Page 30 of Guarded Rebellion

“Huh?”

I hesitated but felt ready to take this risk with her. I wanted to open up, to really have “girl talk” with someone who wouldn’t be biased to remind me of my position as the Baranov Mafia princess.

“It’s just…” I released another deep breath, hating how dramatic this mood was. “It’s just pointless.” I shrugged, wishing I didn’t have to admit this. “I know I’ve been closed-lipped with details about my life. About my family and where I come from.”

She lifted a hand, almost losing her grip on the umbrella, her bag, and the phone again. “Hold on. No, no, no. I don’twantany details, Eva. Come on, I’m not dumb. When you say the ‘family’, I know that meanstheFamily. As in the mob.”

“Right.”

“So, yeah. The less I know, the better.”

“True. But I don’t know any secrets to tell you. I’ll be vague, all right?”

Her grimace didn’t convince me that she wanted me to share about anything of this nature.

“I’ve grown up knowing I would be married one day. Expected to marry and have kids. And my husband would be someone my uncle would choose for me.”

She nodded. “Yeah. Arranged marriages. I’ve heard about them. I mean, I’ve read some dark romance over the last couple of years.”

“Uh-huh. So dating anyone—kissing anyone—is futile. It won’t go anywhere. And that includes, um, this weird addiction I have of wanting to get a rise out of Lev.”

Her lips curled up in a naughty, sinister smile. “Ah, the forbidden relationship. So juicy.”

“So pointless,” I corrected. “He can get jealous all he wants. Hell, maybe he’s not even jealous and?—”

“Oh, no.” Kelly shook her head. “I saw him before you did. He wasdefinitelyjealous when Bryce kissed your cheek.”

Is it just because he hates Bryce? Or would he be like that if any other guy were flirting with me?I wasn’t about to test that theory.

“Anyway, it just doesn’t matter. He won’t act on anything.” I furrowed my brow, recalling how tense the moments were when he pushed me against the wall and shoved his body against mine. His placement of his leg between mine had to have been deliberate, too.

“Damn.” Kelly frowned, looking genuinely sorry for me.

I didn’t want her sympathy, at least not on the proverbial “blue balls” situation I’d have to face until I was taken on my wedding night.

“And that’s not really why I’m so mad. Or upset.” I sat up more, wrapping my arms around my knees with my phone atop them. Honestly, I had no grounds to be mad at anyone other than myself. I knew what I was doing when I kissed Bryceso quickly. I’d done it for no other reason than to piss off my bodyguard because he looked like a dictator hell-bent on controlling me.

“Then what?” She huffed. “You can’t seriously be bothered about missing a class. You’re acing everything so far.”

“No. It’s what he said, though.”

“That you’re grounded?”

I shook my head. “He didn’t say those words exactly. But he commented on my ‘stubborn opinions about a fallacy of independence’.” Paraphrasing Lev’s words stung all over again.

“What does that mean?” she asked.

“He just had to throw it in my face like that. That I’m being so stubborn to go to college. I had to fight tooth and nail to come at all. Because, again, that fate, that expected path of life I know I have to follow. I begged my uncle to let me go to school here because I was so determined to experience a little bit of a normal life. My independenceisa joke. It’s not real freedom with a bodyguard directing my every move. I’ll never be independent in any real sense of the word. I have no choices to call my own.”

“Fuck, Eva. I’m so sorry.”

I let out a shaky breath, feeling marginally better just to get that off my chest. “IknowI’m not escaping my fate. I can’t change who I am or what family I was born into. But I hate that he can’t lighten up and let me fool myself into thinking I could have a grasp of some independence while I am here.”

No wonder Sonya ran with Mother. No wonder they never wanted to come back.

They were right to leave when they could, even though I couldn’t forgive them for not taking me too. I was too young, I supposed, but that didn’t make it right. All my life, I resented not having a chance to spread my wings and make a life of my own, to makeanydecisions of my own—my clothing, my behavior, my diet, and my interests. It was all predestined.

“This lifestyle is suffocating, Kel. It makes me want to dig in and bemorestubborn. It makes me want to evade Lev as much as I can and defy him at every turn because I’ll never be this fucking close to freedom ever again. I’ll never have a chance to get this close to feeling like an independent person again.”

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