Page 17 of The Brutal Arrangement

Maybe he’s pissed that she’s sneaking out in the middle of the night.

A few more times, I’d caught sight of Katerina tiptoeing down stairways in the mansion or dashing out into the darkness. Joann had never told me what the other buildings were on the property. I never asked because I wanted to mind my own business. But now that I realized my almost-friend hadan interest in exploring outside this mansion, I became awfully curious.

Katerina never went anywhere else. She was a homebody, often on her laptop. The only times she seemed eager to leave were the oddest hours in the middle of the night.

This sense of kindred spirit between us kept me worried, though, hating how constantly stressed she seemed to be.

With the increase of her arguing with her uncle, I stayed away from her. But one night, when I couldn’t stop thinking about how secretive she was being, I set out to approach her and at least let her know that she wasn’t alone. That I cared. It seemed like such a trivial thing to say, but sometimes, it was the thought that counted.

To my surprise, it seemed that she had the same idea. She was coming tome.

I opened the door and reared back in surprise at the sight of her stealthily walking toward me.

“Katerina?” I whispered it, but with her scowl and firm shake of her head, she acted like I’d shouted her name. Pressing a finger to her lips, she narrowed her eyes and gestured for me to follow her.

What the hell is going on?

It was easy to assume I was crossing lines to befriend her. The lines between staff and client were clear. But her sneaking out of her room to find me at mine was another transgression of a different manner.

Following her toward her room, I kept my eyes wide open and watched for anyone who’d notice us. Guards stayed at the doorsnear the points of egress to the mansion, not up on her floor, but still, I was nervous just to be out of my room and speaking with her. This wasn’t normal. This wasn’t part of my job. If she needed something cleaned, she’d contact Joann. I’d never experienced a late-night adventure like this at any other places where I’d been a maid.

Instead of going into her room, though, she had me follow her to a library on the next floor up. Questions flooded my mind, but following her lead and staying silent, I kept them in.

As soon as we were alone in the room, I couldn’t handle it. “What is going on?”

“I need your help.” She was dead serious, looking at me solemnly.

Shit.She was in trouble.I cringed at the idea that she was risking trouble for me, too. “Help with what?”What can she possibly thinkIcan do for her?I was a nobody. Powerless. Useless and replaceable as a dime-a-dozen maid.

“You need to be sent to another house.”

I blinked, not expecting her to announce a reassignment. Or that she’d be the one to direct where I was a maid. And especially how that would help her at all.

“What?” Shock and confusion kept me from being any more eloquent.

“I need to send you to another house.”

“Another house your uncle owns?”

She shook her head. “No.” She swallowed, seeming nervous yet stubbornly confident. It was an oxymoron that set me further on edge. “I need to send you to marry someone in my place.”

Stepping back was the only way I could react. Her words, as ludicrous as they sounded, struck me as an attack.

Send me to marry someone?

Did I hear her right?

Is she insane?

What kind of a world does she think?—

I reared back in alarm, knowing damn well whatherversion of reality she worked with. The Mafia world. The criminal realm of life.

For her, forcing someone into marriage was probably the norm. These people likely made their own laws and enforced them, separate from the normal society ordinary citizens like me lived in.

“What?” I was so stunned that I had to believe my ears were playing tricks on me, that I hadn’t heard her correctly.

“I need you to go marry someone. In my place.” She licked her lips and winced. “Okay?

---