Page 5 of Bratva, Baby

Ava

H is SUV smells mouthwatering, like a combination of him and Bergamot and Cardamom; it must be his cologne, but it tickles my nose, and I sneeze.

“Here, I have a handkerchief if you need one.” He offers a handkerchief. It isn’t until after I have wiped my face that I notice something crusty on the handkerchief.

“I’ll wash it for you.” I offer since it seems the polite thing to do.

“I will take you up on that since it gives me an excuse to see you outside of the office again.” He replies.

“Or…” I draw it out just to mess with him, “I could just bring it back to you at the office.”

“You’re forgetting our coffee date.” He reminds me.

“You’re going to prolong that, aren’t you?” I need to find a way to gain control of the coffee date if I have any hope of protecting myself against his charm .

“If it means getting to spend more time with you, then yes.” He says, as if that isn’t the cheesiest shit to say.

“Do you catch all the women with those cheesy lines?” He’s easy to joke with and be around, that’s what makes him so hard to resist.

“Oh, yeah. Look in the rearview mirror, you’ll see the long line of conquests chasing the SUV.” He responds sarcastically.

I gasp exaggeratedly. “You mean to tell me you’re a thirty-eight-year-old virgin?”

“Oh, so you were paying attention during truth or dare yesterday.” He’s too smug about this.

“Don’t feel too proud of yourself, it was either listen to you or imagine the elevator dropping.” I lie, petulantly. I can’t let Andy know he is clawing his way under my skin in such a short time. I don’t see why we can’t at least be friends.

By the grace of the Universe, we pull into the parking garage at 7:58; I will still technically be late, but it’s better than being half an hour late.

But riding to work with Andy also means having to ride the elevator with him.

Hopefully, this time we will have more people since everyone is heading into work.

Gratefully, I was right. There is a group of people on the elevator with us, so there is no talking on the ride up to the office. Unfortunately, one of those people is Meredith, and she has seen me arrive with Andy. Perfect.

As I get to my desk and set my purse down, Meredith’s voice speaks too close to my ear, “I thought I told you he was mine.”

“Get over yourself, Meredith. He is a human being and can interact with whom he wants to.” I say.

When I turn around, I see why her voice is too close to my ear; she is less than a foot away from me.

Probably trying to intimidate me, but I can’t back down.

I have been working on standing up for myself in therapy.

“And you need to back out of my personal space; I don’t want to smell what coffee you had before work. ”

With that, she throws her hand over her mouth and stomps off, clearly offended. I’ll probably regret that later, but the annoyances keep adding on today, and I can’t give a rat’s ass at the moment.

At lunch time, I pick up my bag and wander down to the cafeteria. I have never been one to balk about sitting by myself in the cafeteria and I don’t plan on starting now. I grab a slice of pizza because who doesn’t love carbs on a stressful day?

I haven’t even gotten to take a bite of my lunch when another plate is set down at the table I chose, and I look up expecting to see Andy, but am shocked when it is a new face I haven’t seen before, and not an unpleasant one.

Since I am an awkward person, I just continue with my lunch.

If they want to have a conversation, they can start one. And that’s exactly what they do.

“Hey, I’m Evan. We work on the same floor.” He introduces himself.

“Hey Evan, I’m Ava, nice to meet you,” I reply politely. He hasn’t done anything to deserve my ire today.

“I saw you around yesterday and thought I should introduce myself. Do you mind if I sit with you?” he asks before sitting down.

“The seat is open, so I won’t object to some company,” I respond.

There is no connection to him like I feel toward Andy, so I don’t feel as defensive against him.

Maybe because he has that boy-next-door charm instead of the overpowering confidence that Andy portrays, so, instead of pushing him away the way I’ve been doing with Andy, I decide to get to know him; it wouldn’t hurt to have a friend who hopefully has less theatrics involved.

“How are you liking LevCorp so far?” It’s an innocent question, but all I can think about is Meredith with her unpleasant personality, the elevator getting stuck, and then my car breaking down.

Granted, the vehicle isn’t related directly to LevCorp, but it still happened after starting work here.

I must not school my expression quickly enough because he chuckles. “You must have met Meredith. ”

And just like that, I think I have a new best friend here at the office.

After lunch, I head back up to the office to find Andy now occupies the cubicle next to mine. It’s like the Universe is trying to shove him down my throat at this point. But I realize that I can’t keep being a bitch, so I try to be cordial instead. “Hey, they moved your cubicle. I wonder why?”

“Yeah, something about a leak in the roof and not wanting to take the risk of it harming my computer.” He explains.

“You would think they would have the means to fix whatever is causing the leak,” I say, right as Evan walks up with two cups of coffee.

“I know we just finished lunch, but I figured I would bring you a cup of coffee to keep you from going into an after-lunch food coma.” He jokes, offering me the second cup.

“I didn’t know what you liked, so I just used a mocha coffee pod.

You can add your own sugar, or if you really hate mocha, you can tell me which flavor you do like, and I can go get you that one. ”

“Thank you, Evan. Mocha is actually my favorite flavor. This was so sweet of you to think of me.” I say, but I catch sight of Andy from the corner of my eye, glaring daggers at Evan. If the saying ‘if looks could kill’ held any truth, then Evan would be a pile of cinders.

“Yeah, Evan . It's so sweet of you to bring her coffee.” Andy says with an edge to his voice. What is going on with him?

Ignoring Andy, I look back at Evan, “Again, thank you. Let’s get back to work before we all get emails from HR about not doing our work.” I joke, trying to diffuse the tension that surrounds us.

“You’re right. I’ll see you later.” Evan says, waving as he walks back to his own cubicle.

I round my desk and choose to ignore Andy and his bad attitude toward Evan; that’s a pissing contest I won’t be getting in between.

With the chaos of yesterday's elevator fiasco and this morning’s car troubles, it slipped my mind to bring items from home to decorate my cubicle, and now it appears bland. I have got to add some personality.

Andy

Evan Johnson is quickly moving up my shit list. I saw him and Ava eating lunch together, but since I had Alek with me, I couldn’t go over there and step between them.

Ava is mine, and he better not try to take her away; otherwise, the debt his brother is accumulating at my underground casino may come to his doorstep.

Evan is none the wiser about his brother's affliction for gambling, but HR runs background checks on every employee, and I checked his file as soon as I saw him getting close to my little bird.

While she was distracted by the ‘golden retriever’ at lunch, I made a call to Mario to check on his progress regarding the cameras I had ordered.

He has already sent me the app to download, so I now have complete access to my little bird’s every move inside her home.

I’ll check the camera angles when I drop her off after work because there is no way she will be taking the bus; her public transportation days are in the past, whether she accepts it or not.

As I am still the CEO, I attend to my important emails and do what I can from the small cubicle next to Ava, until more pressing matters arise and I can no longer ignore them.

Excusing myself, I say, “I’m about to take a break, do you want anything from the breakroom?

” Ava barely acknowledges me, so absorbed in her own tasks.

As I walk away from the main floor space, I pull out my phone and call Alek.

“Hey brat , any word from the Irish?” I call him brother in Russian because that’s what he is.

Most Pakhans wouldn’t leave this kind of work to their second-in-command, but I don’t believe in having people around that I can’t trust implicitly and Alek is number one on that list, until Ava accepts her role at least .

“Yeah, man, they will pick them up tonight from the same warehouse as before, off Highway 278 at midnight. Their Don said if you aren’t there this time, then don't expect another deal.”

Fuck me. Needy assholes always want to know who is in charge. “Fine. I’ll be there. Mario and Ivan are on Ava duty while I am away.” I say, like he doesn’t already know my plans. “Besides, I have my cameras up so I can watch my little bird now.”

“You do know you could just talk to her as yourself, right?” He asks.

“And give her the choice of saying no?” I reply.

“I will not take chances where Ava is concerned. I have to get back to that little ass cubicle. I had the one next to Ava moved so that I could keep a closer eye on her. You saw her at lunch. With another man.” My fury at Ava and Evan rises again and the desire to return to Ava barrels over me.

“I’ll talk to you later,” I say, hanging up the phone and returning to my little bird’s side.

It seems she can’t be kept unattended for too long.