Page 60 of Blood Mosaic

When he was finished telling her mother how things would be, Oleg walked down the porch steps and looked over his shoulder. “I will see you in Sevastopol tomorrow night, Miss Vorona. Please be ready to travel.” Then he turned to Anna, who was peering over Tatyana’s shoulder. “Miss Asanov, your new assistant will meet you in Sevastopol on your return.” He glanced at Tatyana. “She’s a professional and will be able to assist you with anything you need while I am borrowing your daughter.”

Bookkeeper acquired. Mother assuaged.

He was efficient, Tatyana had to give him that.

After Oleg left the farm, efficient professionals appeared as if by magic, setting up a communications center near the barn, sending out dark-clad individuals to patrol the orchards, and bringing in a black Land Cruiser to drive Anna and Tatyana back to Sevastopol the next morning.

Anna stared at the midnight bustle on the quiet farm. “I hope they don’t disturb the neighbors.”

Tatyana stared at her mother. “Are you actually okay with this?”

Her mother spared her a glance before she returned to surveying Oleg’s people. “You made an agreement with a vampire. He’s not asking for your blood or your firstborn child, is he?”

“No.”

She shrugged. “You were a bookkeeper for a packaging manufacturer, you can be a bookkeeper for a vampire. You needed a job, didn’t you?”

Part of Tatyana couldn’t believe her mother was being so casual about this, but the other part of her realized that Anna Asanov had seen more change in her life than Tatyana could imagine. A new dictator rolling in to run her life probably felt more normal than not.

“That assistant is probably a bodyguard,” Tatyana said. “She’ll be watching your every move. You know that, right?”

Anna looked at her. “And? I’m still going to make her clean. Your boss said she was going to work for me. So she can watch me while she cleans pigeon shit.”

The allureof a private jet was significantly less impressive on Tatyana’s return to Odesa.

The plane was just as luxurious, but instead of going home, Tatyana was returning to Odesa for an unknown period of timeto work with a creature she didn’t fully understand, trying to accomplish a job she wasn’t sure she could actually do.

The plane was dimly lit and occupied by four other passengers: Oleg’s driver Seban and three other people she didn’t recognize. No one was speaking to the others; all of them appeared to start working the minute they sat down.

Tatyana sat on her own in a seat that faced backward, staring at a soft taupe curtain. Her messenger bag was next to her, but she didn’t open it.

She had things to do. She had a book her mother gave her and the files Elene had sent with her to Sevastopol, but she found herself staring at the curtain, determined tonotwork as long as possible.

“Miss Vorona.” Roman, the lovely steward, bent down and spoke softly. “Would you like a drink while the pilots prepare the plane?”

“Yes,” she said softly. “Just water, please.”

Nothing in Tatyana’s life seemed real, but as her mother had pointed out the night before, there were countless times when Oleg could have killed both of them and didn’t.

She’d become a target, and Oleg was probably the only one who could protect her.

Even though he’d been the one to make her a target in the first place.

“You were going to use me as bait.”

“I’m still going to use you as bait.”

Her mother, ever the pragmatic, reminded Tatyana that she had signed up to work for Oleg and she had to finish the job. As much as Tatyana had wanted to argue, she couldn’t.

Besides, if a monster was chasing her, she needed a monster to protect her.

“He’s coming.” A woman’s voice cut through Tatyana’s exhausted daze.

A female steward walked to the back and drew a curtain aside, revealing a strange contraption built into the back of the passenger compartment.

What the hell?

It looked like a very fancy silver… cage. The cage extended around four seats at the back of the passenger compartment, wrapping around everything—the floor, the windows, everything. There were large openings between the metal strips and a large door.

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