Page 34 of Sexting the Silverfox

I owe him that and so much more. God, I miss him. I hate being away from him. We’re still texting, but we can both tell it’s not what it used to be. The spark isn’t gone— my body cries out for him every damn night. But the tension between us is spoiling everything.

When I approach my hotel room, I see someone standing outside the door.

I freeze in the middle of the hallway, bathed in a golden light from the ceiling-mounted, smoked glass and bronze fixtures, staring at the man. I recognize myself in his cold, blue eyes and curly blonde hair.

Anton is dressed in a tailored navy blue suit, which brings out his best features.

“Little sister,” he says, beaming like the sun as soon as he recognizes me. A broad, almost charming grin slits across his handsome, boyish face. “You look wonderful!”

“Anton. What the hell are you doing here? How did you find me?” I manage, my voice trembling. I don’t know whether to be impressed or terrified.

“I’m resourceful, remember?” he chuckles softly and takes a step in my direction.

Instinctively, I move back. “Hold on. How did you find me?” I repeat.

“Audrey, when are you going to understand that I will always know where you are?”

“Ah, shit, you tracked my cell signal, didn’t you?”

Anton measures me from head to toe. His blue eyes are reduced to inquisitive slits as they shift focus, inch by inch. I feel like I’m stuck inside an X-ray machine, unable to move. “I’ve always known where you were, little sister,” he says. “But don’t worry, we didn’t tell Papa.”

“We?”

“Vitaly and me. You didn’t think I’d keep our big brother out of the loop, did you?”

I exhale sharply, pinching the slender bridge of my nose with moderate frustration. “I swear to God, I never understand anything with you two. So, you knew where to find me this whole time?”

“154 Maple Street, Emerald Residence. Apartment 230,” he says with a confident cockiness. “Before that, 23 Sudds Drive. Rental. Before that, the Madison Inn, 45 East Street. That one was smart, I’ll give you that. Papa would’ve never thought to look for you at a motel like that.”

I stayed at the Madison when I first got to Chicago. I looked for the cheapest motel on the nastier side of town to keep my head down for a while and wait for the Fedorov storm to pass. “How’d you track me to Chicago, though?” I ask, still rather confused. “I switched Greyhounds like five times.”

“Audrey. Vitaly and I taught you how to disappear without a trace,” Anton replies, almost laughing. “Why would we teach you that if we didn’t know how to track you ourselves? I knew you were thinking about running away from New York. I knew it as soon as Papa mentioned Piotr and the arrangement he proposed.”

Piotr. That’s a name I’d hoped I would never hear again. It causes a feeling of disgust to form in the back of my throat. It’s a hard name to swallow, and I shudder as I try to push the image of him out of my head. He still gives me the creeps.

“I’ve kept my distance this whole time,” Anton says, pursing his lips for a moment. “I am only here because you summoned me.”

It’s too late to un-summon him; that much is obvious. Every statement my slightly sociopathic brother has made up to this point only proves that I will never truly get away from my family.

He has always known where to find me, yet he chose to keep this from our father. I don’t know how far I can trust him or Vitaly, for that matter. Our father has a way of sinking his teeth deep into his sons, deep enough to indoctrinate them, to brainwash them into being his perfect little soldiers.

That never worked with me.

I wonder how far in Anton and Vitaly have gotten with the Bratva in the years that I’ve been away. Do I even wish to find out? I should be feeling relief at this moment. I called for help. Help is here. So why am I so wary?

Because I know who I’m dealing with.

My brothers have always been slightly milder versions of our father, though both can be just as ruthless when the situation demands it. To my relief, they’ve also always had a major soft spot for me, their little sister. Even when Papa tried to marry me off to Piotr—his business partner, Bratva lieutenant, and a man old enough to be my grandfather—Anton and Vitaly understood that it wasn’t what I wanted.

They worked hard to convince our father not to go ahead with the arranged marriage. They failed, and I had no choice but to run away before Piotr could put a ring on my finger. To their credit, they left me alone with my illusion of safety until I reached out to them in desperation.

“You’ve always known where I was,” I mutter as a waiter brings us tea and biscuits.

We are sitting at one of the more private tables of the hotel’s tearoom, out of sight and well out of earshot, under a dim, amber light. Anton waits until it’s just the two of us again before he answers, casually adding four sugar cubes to his cup. It’s a miracle he hasn’t developed diabetes.

“Yes,” he confirms.

“But you never came after me.”

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