Page 92 of Mafia and Scars

“Funny,” I growl.

“Oh, it wasn’t a joke.” He’s still not letting the whole office thing go, and he keeps glancing at me with a look of disbelief in his eyes.

“She’s competent enough,” I tell him.

Grigory lets out a huff. “That’s what you’re going with? What if she messes something up?”

I shrug. “You worry too much.”

“No, that’syou, Viktor.”

“It’s going to be fine,” I say, trying to make my voice firm.

“I’ll remind you of that when she disrupts your fucking temple of precision and order.”

“She won’t,” I grit out. Except…she already has. Because she’s turned my whole world upside down.

“Uh-huh,” he mutters in a know-it-all voice.

I narrow my eyes at Grigory.“What?”

“Just saying, if she messes up, don’t come crying to me.”

“Have I ever?” I growl.

Grigory nods toward the crates of canisters. “Just make sure she doesn’t stumble into anything she shouldn’t.”

“I’m not an idiot.”

He looks at me carefully. “No. But you’ve been a bit off lately.”

“What, because I’ve been polite to her?”

“That’s not what I’m talking about.”

I clench my jaw. I know he’s right, but I don’t want to admit it out loud. I shift whenever she’s near. Everyone’s noticed. And my outburst with the men who badmouthed her? That got around too. “It’ll all be fine.”

Grigory snorts, and I can tell that he thinks he’ll be saying ‘I told you so’ at some point.

But I shake it off.I mean, how much damage can one woman really do?

I should be thinking about next delivery dates. But instead, I picture Avelina, her beautiful green eyes gazing in concentration as her fingers dance across my laptop…and then dance across my body like they did the other night. A small cough escapes me as I try to clear my thoughts.

“What?” Grigory asks with a suspicious look at me.

“Nothing,” I huff.

Grigory raises an eyebrow but thankfully says nothing further as he leaves me to it, telling me he’ll see me back at the Kremlin.

I return to the office a couple of hours later.

The warehouse inspection was a fucking disaster. Half the rifles were mislabeled, the manifest didn’t match the inventory, and some genius managed to store grenades next to a wall heater. I spent the last hour yelling at men who shouldn’t be trusted with crayons, let alone goddamn explosives.

My shirt smells like gun oil, and my headache is drumming out its very own heartbeat. I just want silence, caffeine, and order. And I need some calm after this shitshow of a day.

When I step into the office, Avelina isn’t at the desk, but the pile of invoices looks much smaller, so she’s making good progress. And she’s looking more confident than when she started on this earlier.

Matvey and Nikolai are tapping away at their laptops. Well, Matvey is. Nikolai is more likely watching porn or up to something else he shouldn’t be doing.