Page 49 of Deceptive Vows

The sound of heavy boots connecting with the wooden floorboards has me turning my head. I know it’s him and not Aleksander even before I look around.

I’m right, and the moment our eyes lock, I remember everything he did to me last night.

An unwelcomed blush rushes over my entire body, making it come alive with the memories of how he touched and tasted me.

It doesn’t help that he looks even more gorgeous than he did a few hours ago since we last saw each other. He’s wearing full black again, just like every time I’ve seen him. The wild locks of his hair glisten in the bright morning sun, the longest strands curling under his ears, and the gold hoop in his ear reminds me of the pirate again. Not just because he looks like one, but because of how he raided my body and pillaged my sense of logic from my mind.

What is logic, though, when you have to do everything you’re told?

Those golden eyes lock on mine, and he doesn’t look away when he walks up to the table and sits next to me.

“Good morning, Malyshka,” he says.

He didn’t greet me with any form of pleasantry yesterday. Now that he’s doing it, I wonder what’s happening.

“Good morning,” I reply, keeping my eyes on him.

Like yesterday, the maid walks in to serve his coffee, and as they indulge in a full-on conversation in Russian, I still don’t know if they’re talking about the weather or me. Whatever it is, I don’t like it, and I’m finding everything harder to deal with because my mind is already such a mess.

When she walks away back to the kitchen, he takes a sip of his coffee and turns back to me.

“You look like you have something to say, Malyshka.”

“You speak Russian and English interchangeably,” I state because that’s a safer conversation than anything else I want to ask him.

“I do. My mother was American, and we always spoke English at home.”

That was the same for me—me, Natalia.

Adriana’s parents were both Mexican, but she went to a private boarding school in L.A. until she was eighteen. That’s why she spoke English.

“You seem to speak more English than Spanish,” he notes.

“I do. I went to school in L.A.” I’m grateful for the little key bits of information I know about Adriana’s life.

“I had to learn Russian because of who my father is,” he informs me, and that instantly makes my nerves spike. I’d never given any thought to his father. Who is he? People say the son is worse than the father. If Mikhail is how he is, what is his father like?

“Who’s your father?”

He smiles, and I don’t know if that means I should worry. “You get to meet him on Sunday.”

“Sunday?”

“We have a family dinner on the first Sunday of every month. We’re going.”

So, I can be the center of attention and hatred. The fork that was barely dangling between my fingers drops onto the plate. The sound makes me jump.

“Don’t worry, Malyshka. They won’t bite unless you give them cause to.”

I think they have enough cause to loathe me just for being Raul’s daughter, and I can’t think of anything worse than sitting around a table with a bunch of people who will hate me.Oh wait… I can think of something much worse.Death.

What the hell have I gotten myself into?

I glance down at the unfinished scrambled eggs on my plate, and when I flick my gaze back up to meet his, he takes me in with that curiosity again.

“My father is the Pakhan of the Baranov Brotherhood,” he announces, as if I’m not frightened enough.

“Pakhan?” I mumble, and he nods. “And what are you in the Bratva?” I know what his day job is, but what I’m asking about is so much more.