“Hi,” I stammer.
“It’s Nico Andreev,” he says.
“I know. I recognize your voice. How are you, man?”
My heart aches with guilt. There have been so many times when I wanted to reach out to Grigoriy’s oldest brother.
I wanted to try and say sorry, to explain that Grig’s death was my fault because I was so blind in following the Enzos. I didn’t realize who they really were until it was too late, and Grig lost his life. He only got involved with them because of me.
His death is on me.
“Where have you been?” Nico asks. “I’ve been looking for you since we lost Grig. You vanished—"
“Yeah, I had to. I wanted to reach out, but I—I—"
“It doesn’t matter. We can talk over drinks soon,” Nico sighs. “It’s good to know you are alive. I assume things are well?”
“As well as can be expected.”
He takes a deep breath, and I wait. I don’t know what to say to him. My heart is beating too fast and my stomach is knotted tightly. This phone call came before I was ready for it.
“Listen, Andrei, there is a lot of shit going down with the Enzos lately. Someone is stirring up drama with them. They are acting up, getting aggressive, looking for something—do you have anything to do with it?”
They are looking for his sister. Shit. What do I say?
“No, I don’t. I don’t want anything to do with the Enzos,” I lie.
If I involve him, I put his entire family at risk. They already lost Grig because of me. I won’t put them in the middle of this.
The lie is a kindness. And I hope that after this all comes out, which I’m sure it will, that he’ll forgive me and understand why I made the choice to keep the truth from him.
We chat a little while longer. It’s a tense, awkward conversation, both of us skirting around things. He’s definitely surprised to be talking to me, but the things we need to say are things you say face-to-face. And the guilt I have about Grig is way too heavy to allow me to stand in front of his brother right now.
By the time I hang up the phone, my neck and shoulders are knotted tightly.
I should have told him we were married. That was my whole plan—to tell everyone she married me by choice. But I tripped over my own thoughts. Dammit.
I reach back, running my fingers over my aching muscles, up my neck and pressing them into my skull. I should have been more prepared for that conversation, but how can you prepare?
With a heavy sigh, I lean back in the office chair. I need something to take my mind off it all, so I flick the track pad ofmy laptop and navigate to the security camera program to busy myself with that.
I tell myself that I’m checking on everything, but I navigate straight to the camera in her bedroom. A tiny, hidden camera I haven’t even turned on up until this point—but I want to know what she’s doing.
Except she isn’t in there.
“She got out again?” I huff, zooming out and searching each of the other cameras until I find her in the servants’ quarters.
I guess it’s time I accept that locking her up simply isn’t working. It’s a waste of time. I won’t even bother with that anymore.
“What in the world?” I zoom in on the monitor and lean forward.
She’s switching out laundry soap with cake flour. Why would she—oh. She’sprankingthe staff.
I keep watching her, annoyed, but curious to see what else she’s going to do. It’s strange that she’s putting energy into this instead of trying to escape. Unless she’s finally realized she can’t get past my security systems.
I tap my finger on the desk in annoyance. Tatiana is now pouring bleach into the fabric softener. Once that’s done, she moves over to the kitchen and mixes hot sauce with the ketchup and swops salt with sugar.
She’s messing with their ability to do their job.
