Page 30 of Defiant Devotion

“Yeah, she?—”

One of the men turned from the counter, ordering her to come and leave with him. While she was replying to her father, I lowered my head, pulled the hoodie back up over my face, and slid out of my seat.

Too close. Too much attention.I had to get out before she pointed me out or tried to alert anyone there about a Baranov princess being in their presence.

Too many questions.

I’d gone there to learn something—anything—about my family’s situation that I was returning to.

All I’d discovered was that it was too late to save my sister from being a pawn for another man or family.

Eva was already married.

That girl claimed that Eva had chosen her husband, but until I could see my sister in the flesh, I had no way to guess whether she was trapped.

12

BEN

The day after I encountered Sonya at that strip club, I finally got close to the Baranovs again. With Oleg in the hospital still, his closest confidantes would be there too. It wasn’t easy to merely ask for permission to come up to that floor and into his private room. They’d insisted on layers of security while their leader was vulnerable.

That didn’t stop me, though. Another disguise, this one as a member of the janitorial staff, got me into Oleg’s room.

Once more, I was privy to spying on them and listening in.

I couldn’t shake the possibility that Sonya was reluctant to return to her family. Details were missing, but I didn’t want to dismiss the idea that I’d be doing my flaky lover a disservice to bring her home.

Lev and Vik sat at the table in the room. While I did intend to talk to them, observing and listening to them first seemed wiser.

They weren’t alone.

Oleg slept on, still and linked to tubes and wires on the bed. Near the table where Lev and Vik sat, women joined them. Rurik paced near the windows as his wife shook her head at him.

“Rurik, I swear I saw her.”

Rurik glanced back at her. “You’ve never seen her before.”

Kelly shook her head, frowning at Eva, who sat on Lev’s lap. She stared at Oleg sleeping, a worried expression etched on her face.

“I know that,” Kelly replied, “but based on knowing what Eva looks like, I swear it was Sonya.”

Yes!Elation filled me that they were talking about her. I’d snuck in here at the right time.

“She was at the restaurant, asking why Irina was there. She kept calling out for Eva after she walked away from the table to go to the restroom,” Kelly insisted.

“At Mancy’s?” Lev asked, glancing at Eva.

She nodded. “Yes. We had lunch there.”

And Mancy’s was right next to that strip club. Things were piecing together little by little. Sonya must have been running from the restaurant and cut through the strip club.

“But it couldn’t have been Sonya, Kel.” Eva winced, skeptical as she looked at her new cousin-in-law. “Sonya ran away because she didn’t want a life in the Mafia.”

Whoa. Is that true?

So far, I’d gotten the impression that some people had forgotten that Sonya existed. Some seemed to believe she was dead. Now,I grappled with the idea that some predicted she could’ve run on her own.

Which is it?

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