Page 49 of Alexei

“You’ll know when you get there.” Vasili didn’t miss a beat.

“Okay, so what is this way then?” she asked, an annoyance in her dark eyes. Vasili’s eyes darted to me.

This ought to go well.

ChapterFourteen

AURORA

To say I was annoyed was an understatement.

First, I arrived at work late after dropping off the girls and my brother at the airport. Then McGovan pretty much greeted me with the order to follow the Nikolaev lead. Now, I was standing before two of the most powerful men in New Orleans and Isabella Nikolaev... formerly Isabella Taylor. Color me surprised when I learned she was the ex-girlfriend of a rock star Ryan Johnson, and one of the best surgeons in her field.

And to top it all off, Jackson got reassigned to another case, in a different field office. Way to leave me hanging.

“I’m all ears,” I added dryly. “But please do speed up. I have a case to solve.”

Isabella chuckled. “Oh, I like you. I’m going to grab Nikola, because I have a feeling this is not appropriate for the little one’s ears.”

“Probably a good idea,” Aurora muttered.

Isabella strode to her husband taking Nikola into her arms. And suddenly the giant motherfucker looked like a big teddy bear. When Vasili looked at his wife, his entire face transformed. I had never seen anything like it before.

As I watched mesmerized, Isabella and Nikola walked by me and the little dude that looked like a spitting image of his father, grinned at me.

“Bye.” He waved his chubby little hand. Unlike his father, the boy was adorable. His mother shot Nikola a weird look then glanced at me. She looked back to Nikola, shaking her head as if surprised by something.

“It was great meeting you,” she said as she strode from the room.

“You too.”

I waited for the door to shut behind her before I returned my eyes to the two men in the room. The way Alexei watched me made me want to fidget, and I refused to show how he rattled me. In fact, I tried to avoid looking at him. I really did. But my stupid eyes kept going back to him, like he was some kind of magnet. He was unlike any other man I had ever seen. Covered in tattoos, as if he purposely hid himself. Though it didn’t make sense since the tattoos would have made most people give him a double take.

It certainly made me look at him twice.

I couldn’t stop my eyes from giving him a once over. He wore his signature wardrobe again. And for some reason, I really wanted to know whether that man’s whole body was covered in tattoos. I regularly hated tattoos; they reminded me of a memory from a long time ago.

Sharing is caring.Fear crept into the dark corners of my mind. It was cold and suffocating. My pulse sped up and bitter fear wrapped around my throat. It cut off my fucking breath.

I forced my eyes closed, scared these two men would see something in my eyes. I inhaled deeply, then slowly exhaled. I heard people claim it helped. It made me more agitated than calm. But I guess it was better than nothing. I forced my eyes open to find pale arctic blue eyes staring at me.

“Okay, let’s get this started, so I can get out of here,” I snapped annoyed. The worst part was that I was annoyed at myself. I didn’t want to show these men my weaknesses.

My eyes glanced at Alexei again. I couldn’t stop it any more than I could stop breathing. This man was a force of nature with an undercurrent of something raw and dangerous. Yet, the idiotic part of me deep down found him fascinating.

Not attractive; just fascinating.

“There is a club called Eve’s Apple,” Alexei broke the silence. “It’s a sex club.”

My eyebrow shot up. Okay, his comment blindsided me a bit. I wasn’t expecting a sex club.

“What an original club name,” I scoffed, my tone slightly breathless. I didn’t like the direction this was going. I wasn’t a prude, but I wasn’t wild either. Willow was always the wildest one of our trio. “Zero points for originality,” I added, seemingly unaffected while my insides burned.

From frustration, I told myself.

He ignored my comment. I knew he noticed my reaction to his words. Nobody had to warn me that this man noticed everything. And I meanteverything. From a slightly hitched breath to a twitch in my eye from all this goddamn stress.

“There is a member of that club who can get us closer to the predator,” he added in that icy tone of his. Jesus, if I ever had a fever, I’d just search this man out and have him talk to me. That would cool me off for all eternity.