Page 55 of Deceitful Vows

At the time, I felt like Robin Hood—robbing from the rich to save the poor.

Now I feel guilty.

Not a lot, but enough for me to yank my phone out of my pocket and scroll through my limited list of contacts. Mikhail’s name is just above Nikita’s. Random employment agency contacts fill the rest.

God, my life is pathetic.

Nikita coughs, drawing me from my thoughts. I’m lost as to why she looks disappointed. She’s dealt with my unemployment woes as long as I have, so she should be accustomed to it by now.

I’m reminded that sleeping in an armchair never ends well when she says, “The one time I attempt a joke and it sails right over your head.”

“You told a joke?” She nods, and I stammer. “When? Where? Was it in the last century?”

She ribs me, sending my giggles bouncing around the bathroom. “Haha. You’re such an a?—”

I save her from swearing since I know how much she hates it. “Fakher. He wants to fuck her.” When her brow lifts, waiting for my critique, I twist my lips. “Your joke wasn’t bad. Especially considering how longithas been for you.”

Her groan assures me she knows what “it” refers to. “Don’t remind me. It’s been so long my uterus probably resembles a shriveled-up clam.”

“As long as it doesn’t smell like one, we’re good.”

That gets a laugh out of her.

After she washes the gunk off her face—medical goop, not makeup—she switches her scrubs for pajamas before she slowly trudges toward a bed that should have been dumped onto a sidewalk years ago. “Are you staying?”

She folds down one-half of the sheets before moving to the other side. “I’m good. I’ve got enough issues to contend with. I don’t need to addthatto the mix.” I wiggle my fingers around the lumpy mattress during “that.”

When I gather my coat off the armchair I was resting on when Nikita returned from a double shift, she shoots up to a half-seated position. “You can’t walk home now. It’s dark out.”

“Says the lady who just walked home from work.”

I love how quiet she is when she’s void of an objection.

“And it’s barely two blocks. I’ll be fine.”

“Three miles isn’t two blocks.”

“It is when you’re taking the bus.” Before she can argue that public transport is worse than walking the streets of Myasnikov alone, I remind her I have impressive fighting skills. “I’m almost a black belt.” I grumble my next words, but it is obvious Nikita hears them. “I would have beenifLeonard knew how to keep his dick in his pants during training.”

Leonard didn’t sexually assault me. He simply failed to announce that I wasn’t the only female fighter he was giving “free” lessons to. He was already cocky as fuck, but he hasn’t quit bragging to his minions about how good of a trainer he is since I left him with two black eyes and a busted nose after walking in on him and his 3 p.m. client.

I closed my fist that time like I should have done in the elevator with Andrik.

I move fast so Nikita won’t hear the sigh of my lie as easily as my libido did. “I’ve also got mace. If my fist doesn’t take them down, scorching-hot pepper spray will.”

Her delay in replying exposes I am getting through to her. “Z…”

If cramps weren’t announcing her sheets are one wayward roll from being massacred, I would have succumbed to her pleading eyes. Since I’m minutes from folding in two from the pain, I tell her I love her before I race through her front door at the speed of a bullet.

It is no easy feat considering it takes a bodybuilder to get her front door to budge from the lip. It’s swelled with the dampness I am anticipating to flood my uterus over the next three to five days.

I hold my arm in the air like Nikita can see me when she says, “Message me when you get home,” before I climb the half a dozen stairs to the foyer of her building.

It is far ritzier than the basement apartment Gigi and Grampies have been renting for the past several decades. It would have you believing Nikita’s family is rolling in money. That was my first thought when she invited me to meet her family years ago.

The mold spores my lungs fight to keep at bay assure me otherwise.

“Thank you,” I murmur to the doorman holding open the front door for me.

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