Page 40 of Claiming Veronica

“I do. I love you, too. I need to go. I have something I need to do, but take care of yourself. Enjoy yourself.” I knew that Maxim gave her a generous monthly allowance for shopping and luncheons, and she spent much of her time with other Bratva women these days, idling the days away. I was glad that most of her worries had been removed. I’d take away the last ones if I could, but that wasn’t possible.

“Bye, baby,” she said, hanging up.

Chapter 21

Eli

It was late when I was done dropping off Pike at his bike, and later, by the time I’d returned to Phoenix to meet back up with Luther. We planned to meet to go over details about the upcoming fight, but my mind was elsewhere. Half of me was driving, but the other half? It was with her. Veronica.

I couldn’t help myself. I spent most of the time hovering over the link to her security cameras, watching her. Something about her pulled me in, something I couldn’t shake no matter how hard I tried. She was a mystery I wanted to solve, a puzzle I needed to piece together. But it wasn’t just that. It was deeper—more dangerous.

On the drive back, I’d even put the live feed from her cameras on my dash, watching her onscreen like she was right there with me. The way shemoved around the house, her fingers flying over the keyboard, her eyes narrowed in concentration—she had no idea I was watching, and maybe that was for the best. I wasn’t sure what she’d do if she knew. Maybe she'd run to her cousin and tattle.

Or maybe it would turn my little moon goddess on. She seemed to like me watching her. The thought had my cock hard as a fucking poker all day. She’d been a treat last night, her cunt all wet and hot. I planned on fucking her again today, just like I promised.

It looked like Veronica had found something. I didn’t know how much yet, but I’d gotten some alerts already. She was also digging into Spato, into the fights, intome.

I clenched the steering wheel tighter, my knuckles going white. I needed to know how much she’d uncovered. She’d be in real danger if she got too close, not just the fights. Luther wasn’t someone to cross, and neither was Spato. If they caught wind of what she was up to...

I clenched my jaw, attempting to set the thought aside. She was smart—too smart sometimes.

Pulling back into the garage under the apartments, I headed up the penthouse and blew intothe room. “What’s up, buddy? How was the setup? Did you get food?” I fired off.

Luther was predictably at the kitchen counter with a tumbler of my best scotch and his computer open. “Setup is good man.” He’d changed into a pair of sweats and had showered, his blond hair still wet. “This is a sweet pad. You’ve made yourself at home. Are you going to tell me what’s going on? Why you’re here? Your brother?”

“I wasn’t going to … no.” Pouring myself a drink, I propped myself up on a stool and looked over the files he had spread out. “Did you order dinner? I’m starved.” He frowned at me, which didn’t suit him. Luther was all about the smiles even when he wasn’t happy. He was good at the disguises, which was why he’d always been our frontman.

“Yeah, I’ve got food on the way. Pizza with pineapple on your side.”

“Ha, ha. You and your jokes. Pineapple. I’d cut you for that.” Luther knew that if pineapple touched my pizza, he’d die.

“So Victor came here because your brother was here?” His forehead creased, and I could see that this was a thing that he’d be hung up on.

“Yeah, the people that he killed were connected to me and Pike from our foster placements. He had some weird idea that I blamed Pike for what happened to me and that he’d set Pike up to take the fall.” Even saying it out loud sounded fucking insane. It had been lucky that Pike had Natasha helping him while Victor ran around Morinrock being a psycho. “I hadn’t even really intended to let Pike know I was alive, but in the end, that had seemed like a chicken shit choice, and there wasn’t another way around it.”

“Alright. So you’ve bought this place. Was Pike the reason why? You want to be all close to your brother?” There was a dark note to Luther’s words, but I dismissed it. Was he jealous? Surely not.

“Not entirely,” I admitted. “There’s a girl.” He let out a low laugh. “Shut the fuck up, asshole,” I ground out. “Pike’s girl has a sister, and when I was tracking down Victor, I saw her. Her name is Veronica.”

“Have you become a peeping tom, Havoc?” he teased, and his eyes widened when I felt the creeping flush of shame. “Oh my God, tell me you aren’t spying on this girl right now?”

“Leave me alone. Where’s my food?” I grumbled.

“Show me a picture. When can I meet her?”

“Never dick. She’s too good for you.” The doorbell rang at that moment, and I bolted for the door as Luther crowed with laughter. The truth was that Veronica was too good for both of us, but he knew that.

“I never thought I’d see the day you’d fall for a chick.” He grinned at me. “Incredible. Amazing.”

I watched him as he smiled and laughed. There was a moment when I thought about asking him why his name was on the lease with Victor, but I didn’t. He’d known Victor was here weeks before I did and hadn’t said anything. It didn’t mean much, though. Luther often acted as Victor’s money and business guy. He’d always been moving around, and Luther probably hadn’t had any reason to connect Arizona to me or to my pre-existing brother that he’d not known about. Bringing it up now didn’t seem like it would do any good.

“So Veronica and her sister are related to the west coast Bratva?” he waggled his eyebrows at me. I stiffened. He held his hands up in surrender. “Hey man, just curious, you know how I am.”

“Yeah. Their cousin is the pakhan of the Volkov Bratva.” He nodded, and it was obvious he’d already known. The hairs on the back of my neck went up. I gave Luther a lot of credit for havinghis ducks in a row, but he knew all this before I even mentioned it. I hadn’t decided what it meant yet, but I didn’t like it.

Thankfully, Luther let it slide after that and allowed me a few minutes of peace while we stuffed our faces with hot, gooey pizza that burned the roofs of our mouths and chased it with scotch. It allowed me a few minutes to check my phone and peek at Veronica surreptitiously. She was chatting with her friends online, her laptop propped on her pillows while she ate popcorn, wearing a little headband with cat ears. Fuck she was cute.

Luther’s voice pulled me back to the present, his sharp tone cutting through the fog in my head. “Eli, you listening?”

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