Guarded Rebellion (The Baranov Legacy)

21. Lev

21

LEV

“ W hen could she have been drugged?” I asked Eva as she pulled her coat on.

I didn’t move toward the door, blocking her in place.

“I don’t know. Come on. Let’s go.”

I narrowed my eyes at her, suspicious that this could be a trap. A diversion. Something to get Eva to leave the safety of this apartment. The distance between us and those on campus was a condition I had control over.

I wasn’t here to protect Kelly. Eva was my responsibility.

I wasn’t expected to stop and drop what I was doing to come to Kelly’s rescue. Only Eva’s.

Too many things bothered me about this situation, and I’d learned the hard way how foolhardy it could be to ignore my gut instinct.

I didn’t know this woman who called to say Kelly was out of it. She could’ve been paid off to make that call. She could be a pawn. It could all be a trick.

“Let’s go, Lev,” she insisted.

“It might be better for the dorm supervisor to handle it.”

“Goddammit!” She flung her arms out and growled. “She’s my friend. If she needs help, I’ll help her!”

“I’m not so sure you ever should’ve befriended her.”

She stiffened, standing straight as she locked her furious gaze on me. “I’m going to help her.”

“You aren’t in any position to tell me what to do.”

“Fine!” she shouted, walking toward the front door and losing her interest in fighting with me. “ You stay here. Do whatever the hell you want to do. Be broody and mute. I don’t give a shit. It’s exhausting putting up with you.”

I slammed my hand on the door she opened, glowering down at her scowl as I reached for my coat. “You are not leaving without me.”

She growled, baring her teeth as she fought not to lose her temper with me any further. She was right. This weird distance I tried to keep between us was exhausting. My desire to reach out to her and have a fraction of that hot closeness we shared before exhausted me.

“Then come with me. I’m going to help my friend.”

I shoved my arms in my coat as we left, almost together. She stormed off quicker than I did, but I multitasked to shove my arms through the sleeves without falling behind. “I’m still not sure you should even be friends with her.”

“Why? Because you can’t stand the idea of me having anything good in my life?”

“Who says she’s good?”

She groaned and cringed after she entered the elevator. “What? What is this about? Is it about the night I snuck out? That’s not her fault. That was my decision.”

“No,” I replied tersely as I texted Rurik that we were heading to campus and that Kelly needed help at the dorms. “Because I’m not convinced that you should be friends with someone like her.”

“Someone like her?” she bit back in a nasty echo as she crossed her arms on the ride down to the garage. “What the hell does that mean? What kind of biased, stupid prejudice do you have against her?”

“Rurik and I looked her up,” I explained.

“No shit. You have to investigate fucking everyone who might dare to speak to me. All my classmates I study with. The professors. The TAs.”

“Because it’s my job. It’s my fucking job to keep you protected,” I scolded as we hurried out of the elevator to my car. “Threats can lurk anywhere, Eva. You know this.”

“I am aware of the dangers that are forced upon me just for being born a Baranov,” she sassed.

I shook my head as we got into the car, irritated that she could word it like that. That it was a curse, not a blessing, to have a family. To belong. I never had.

“But I fail to see what could be so dangerous and bad about Kelly that would make you so determined to stand in the way of my being her friend.”

I sped, incensed that Eva would always be this combative with me. Fighting with her often ended up seeming like a twisted game of desire. This push and pull drew me to wanting her more. In this matter, though, I disliked how much I could be wrong.

“She comes from a bad background.”

“Yeah, in foster care. Never really with a family for long,” she replied.

“But her biological parents are drug addicts. They’ve been affiliated with a gang in Brooklyn.”

She shook her head. “Not Kelly, though.”

“Maybe, maybe not.”

“She’s not an enemy, Lev. She’s never been associated with her family. She was put through the system.”

“That still isn’t enough to make me completely trust her.”

“Too bad.” She grunted a wry laugh. “I do. And I’m going to help her whether you want me to or not.”

“It’s not a matter of what you want,” I reminded her.

“I know! Because God forbid I want for anything, right? I have no power over my life. I can’t actually make any decisions about what I might want or not want. You don’t have to remind me of how fucking powerless I am!”

I kept my mouth shut. It was on the tip of my tongue to warn her about talking back to me like this and giving me hell. She wasn’t powerless. She was a figure of strength for just being a Baranov. She had power over me, luring me to want her even though nothing in our lives could indicate that was a possibility.

“You want to take away the one friend I’ve made just so you can lord over me and deprive me of anything good? Huh?” She turned to snarl at me, forgetting that icy demeanor and letting me see the full wrath she couldn’t bottle in.

In those blue orbs so bright with anger, though, I saw how hurt she was too.

That this mattered.

As more than an act of defiance, but as a means of making a friend and keeping it. A friend of her choosing, not a peer within the Mafia world.

Instead of explaining any of what ran through my head, I took the easy way out by saying nothing at all. I wasn’t rehearsed on what to tell her. It was automatic to tell her what she could and couldn’t do. Realizing that I cared about her not feeling this stuck and powerless was an outlier I needed more time to consider.

I parked at the dorm building and scanned the surroundings as Eva and I hurried inside. No one stood around as a threat, but any time I was on campus with her, I felt like we were watched. Cameras were everywhere. In crowds, any stalker could blend in. Staying right behind her and taking comfort in the weight of my gun I carried under my coat appeased me, though.

Eva had never been in here, always at the apartment, so I counted on her to be confused on which way to go.

“Fifth floor,” I told her. I knew the floor. I had that information because I’d scoped out the location to determine it wouldn’t be secure enough. Eva never moved in with Kelly, but I hadn’t forgotten that detail.

We rode the elevator up in silence, and the quiet gnawed at me. My nerves felt fried and frayed with this need to bridge the gap and disconnect spanning between us.

But she’s just a job.

It’s just an assignment.

She wasn’t supposed to matter as anything more, but since we’d blurred the lines by having sex, and since I’d welcomed the allure of her company, she had started to matter to me on a more personal level than I wanted to admit.

The elevator doors slid open to the correct floor, but I stepped in front of her, exiting first. If anyone was standing around to get to her, they’d have to pass by me to reach her. She didn’t protest, but the pressure of her hand on my back prodded me to hurry faster.

“Lev.”

I turned at Rurik’s voice. He’d beaten us here, apparently running up the steps via the stairwell instead of taking the elevator like we had.

“Where is she?” he asked as he jogged down the hallway toward us.

Eva grabbed the back of my shirt, then pointed at a corner where the hallways intersected. “The sign says that way.”

Redirecting our route, we changed course and ran toward the door to the floor’s bathrooms, meeting Rurik in the middle.

“Let me?—”

I held my arm up to block Eva from rushing in ahead of me.

“It’s a women’s?—”

“I don’t care.”

Rurik stood behind her, his hand near his gun as I took mine out from its holster.

Then, and only then, did I enter, ignoring Eva’s angry glare at me for holding her back.

I could bend and help her, but never without protecting her first.