“Admiral Gideon’s line, please. Tell him it’s Connely.” Shaw calling Konrad’s old boss can’t be good. Ever since the mission where Konrad found Grey and Blu, he’s refused to go back into the field. I’m not supposed to know anything about any of this, but again, sound carries.
Konrad will not be happy if he finds out Shaw’s in touch with the admiral. I press harder against the metal of the vent to hear whatever Shaw says next.
“No, not him. Me. Kon’s still out. Permanently. I’m offering myself in his place,” Shaw says.
There’s a long pause while the other person must speak. My hips and thighs scream at me to unpretzel myself from where I’m curled as close to the heating duct as possible. Considering Shaw treats me as if I’m just a dumb kid, this is literally the only way I have to know what’s going on around here. I stay contorted into a yoga pose not yet invented, so I can stay pressed to the floor grate without moving the dresser away from the wall.
“Couple things I need to wrap up here, but it won’t take long. Go ahead and send the contracts over, and I’ll get them handled.” There’s another long pause as Shaw listens, and the one-sided conversation clicks into place.
He’s leaving. Taking Konrad’s place in whatever shadow work he was doing when I first landed here with the men of Ghost Born MC. I dislike the heavy sensation that spreads through my middle, thinking of this place without Shaw here.
I’m unsure how much time passes before the thrumming of Shaw playing the beat-up, old acoustic guitar he keeps in his office begins. In all my eavesdropping, I’ve learned it’s something he does only when he’s stressed out. The music winds quietly into my room, and I let it wrap around me. Though I know my tension will ramp up again later, it eases as the muted notes of a popular song from before I was born sneaks through the vent.
The wiggle out of my eavesdropping pretzel is nowhere near as easy as getting into the contortion. When the feeling of pins and needles finally disappears from my legs, I crawl to the bed and climb under the covers. It’s way too early for sleeping, but there’s scheming to be done, and that’s always easiest when I’m hiding under a blanket, pretending the world can’t find me.
“Amaliya, dinner.” The hard rap of knuckles on my closed door pulls me from my musings some time later.
I whip my head out from the blanket and look around the dim room. The sun’s gone down while I hid away, and without any lamps on, a shiver of fear brings goosebumps to my skin. I was never scared of the dark before recently. But then, I’d never been drugged, tied up and shoved in a beat-up junker of a car in the middle of the night, either.
So excuse me if I have some newly unlocked fears, but I think I’m entitled to them. The reminder I’ve turned into a fraidy cat pisses me off, and even I hear the surly attitude that comes from my mouth.
“Not hungry. Go ’way.” Even pissy, I wouldn’t allow myself to sound so rude if it was anybody but Shaw outside the door.
Being ungrateful to anyone goes against all my father’s expectations for acceptable behavior. I know it’s especially unkind considering how much Shaw and his club have done for me. But maybe, that’s it. The real reason Shaw gets so deep under my skin is he itches the brat out of me.
None of what the club has done, at least not once they learned who Blakely and Jax had rescued, has been for me. Keeping me safe, providing for me, that’s all so the club can build an alliance with my father and the bratva. It’s nothing about me, personally. It’s just business. And that hurts my heart.
“Duchess, either you come out here on your own two feet and eat dinner like an adult, or I’ll…” The way his threat trails off as he works through the very short list of appropriate ways he can force me to eat brings a smirk to my face I don’t even try to hide. At least, I’m not scared anymore.
“You’ll what?” I sass.
We both know he won’t lay a finger on me. Shaw does anything necessary to avoid physical contact with me. He’s even more careful than Ace when it comes to not touching me. And that’s saying a lot, because Ace has some leftover trauma that keeps him from tolerating touch from anyone but his Papa Gunnar.
Thing is, I’m pretty sure Shaw doesn’t like the distance between us any more than I do. There’s want in his eyes when he glares at me. Want that makes my panties damp and my heart race. His stern desire has me half convinced he’d be the perfect Daddy for me the way Gunnar is Papa for Ace. The way I’ve always wanted a man to be.
It’s just too bad he’s not my Daddy. That he’s in cahoots with my father and all too ready to hand me back to him, so I can be married off to the mob connection of the pakhan’s dreams.
CHAPTER 5
FAME
The sass mouth Russian princess in front of me absolutely should not be the reason my dick has turned to stone in my pants. Shouldn’t be but is.
“Stop fighting me on every little thing, Amaliya. Just get your ass downstairs, so you can eat. Then you can come back up here and pout all night if you want,” I grouse.
This battle of wits with her needs to stop. If the pakhan had any notion how hard every smartass interaction with his precious daughter makes me, I’d be a dead man walking.
“Just report to my father I ate my dinner and go away.” It’s not only sulkiness I hear. There’s hurt there, too. For all I get twisted enjoyment from winding her up, hurting her feelings is the last thing I intend.
“You think I’m spying on you for your father?” Guilt twists my guts into a tangle.
“Think. Know. Same-same.” Her eye roll is missing the attitude I’m used to seeing from her.
“What’s got into you? You weren’t like this earlier.” My brothers would tell me to accept the mercurial and inexplicable mood shifts that seem to be part and parcel around here, since this place began accumulating women. And yeah, Amaliya has been known to give me whiplash with the split-second shifts from one emotional outburst to the next.
But there’s always fire and passion with her. Sass and snark ‘til I’m spun around and flipped inside out. This injured apathy isn’t her. Isn’t LeeLee.
“It doesn’t matter what got into me. I’m safe. I’m obeying. I’m. Not. Hungry. Leave me alone, please.” Her slim shoulders slump, reminding me how small and young she is.
