Page 31 of Deceptive Vows

Most things are in hand, but my brother is a man who will do anything to make me look incompetent. I’m not going to allow that to happen. I only wanted to touch base at home for a few minutes to make my presence known.

Ivan has been dealing with the high-profile clientele and investors Father entrusted me with when he first made me the Obshchak of the brotherhood. In that role my primary duty is to take care of all the money coming into the business.

Even though Dmitriyev Ltd is our family business, the company has served the brotherhood for many generations and has been the primary source of income.

As such, the Obshchak has always had the position of chief financial officer.

I’ve two meetings to attend and paperwork that will take up the rest of the day. I don’t want anybody questioning my capabilities in any way.

“I’ll be back around ten, or a bit later,” I tell him. “Make sure she eats. If she causes trouble, let me know.”

“Of course.”

I don’t think she’s going to cause any trouble today, but I have to prepare for it.

What I’ve done has caused a massive upheaval to her world and dragged her into mine. The conversation just now was intense.

Iwas intense so I think she’ll be compliant for the rest of the day.

Pulling on my leather jacket, I leave him, and head out again to my bike.

As soon as I pull out onto the winding road that will lead me back to the city, her words come back to me. They continue to swirl around in my mind, screwing with me. It’s an odd feeling I want to shake, but I can’t because part of me believes her.

Part of me believes she’s not evil, and it goes back to what I first felt when we met. I sensed purity in her but couldn’t explain it because of who she is.

I felt it again just now as she spoke, and I saw it while I was watching her play with Snow.

Men like me are like fucking sharks when it comes to anything like that for the simplest reason of being around something we shouldn’t have. In my case, Adriana Alvarez feels like a woman who is automatically off limits because of the darkness perpetually residing in me.

And that’s what’s screwing with me, because I can’t figure her out.

Seeing her with my sister’s dog grated on my nerves at first, but not because she was playing with it. It’s because of the memories she conjured of Talia.

I took the dog to remember her by, but the memories are also a curse.

My father kept Snow at his house while I was in the hospital, but I took over her care when I got out. It was me who bought it for Talia on her twenty-first birthday. That was only four years ago and after she first got accepted at the New York City Ballet.

My sister was the prima ballerina, and before she was killed, she’d just gotten the assistant choreographer position after being with the company for three years.

The dog was like a long overdue present, and she loved it to no end.

So did my mother.

That nightmare night when disaster struck, Mother was the first to get hit. One bullet to her head signaled the attack. Another went straight to her heart before I could even turn my head to figure out where the bullet came from. When I did, I saw Felipe on the rooftop of the opposite building accompanied by a bunch of masked snipers; I just didn’t know it was him until I came up against him face to face.

That night transpired two weeks before Christmas, so they never saw the new year.

Talia had just finished her first performance of the season in a ballet she helped choreograph.

The attack happened just as we stepped out onto the theater parking lot. We were one of the last to leave. Someone knew that.

Someone who was watching us.

Someone who knew where we’d be and what time we’d be leaving.

Talia screamed when Mother went down, and our bodyguards started dropping like flies. All I could think of was protecting her. We weren’t anywhere near our car to get away from the danger. With so many bullets flying I couldn’t risk her getting hit, so I shielded her with my body while I got her to what I thought was safety behind a hedge.

I pursued the snipers and found Felipe. From the sight of him I knew Raul sent him and what was going on.