by Maura Rose
Natalia doubted it was going to get that dramatic but as Pavel was saying, it was good to be prepared. “And you’ll contact me? If you find anything?”
Pavel nodded. “It’s your family. You have a right to know. And if something is happening then your father will be more tolerant about believing it if he hears it from you.”
Father would be more tolerant about hearing it from Irena, but Natalia could just talk to Irena and have her go to Father instead. Irena would have to believe her. Natalia would find a way.
But this was if they found anything. What if they were all just being paranoid and she’d risked herself, and Pavel and the rest of his family had risked themselves, for nothing?
Natalia supposed that the Sokolovs would rest easy knowing that they’d checked up on everything and had covered all the bases. But what if someone found out?
If it meant keeping her family safe, though… if it meant possibly finding a threat to them, if it meant making sure that they were okay… she’d never had anything this important to do before. She’d gone to college but that had been for herself. She’d never helped out, really, in the family business and this was her chance, and dammit it she wasn’t going to let that chance pass her by.
If she found out later that she’d said no and there was someone after her father, she’d never forgive herself.
Natalia nodded at Pavel. “I’ll see what I can dig up. And you let me know if you find anything, I’ll let Irena know and convince her to tell Father.”
Pavel reached out, tucking some of her hair behind her ear. “And you let me know if you’re in any danger.”
“What, you worried about me?” Natalia teased.
Pavel shrugged. “I’m worried for the idiot who dares to get in your way.”
It was just teasing, but it warmed her nonetheless. “Well.” She leaned in. “Good thing you’re not one of those idiots.”
She kissed him, soft and sweet, just the once. It fit the roles they were semi-playing for anyone watching, but she knew it was also dangerous if anyone on either side of their families saw them. But in that moment, she didn’t care. She was kissing him because she wanted to. Because there was something so earnest about him, so forthright, that she trusted him. Because he didn’t underestimate her, because he respected her.
“When this is all over and the wedding is announced,” Pavel murmured against her mouth, “I’m taking you everywhere.”
“Taking me? Or ‘taking me’?” She waggled her eyebrows for comedic effect.
Pavel blushed and ran a hand through his hair. “I meant—I want to take you to art galleries, that sort of thing.”
“You really want to watch me prattle on about art for hours?”
“Well… yes.” Pavel shrugged. “Art is important to you.”
“I’m really upset I can’t have sex with you right now,” Natalia admitted. “I have to get back.”
Pavel looked like she’d hit him in the face with a sledgehammer. “I—you can’t say stuff like that.”
“I can and I will.” Natalia crowded into his space. “I can say anything I want, including how I wish you could do all the things you did to me yesterday all over again. And how I wish I could return the favor…”
“You are not playing fair.”
“Not in the slightest.” Natalia sat back, out of the way, giving him some room to breathe. Pavel looked like he needed it. In fact he looked like he was wondering if the bushes over to their right would provide enough of a cover for them to do anything.
Watching Pavel clench his jaw and visibly get rid of any sexual thoughts about her was amusing and gratifying. She knew she was beautiful, Irena had always been sure to compliment her so that she wouldn’t feel like the odd one out, the only brunette out of her sisters. But seeing this man so easily come undone for her was a rush like nothing else. It was one thing to look in the mirror and think she looked lovely, or to have her sisters tell her so. It was another thing completely when a man was looking at her like he was seeing the moon for the first time.
“I should go,” she said, knowing she sounded abrupt. It was—it felt like too much, the way her chest was squeezing, how she felt like her chest was expanding and contracting at the same time, at once too small and too large, as she looked at him and saw how he looked at her.
She wasn’t sure that she could handle whatever she was seeing in Pavel’s face.
“Oh, right, yes.” Pavel stood up, like they were ending a date or a business meeting or something. “Let me know if you find anything.”
“Of course. You let me know if you find anything.” She felt the weirdest urge to shake his hand, or maybe hug him—something to punctuate the farewell.
Before she could do either of those stupid things, Pavel gently pulled her in by her shoulders and kissed her.
It wasn’t anything like the heated kisses from yesterday, the ones that had been a lead up to the sex. This was softer and more familiar, almost, like the kind of kiss you could give because you knew this wasn’t a full farewell, it was just a ‘see you later’. The kind of kiss you gave because you knew there were more, plenty more, to come.
It made something inside of Natalia’s chest tighten and she had to step away from Pavel to breathe, to try and get some focus. This was—this was going better than she’d expected on the sexual front, obviously their marriage was going to go well as far as that was concerned. She wouldn’t have to worry about having to find some clandestine affair, or worry about him doing the same and being too obvious and humiliating her.
But it was also dangerous and terrifying, the fact that she wanted to press herself against him and ask him to take her home. The fact that she wanted his closeness, and that she wanted him to stay safe, and that she wanted to skip the rest of this day and play hooky with Pavel, take him to her favorite coffee shop or the art museum or just wander through the park or find a movie playing and talk about it afterwards over dinner…
That wasn’t just lust. That was something dangerously close to romance and she wasn’t going to be having any of that. She wasn’t going to be distracted by that.
Not just because Irena would be insufferable about how Natalia’s arranged marriage turned out to be the guy she fell in love with—she could already hear her sister saying, ‘so, didn’t it all work out in the end?’—but because with her family in trouble, or possibly in trouble, the last thing she needed was to get distracted.
“Have a good walk home,” Pavel told her. “I’ll keep in touch.”
“I’ll text you from my phone when I get back.” Natalia backed away, then gave him another little wave—just for the sake of the cover and all—and then turned away, hurrying back down the path.
She hated how domestic they sounded, she hated how her heart was beating so quickly, she hated… she hated how she could feel herself starting to think about him.
Chapter Eleven
If Pavel never had to look at another set of IP addresses again, it would be too soon.
He’d spent the last couple of weeks running down all the leads that Ivan and Kate had used to find out information on the Mikhailov family to see if anyone else had also accessed that information.
Natalia had been texting him all of that time, which was the one silver lining. She’d gotten a burner phone, apparently, instead of her usual one, so that Irena couldn’t check it.
My sister is the definition of overprotective, I swear, Natalia texted at one point.
Pavel knew that Ivan wouldn’t take his phone from him and check anything unless he suspected Pavel of betraying him somehow, so he had no problem texting with her on his regular phone.
He looked forward to the day they didn’t have to hide their interactions. They were practically engaged already and going to announce it soon, and yet, ironically, they had to keep it a secret that they were in communication. It was the opposite of how most couples went about things, and it was driving him nuts.
Not that they were a couple—or at l
east, not officially. But when he was texting Natalia first thing when he woke up and one of the last things he saw before falling asleep was her sleep well text… then what else was he supposed to think?
They were supposed to only talk about the mission, of course. Natalia was keeping her eyes and ears open, asking around, visiting her father’s people on the pretense that she wanted to be prepared for when she got married and was the wife of a powerful boss.
But a lot of the time—all right, most of the time—they ended up talking about other things. Things like their mothers. He learned Natalia had never known hers, and he told her about his mother, about how loving she was, about how much his parents had loved each other and how he’d thought that was how all parents were together. It had taken him a long time to see that it didn’t always work that way, to notice how Ivan’s mother was being treated, abused and sporting bruises she always claimed came from running into a door or slipping and falling.
Natalia told him all about college, and what it had been like. Part of Pavel wanted to go to college himself, to experience what she had, even though, of course, they were older now and it wouldn’t be the same, and he didn’t even know what he would study there. It wasn’t so much that he really wanted to go as it was exciting to learn about a life so unlike his own.
He told her all about his work with the Sokolovs, how it worked, what it meant, what to look for—how to tell if someone was lying, how to check a shipment properly, how to find the missing links in the paperwork, how to figure out which dock workers to bribe.
Natalia loved hearing about all of that. When they were married, Pavel was going to make sure that she had something to do with the Sokolov family. Kate was basically a lieutenant in her own right, although she would never be called that since she was the boss’s wife. But if Kate could do all of that, cooking the books and all, then why couldn’t Natalia help out a bit?
They didn’t only talk about serious things. They discussed more lighthearted things too. Natasha sent him the image of a poster for a movie she wanted to see.
You’ll have to suffer through taking me to the movies all the time, she warned him.
I doubt I’ll suffer that much, he replied.
He started sending her pictures of funny things that he saw, either in real life or on the internet. Natalia would send him images of puppies she found online, each of them tagged with the line, it’s you!
I am not a golden retriever, he replied at one point. I am a mastiff.
No. You’re a Yorkie. She sent him a picture of a Yorkshire Terrier puppy. It was even wearing a little bow in its fur.
He’d send her a middle finger emoji and she’d responded with a bunch of laughing faces.
He looked forward to her texts like nothing else. It wasn’t like he was miserable the rest of the time. He liked his job, he was good at it, and he enjoyed the people he worked with. Some of the men were more brash and coarse than he liked. It was one thing to be masculine but it was another thing altogether to be a macho jerk. But overall, no complaints.
Now, though, he had something that he didn’t just passively enjoy. He looked forward to it. Natalia’s texts were the bright spots in his day. He could always feel himself grinning like an idiot when he opened up his phone to read a message from her. He had to stifle the urge to text her his every thought. He didn’t want to overwhelm her or anything. But it felt like everything he did and thought and said was now tinged with the image of her in his mind. She wasn’t the center of his universe or anything—it was more like she was a part of him now, and it felt natural for her to be there, a part of it all, blending in so seamlessly that it made him wonder if she hadn’t always been there before, or if there hadn’t been a space waiting there for her all along.
So when his phone went off that morning and he rolled onto his side, fumbling for it, he assumed it was something nonsensical. It was Natalia—he knew from the text tone he’d given her—and could already picture her good morning text with a picture of a puppy to accompany it.
But when he opened the phone, he realized what time it was: five a.m. Natalia was far from what you would call a morning person, and she’d told him so a few times. If she was texting him this early, an hour before his alarm went off, then it had to be urgent.
The fact that Natalia knew when Pavel got up in the morning, and the fact that he knew she hated mornings in general, should have alarmed him. But instead it just seemed to fit, like puzzle pieces slotting into place. No, more than that. A puzzle was a game, nothing more. This was like the cogs that made a clock go, not only fitting together, but working together to make something happen, to create purpose.
He sat up, turning on the bedside light, and opened up the text.
You’re right. Someone’s been sniffing around. Bribed one of our IT team.
Pavel was hitting the ‘call’ button before it even really caught up with his brain what he was doing.
Natalia answered before the first ring had finished. “Pavel?”
“Where are you?”
“In the bathroom. Nobody can hear me, they’re all asleep.”
“How did you find out?”
“I’ve been going around and talking to the men, and started asking questions, just like you said. And one of our IT guys broke down on me, told me that someone had bribed him to give them some information. It’s not all of our info, thank god, but it wasn’t your guy. Someone else, nondescript, I think that he was some random person that was paid to go in and do the bribing. IT guy told me he didn’t reek of any ties—no accent, none of the colors, no usual signs.”
“Clever move.” Pavel could see it easily. Grab a guy you know is down on his luck and pay him to do a simple favor for you. Win-win. “Is there a way that we can talk with this guy?”
“I can send you the address where he lives. You can tell him I sent you and that you’re investigating the matter for my father.”
“We’ll see what we can do on our end. Track an IP address or something.”
There was a pause on the other end of the phone. “Natalia?” Pavel asked.
“I’m here. Just—just keep me informed. If someone really is coming after my father then I want to know. All right? Don’t keep me in the dark because you think it will protect me or anything.”
“I won’t, I promise.” Ivan wouldn’t like it, but even as he had the thought, there came the following thought that Pavel didn’t care if Ivan liked it or not—Ivan just wouldn’t know about it.
Natalia had been ignored and passed over by her father. Like hell was Pavel going to do the same. She was investigating on her end the same as he was on his, and she was risking the wrath of her father and possibly putting herself in danger because of it. He was going to be fair and let her know everything that he knew.
“You should probably stay out of things from now on, though,” he added. “Just to be safe.”
“No way.”
“I’m expendable, Natalia, you are not.”
“You’re not expendable to me,” she replied, so quickly and harshly that Pavel thought he almost detected a sob in her voice.
“Careful now, Mikhailova. A man might start thinking you care about him.”
He heard her breathy laughter and smiled to himself, glad that he could lighten the mood for her. “I will be careful. But I want you to be safe. We need to go about this cautiously. Ivan will cover for me if I’m found out, and he will accept the consequences from your father. I’m just following his orders. But if your father finds out what you were doing, there’s no way that we can protect you. And I—this is the only way that I can protect you, all right?”
There was silence for a moment. Then Natalia said quietly, “All right. But you have to be careful. I don’t like that I’m not there with you when you go out.”
“You want to watch my back?”
“I’d do a damn good job of it, too.”
“I bet. We still have to do that couples’ sparring.”
“Mayb
e on the honeymoon.”
He grinned down at the covers of the bed, feeling like an idiot and like a genius all at the same time. “I’ll keep you posted.”
“Okay. Take care.” Her voice was soft, so soft, and weighted with something that made Pavel’s chest feel tight.
“You too.”
He hung up and glanced at the clock.
Ivan would kill Pavel for waking him up this early in the morning.
…but he’d kill him even more if Pavel didn’t wake him up with this information.
Pavel sighed. It was going to be a long day.
Chapter Twelve
Natalia felt like she was going to jump out of her skin with worry. She’d sent Paul—that was the name of their IT guy, or one of them anyway—a message letting him know that her father had hired someone to look into the matter but that she’d kept the bribery information safe from her father’s wrath and that if Paul could please cooperate, their investigator would learn all he could to help out.
Now there was nothing for her to do but wait.
Someone besides the Sokolov family was looking into her father. And that wasn’t anything good. Who could they be? The list felt endless. There were a dozen families she could name off the top of her head who would be happy to see her father deposed, and those were just the ones who had personal grudges. There were even more people who would want to get rid of the Mikhailovs simply for the business aspect of it.
The thought that lingered in the back of her mind as she paced up and down in her room was war. All-out war. She hadn’t experienced a proper crime family war since she was a child. She’d been unable to go to school, staying in one extra-secure country house of her father’s and being tutored while Father stayed in the city to deal with things. It had been nice to be out in the country away from everything, except for the weight about her shoulders that told her that she wasn’t out here for fun. It had told her that terrible things were going on, even if she couldn’t see them.
