Page 43 of Guarded Rebellion

“Maybe you can see that you don’t really belong here, Eva. That you’re not supposed to fit in with these ordinary, so-called juvenile college students. You already rise above them. You’ve already lived a life they are too soft to ever survive.”

She cringed, not replying. A knock sounded on the door, though, and the interruption distracted her from admitting I might be right or from arguing back.

Rurik let himself in. He glanced between me and Eva, caught off-guard as he volleyed his gaze back and forth. “Am I… interrupting something?”

I rubbed my hand over my face. Honestly, yeah. It felt like he was interrupting. Now that I’d had a taste of Eva, literally and figuratively, I didn’t want to share her with anyone for any reason.

God, I am so fucked.This possessiveness was getting out of control.

“No,” she replied.

He faced me. “We need to talk.”

Eva shook her head, stalking off to her room. “I’m going. I’m going.”

She knew better than to listen in to family business. Even though she was legitimately part of the family, she still knew her place.

She forgot her place last night. With me.

“You all right?” Rurik asked, jarring me from this zoned-out stare I had on her closed door.

“Yeah.” I cleared my throat and looked at him. “What’s going on?”

“I got a report that Irina Petrov?—”

I lifted my hand to cut him off. “We heard. Kelly called her and I listened in.”

He nodded. “And one of her acquaintances was raped at that frat party.”

“Again, we heard.”

His brows shot up high. “We? You and Eva are… together now?”

I glared at him. “Don’t play games with fucking semantics now. Anything else I need to know?”

“Yes. The man you found Eva with was a soldier affiliated with the Ilyin family.”

What the—I blinked, unable to contain the utter surprise that hit me with that news. “Are you sure?”

He bobbed his head up and down. “Yes. I had a couple of men sweep through the party after you took Eva home. I made sure Kelly left too. We found him, but he ran off before we could capture him.”

“So Irina and her friend must have gone to that party afteryouleft?” If they’d done a sweep of the place, he would’ve noticed the Petrov daughter.

“Correct,” Rurik confirmed. “I didn’t see her there.”

“An Ilyin soldier?” This complicated it all. I was counting on the Petrov presence because Irina was a student there, but the Ilyins? What business did they have being at that college campus?

My first thought was that they were targeting Eva.

Or maybe they were there to go after Irina Petrov.

Either way, this didn’t sit right with me.

“Also…”

“Fuck.” I shot Rurik a tired look. “There’s more?”

“The Boss wants you to report home to check in with him. News of all of this has reached him.”

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