about it. Likewise, I could’ve been selected to be raped because of who I was.
When Kelly asked me if I was in danger to go out without guards, I’d answered vaguely. Of course, I would be in danger anywhere I went. I could be taken or killed as a strike against the Baranov organization. That had never happened before, but now, I had to admit my need for pretended independence at college could be na?ve and selfish in that regard.
I refused to think I was making myself vulnerable to be outside my family mansion, but I had to accept that Lev and the other soldiers were the key elements to avoid such blunt vulnerability.
Who would be doing this? I heard Rurik state that my would-be rapist was a soldier connected to the Ilyin Family, but what did it mean in regard to Irina and her friend?
Are the Ilyins trying to attack both Petrov and Baranov units now?
I’d never concerned myself with the finer details of all these politics. For one, I wasn’t allowed to know such things, even though gossip ran freely and I was dismissed when I was within earshot of those talking about business matters . And secondly, I didn’t want to clutter my brain with the power plays and agendas of all the men in charge of our world. I could never decide my fate. I couldn’t offer input and assist in any plans about takeovers, who did what, and where business could happen. What good would it ever do to bother myself with information I would never have the power to use?
Politics always mattered, but to me, they existed on a backburner. I couldn’t help but wonder if Sonya and my mother had left to rid themselves of the layers of politics and influence. If they’d had to fend for themselves out on their own. If they’d succeeded in remaining under the radar of not only Uncle Oleg and the Baranov forces, but also the other rival families and the countless enemies who watched our every move.
Is it even possible to extract yourself from that web? If such a removal could be achieved, I wasn’t sure if I would follow in their footsteps. Because with Lev rescuing me from being raped at that party, I was shown how much of a promising comfort his strength and loyalty to the family could be. At the same time I could loathe how limited my freedom was, I couldn’t lie and say I wasn’t safe.
We arrived at the mansion, and I tried to shift back into the mindset of being here for good—or until I was shipped off to a husband. Oddly, I didn’t recoil at the return to this prison of a “home”. The apartment I shared with Lev seemed more like home than this place, but I didn’t want to think too hard on that.
“Wait out here,” Lev ordered as we strode toward my uncle’s study together.
“I will not,” I shot back.
“Eva, he asked to see me ,” he argued as he pushed the doors open.
“And it’s about me ,” I replied just as levelly, glaring at the sexy jerk.
“This is business,” he growled.
“And I?—”
“Good morning to you, too,” Uncle Oleg said, a slight hint of amusement in his tone as he looked at us bickering.
I sighed and crossed my arms. “I’m not sure I’d call it a good morning.”
“Only peevish,” Lev said, glowering at me.
“How wonderful to see you’re getting along splendidly,” Uncle Oleg quipped.
“There is no ‘getting along’,” I said, flicking my finger between me and my hot bodyguard, “happening here.”
“Is that right?” he asked, raising his brows at Lev.
“Yes, sir. Your niece is extraordinarily difficult.”
My jaw dropped, but I caught myself from gaping at him and clamped my mouth shut so hard my teeth clicked.
“And you’re extraordinarily skilled, are you not?” he asked with a chuckle.
For the first time in my life, I suffered the hex of a blush. My cheeks heated, and I willed myself to maintain my composure.
Skilled? Oh, he most certainly is skilled . With his mouth, his tongue. With those fingers and hands. And that big, long ? —
“Eva,” Oleg said, making me mentally cringe at his attention on me with my thoughts in the gutter, “do behave.”
What if I don’t want to? Just so your favorite soldier can discipline me so well again?
“I try,” I replied dryly, opting for sarcasm instead. “However, the idea that our rivals are on campus and potentially targeting me isn’t good news to sit with. Being preyed upon makes me fickle.”
Lev rolled his eyes. “You were born to be fickle.”
“And you?—”
“For fuck’s sake,” my uncle drawled. “What do you mean, Eva?”
Shit. I walked into that one. I couldn’t tell if he knew that I’d almost been raped at that party.
Lev came to my rescue again. He spoke over me, hiding my oh, shit moment.
“Eva was also in attendance at the party and an Ilyin soldier attempted to bother her.”
Uncle Oleg nodded. “Yes, the reports were delivered to me earlier this morning.”
“Well,” I said, relieved that he hadn’t heard about the attempted rape, “maybe he targeted me because I’m your niece. As an attack on the family. That’s the only reason anyone could have aimed for me. And I’m not even anyone special. Just your niece.”
“ Just my niece?” he asked, huffing once. “You’re the only Mafia princess in the Baranov Family.”
“Hmm-mmm.” I narrowed my eyes on him. “And if I carry such significance, why did you change your mind about letting me go to college at all?”
He shrugged.
“What’s really going on?” It all had to be related—his sudden change of heart to give me slack in the leash chaining me to him and the expectations I’d never get out of.
“That’s to be determined, Eva,” he replied bluntly. Then he shook his head, rising to his feet. “Come, let’s have breakfast and catch up.”
Lev shot me a dirty look as my uncle turned to exit the room.
I smirked right back at him.