Page 42 of Savage Surrender

He pursed his lips. “Marrying his daughter into the family of his enemy?” He shrugged. “It happens. It has happened, but it is usually in the case of surrender. Or a ploy for something else to be gained in the transaction.”

His words lingered on my mind long after I left. During the drive back to my apartment, I acted on this new urgency to make sure that couldn’t happen.

Irina would not marry a fucking Ilyin. She couldn’t be displaced fromme.

Calling Rurik was my first step. But he wasn’t convinced my plan was wise.

“You want me to distract the Petrov guards from her so you can dowhat?” he asked.

“Get her guards away from her so I can take her.” I hadn’t stuttered.

“Take her… to question her?”

“No. Just to have her. I—” While I knew better than to open my mouth to Oleg and say that I wanted her, I wasn’t as guardedwith Rurik, with a brother. “I want her secure away from the influence of her father’s men.”

“Okay…” He still didn’t sound convinced.

It was past time for me to ask her about what Igor Petrov was up to. I had to be more direct. No more Professor Remi seducing his naughty student. It was time for me to be Vik, the lover who didn’t want her to be given to someone else, the man who was daring to hope she couldn’t be stuck on the side of the enemy forever.

I couldn’t dismiss her asonlythe enemy. Not when she helped Eva escape. Not when she had yet to act like she was committed to her father or family.

Because I couldn’t stand the thought of her with someone else, I had to get her somewhere I could ask her the hard questions and get to the bottom of what her father was planning—with or without her help.

As soon as Rurik got her guards away, I’d track her down and get down to all these questions she owed me answers for.

20

IRINA

Early the next morning, I set out to work for my father. The last couple of days, I fell down one rabbit hole after another. When I wasn’t researching how to start over with a new identity for myself and Maxim, I was putting some effort into looking into Marcus James and Eric Benson. Both of the up-and-coming politicians were sexy and photogenic, which probably helped them get as far as they had, at least via social media. No one liked an ugly politician, after all.

Missing classes, staying in, and just poring over what I found on my laptop, I kept myself safe. Safe from being exposed and vulnerable to a frisky Ilyin trying to capture me again because my father wanted to play games with them.

I also needed to retreat and stay safe from Viktor, too. After he took me so hard and fast in the library, I wanted it again. I wantedhimagain, not just for how well he’d fucked me, so filthily and taboo like that, but because he’d given a damn and asked me what I wanted. No one ever had, and that was a dangerous thing to get used to.

I couldn’t get used to him. That was clear. He belonged here at school, teaching and seducing young women like me. Whereas I belonged… working for my father just so he wouldn’t make Maxim suffer. Yesterday, he’d sent me a picture of canceling food deliveries to Maxim. The guard would be fed, but my brother would not. Unless I had something to tell him before tonight, he would cancel the incoming order.

So, I would do as he bade. From my snooping online, I found a few connections that I could start looking into. By checking out who liked what and who had friended whom, a network of acquaintances was clearer to see and follow.

Before I would need to go to Viktor’s class, I left my apartment to follow a student who was a well-known dealer on campus. I’d noticed him talking with Ilyin men who came here now and then, but that affiliation wasn’t anything new. I’d already identified him and reported him to my father as a connection of some kind.

What I wanted to investigate now was why he was commenting about talking to a student worker in the dean’s office. Marcus James had also made a comment elsewhere, and I deduced that the three of them might be planning a meeting or rendezvous point.

Either way, it was a connection I had to follow—if for no other reason than to prove to Igor that I was doing my duty here. I’d be damned if Maxim was starved because of what our father deemed as my slacking off.

I walked into the building where the dean’s office was located. Multiple offices were housed in here, a collective grouping of dean’s officials who carried out many administrative tasks. Pretending to scroll on my phone, I meandered down thehallways until I could locate that student worker. Wherever he was, he’d sure picked a good hiding spot to talk to a dealer and Marcus. I couldn’t find them anywhere, and that was saying something since not many office workers were in this early.

I did find one person, though, and it wasn’t anyone I wanted to see anytime soon. Twice, I’d caught sight of Jessica Nolan near Viktor. She was obviously interested in him, and that was all I knew about her. As she stalked up to me in the hallway, pausing my plan to snoop and find a meeting to listen in on, I got the feeling she was about to show me how vindictive and catty she could be.

“What are you doing here?” She narrowed her eyes at me.

I shrugged. “Looking for someone.”

“The offices aren’t open yet.”

I nodded. “Okay. Sorry.”

Before she would let me walk away, she had to slip in the last word. In this case, a threat.

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