Total pages in book: 60
Estimated words: 56572 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 283(@200wpm)___ 226(@250wpm)___ 189(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 56572 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 283(@200wpm)___ 226(@250wpm)___ 189(@300wpm)
I turn when I hear a motion in the kitchen and head inside. When I see Dimitri, I say hello to my older brother. He’s the heir, the first in line, not the spare, and anybody could tell just by looking at him. He’s got close-trimmed hair and a semipermanent serious look on his face.
“What?” Dimitri says, reading my expression.
I don’t plan on saying this, but I lower my voice. “I don’t think she wants to do this.”
What the hell am I doing? Coming between him and Mila might improve my life. However, it will worsen many people’s lives if Dimitri reneges on the deal and Nikolai Sokolov takes over the city, but I can’t help myself. She feels like mine.
“And I do? Any progress?”
Dimitri claims he’s unbothered by our father’s death. I haven’t claimed anything like that since I’ve always found the old, cruel bastard confusing. I hate myself for the confusion, but that doesn’t eliminate it.
“Stop looking at me like that,” he says after a pause, his dark mood clear.
“It’s been a day,” I tell him, referring to how long I’ve been searching for the rats in our organization. Before our father died, he basically admitted that he and Nikolai planted people in the Sokolov Bratva. Meaning we don’t know who we can trust. I’ve got several programs running to look into people.
“I’ve started work, brother,” I go on, “but it might take a week. Maybe two. This is some serious digging.”
“Hmm. I better go say hello.”
I shouldn’t let myself stay here. It’s just going to drive me even crazier. I end up standing at the kitchen window. When Mila hears him coming, she looks over her shoulder in the most beautiful, come-here way. I squeeze the counter, wishing I was the one she was looking at like that.
She touches her skirt and does a bow-curtsey combo that seems awkward and rehearsed. Of course, it does. She doesn’t want to be with him, but that doesn’t mean she wants to be with me, does it?
They have a short conversation, maybe a minute or even a little less. My head starts heating up like there’s a bomb in there getting ready to blow. When Dimitri returns to the house, I walk into his path, focusing too hard on not clenching my fists or letting my emotions show.
“Is everything okay?” I ask.
“It’s fine,” he says shortly.
“That didn’t take very long.”
What am I doing, exactly? Do I want to force Dimitri to win her over? Do I want to condemn myself to a life of watching them together when I feel this strange longing for her?
“How long is hello supposed to take?”
“You just left her out there.”
“Then show her where the bedroom is. You’re the underboss now, remember?”
I haven’t technically agreed to that, but Dimitri seems majorly pissed. I don’t bother mentioning she already knows where her bedroom is. Seeing him like this is rare, but he was on the phone when our father ended it. It’s not like he’s just going to be okay, magically. When Dimitri tries to storm away, I walk right into his path. I’m the only person alive who would dream of confronting Dimitri Sokolov like this.
“Look, it’s okay to mourn him. I know he had his problems, but it’s okay.”
“You think this is about our father?”
Dimitri tries to bump me out of the way with his shoulder, but he’s forgetting I’m big and strong, too. I don’t budge.
“What is it, then?” I ask. “Something’s different with you.
“Can you blame me?”
His tone gets even lower, containing even more confusion and sadness. This time, when he tries to leave, I let him.
There’s no point keeping him here to beg him to be nicer to her. A cynical smirk touches my lips. The two ideas that pop into my head almost have me laughing like a loon. The first is the idea that I could want somebody this badly this quickly. The second is that I’d try to persuade my brother to take this woman from me when I crave her like nothing else.
Mila remains outside, her back still turned. I watch her as my pulse stutters in my neck. It’s like an animal trying to get free. There’s suddenly all this life in me, hunger and passion that never existed before. She’s even got me wondering that if I’m passionate about programming, that’s nothing compared to this new feeling.
My gaze moves to her legs. Her calves look like they were sculpted for the sole purpose of driving me crazy. She’s thick and beautiful and so sexy. I want to touch her and run my hands slowly over her body.
She turns and catches me staring. As she walks toward the house, she looks somehow determined. When she steps inside, she gives me a look, opens her mouth, says nothing, and walks away. I spend the next several minutes making a coffee and trying to decode the look she gave me: hard, angry eyes, soft, pursed lips, her cheeks a glowing red. I wonder if I’m nuts for letting myself believe there was desire hiding in there somewhere.