Page 47 of Claimed By the Bratva Brothers

“Thank you for your concern,” I mutter and get up. “I’m going to go home now. Take care.”

“Lyric, don’t take it the wrong way.”

“How else am I supposed to take it?” I snap, drawing attention from other patrons. Curious eyes linger on us, making me uncomfortable. “You don’t think I’m capable of making sound decisions with my life unless it involves doing your bidding. Working for you, to be specific. Let’s just leave it at that, Dad. Have a great evening, and good luck with your campaign.”

“Lyric—”

He doesn’t get any more out of me. I’m out the door and fuming as I stalk back to my car and get behind the wheel. I’m starting to think that this is just part of the process. The payment for everything that I’ve been doing with Max, Ivan, and Artur is coming through. That must be what this is.

Smith has his eyes on me, he made that painfully clear.

And now my father is trying to meddle in my life as well.

14

Lyric

Over the next couple of days, I find myself growing increasingly frantic and restless. My pregnancy keeps swinging from one weird craving to another. I’m trying to stick to a healthy diet, even though every fiber in my body is screaming for some peanut butter and chocolate brownie ice cream.

Max and the guys have been made aware of my conversations with both Smith and my father. Respectfully, they declined to comment about Dad, but they had plenty of curse words about the local Bureau Director.

It has made them even more determined and more tightly wound, which, in turn, has made it harder to find that perfect moment to tell them about my pregnancy. I don’t think they’re ready to deal with that just yet, not with what’s coming. Because something is coming. My father and Smith both said as much.

The sound of heels clicking in an otherwise quiet library has me looking up from my lunch. The woman I see walking toward me seems familiar. The closer she gets, the tighter the dread in my stomach gets as I recognize her.

“Shit,” I mumble to myself.

Tall, blonde, vaporous, and so entitled that no space is big enough for her. A goddess walking among mortals is how she carries herself, and it’s all visible in the way she looks at me.

“This is clearly not my week,” I whisper, praying to all the gods for patience, because I’ve got a feeling it’s about to get worse from here.

“It took me a while to find you,” Polina Larionova says upon reaching my desk. “You’re Lyric Phelps.”

“That I am. Who might you be?” I ask, though I already know the answer. I just want to see how she presents herself. She came here for a reason, and this is one of the few moments where playing the idiot might work to my advantage. Remembering everything that Yuri told me about her, I brace myself.

Polina smiles coldly, ever the confident vamp. “You know exactly who I am.”

“I have no clue whatsoever.”

She gives me a hard glare, waiting for me to admit it, but I refuse to give her anything. I simply stare back, my eyebrows arched upward in innocent curiosity. “Polina Larionova. Maksim’s fiancée, to be specific.”

“His fiancée,” I chuckle dryly. “Getting ahead of yourself a little, aren’t you?”

“So you do know who I am,” Polina replies, irritated that I wasted a few extra seconds of her precious life as she nervously taps her gel nails atop the desk counter.

“I don’t give a shit who you are. What are you doing here and what do you want?”

“I see. So you want to do this the hard way,” she says, eerily calm and composed all of a sudden. “That’s fine. I can nip this in the bud right now, not a problem. You need to stay away from Max, Miss Phelps. You need to stay away from Max, from Ivan, from Artur. You don’t belong with them. Go back under your daddy’s protection, because otherwise—”

“Are you threatening me, Miss Larionova?”

“Otherwise, the wolves will eat you alive. No, I’m not threatening you, I am stating a fact. You American girls, you think the world owes you everything, that you can just get whatever you want when you want it. It doesn’t work like that.”

It’s my turn to give her a hard look. “That’s rich coming from you, while I’m here, working in a public school library and nowhere near eager to throw my daddy’s name around in order to get people’s respect.”

“You’re not cut out for them,” Polina hisses, inching closer while her blue eyes shoot daggers at my head. “You’re just the flavor of the week, Miss Phelps. A plaything for them in my absence, nothing more. We have history, Max, Ivan, Artur and I. History that runs deep. And we have a future together, as well. Their success, their very survival, depends on our marriage. You should cut your losses and leave them be. Consider it a great experience and move on.”

She clearly knows more about me than I do about her, and it makes me feel vulnerable. But there’s a reason why they left her behind. And there’s a reason why Max assured me that they have no intention of rekindling their rapport. Ever.

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