Page 70 of The Den of Sin
I sighed but secretly my heart swelled. “I’m too tired to argue, and there is nothing I would love more than to stay with you.”
I caved too easily to this man. I could blame it on my state of exhaustion, but the truth was that I wanted to be with him. There was nowhere else I’d rather be.
“Ahhh, malyshka. Finally.”
He led us both out of the room. At the door, he stopped and called out in Russian. Within the same second, a large guy came out of the shadows. He was tall, almost as big as Vasili, and the resemblance between the two struck me as odd, but what captured me most were the number of tattoos. I had never seen a guy with tattoos on his face. He had two on the left and right side of his face, one under his eyes and one above his eyebrow. The expression on his face was stoic, although when he spoke up, I could hear concern in his voice.
“How is he?”
“I think he’ll pull through.” I offered him a smile, although he barely looked at me. “He lost a lot of blood, and his collarbone was nicked by it, but it could have been worse. He should recover nicely and only have a scar to show.”
The guard nodded, his lips curved into tiniest of smiles. “Thank you.”
“Anytime,” I murmured, wondering if he was close with Vasili and Sasha. Something about the way he cared seemed more personal than just caring about your employer. His eyes were pale blue, like Vasili and Sasha’s, although his blonde hair was darker, making a stark contrast. Even his facial features kind of reminded me of Vasili. There was a scar marring the middle of his upper lip, but it didn’t take away from him at all. If anything, it added to his aura - beautiful, in a dangerous kind of way.And deadly!
“Can you keep an eye on him while we wash off, please?” Vasili asked him, interrupting my studying of the man.
“Of course.”
“Thank you. If his breathing changes or pulse slows down or speeds up,” I told him, “-just come and get me. No matter what. Okay?”
He nodded and rushed past us into the room with Sasha. Once he was behind closed doors, Vasili led me down the hallway, in the opposite direction from where we came from when we first got here.
“Who’s that?” I questioned him. For some reason, I felt he was important.
“That’s my half-brother.” My head snapped to Vasili and I almost tripped, face planting onto a marble floor. Luckily, he caught my arm and held me up.
“I didn’t know you had a half-brother,” I murmured. “How old is he?”
“Thirty-five.”
I frowned, confused. Tatiana had never mentioned a half-brother. Her father passed away about ten years ago. What had she told me about her mother? I seemed to remember her telling me she passed away when she was a baby. But her half-brother’s age was in between Tatiana and Sasha. Was he half-brother from father’s side or mother’s side? There was a nagging feeling in the back of my brain, but I couldn’t quite grasp it. My brain was too tired and too slow right now.
The moment we arrived at the opposite side of the house, I forgot about Vasili’s half-brother. Wide mahogany double doors stood there, with two guards, both at attention and staring at me.
“You can go; thank you.” Vasili dismissed them.
I watched his guards disperse and then turned to face Vasili. “Why do you have guards at your door?”
In the last few days, I learned more about Vasili than in the first few years that I’d known him and Tatiana. Who was he really besides a wealthy and handsome billionaire? Ruthless criminal? I had a feeling I knew the answer all along but refused to acknowledge it.
The moment we entered through the doors, my eyes traveled across the vast suite. No, scratch that. Not a suite. It was like a full-blown penthouse.
“Is this your wing or something?” I probably looked ridiculous eying everything while still dressed in his shirt, stained with Sasha’s blood and barefoot.
He chuckled. “No, this house is mine. But this wing was set up to accommodate the need for privacy.”
I shot him a look. “Why do you need privacy in your own house?”
“I have other men staying on the property and using the rooms in the house,” he explained. I raised my eyebrow but said nothing. I’d let him explain whatever he wanted. “Because of my position in the Nikolaev empire, people want me dead. The security I keep around my family is a necessity.”
We strode through the large living room, a decent sized kitchen, and I peeked into a room to find a large bedroom with a king size bed. Vasili seriously had an obsession with black and red. The bedroom was painted black and had red accents on the walls. And the bed, holy moly! It was even bigger than the one in his club.
“Hmmm.” I could barely stand on my feet from the long, exhausting night and here I was imagining all the things he could do in that bed. I could pretty much picture him propped like a king in the middle of that bed, touching himself, his large body on full display.
Shit, now I was turned on.
I forced my eyes away from the bed and locked on the wall in the furthest corner of the room. Taking a sharp inhale of oxygen, I blinked my eyes. I didn’t even realize I took steps into his room, towards that corner till I was right up on it.
