Page 25 of Twisted Secrets
His clothing was just another indulgence, but one that had a purpose beyond spending ridiculous amounts of money. Or at least it did now. Before, it was all surface value—he had the money, and spending it on clothes was fun. Now, he was all too aware of how people looked at him, summing him up based on his appearance. He didn’t regret the tattoos, but the suit combated the instinctive judgment that some people had. How could he be a hooligan if he was wearing a ten-thousand-dollar three-piece suit?
Just a mask. He grimaced. Maybe, but it was a good mask. Putting on a suit made him feel like he was ready to face the world—like he was more than just a leaf being helplessly blown on someone else’s wind. He finished buttoning up his vest—pinstriped blue to match the blue suit and gray dress shirt—and shrugged into his jacket. He was as ready as he was going to be.
Time to face the firing squad.
Chapter Eight
Olivia managed a few hours of sleep while Hadley napped, but it was nowhere near enough. The only thing that got her through her day was the knowledge that she didn’t have a shift for two days and could sleep through the night. To keep herself occupied, she went to work tidying up the apartment. It was old and there were some stains that were never coming out, but the smell of lemon cleaner never failed to make her feel more in control of her life.
Even if it was a joke.
Hadley toddled after her, and she handed over a clean rag. This was one of their day-off rituals. As she vacuumed, Hadley bounced around and ran the cloth over the walls and the television and pretty much every available surface she could reach. Then she went behind it with one of her sticky hands, leaving a trail. Olivia laughed and shook her head. There would be a day coming at some point where she’d have to force her daughter to help clean,so she always focused on enjoying every moment she could of this innocence and fun.
That parental indulgence had never been a part of her life growing up. Andrei barely acknowledged she existed until she was around grade-school age, and her mother was even worse in some ways. She wielded guilt like it was a bladed weapon, a picture-perfect phantom of a woman who drifted in and out of Olivia’s life at the most inopportune of times. Olivia would get to the point where she wassureshe was over wanting her mother to love her as more than a failed bargaining chip to force Andrei to leave his wife and marry her…And then her mother would deliver a few well-placed barbs and she’d be a mess of emotion all over again. She’d taken to avoiding the woman when she was all of ten, which worked more often than not because her mother didn’t like seeing evidence of Olivia’s existence any more than Olivia liked seeing the woman responsible for bringing her into the world.
She would never do that to Hadley. Her daughter might not have been planned, but damn it, shewouldbe loved.
Her phone rang three times during the course of the afternoon—all from Sergei—and she didn’t answer it once. Whatever he wanted, he could wait. She wasn’t exactly riding high after her night with Cillian, but she felt a definite buoyancy that made her turn up the music as she cleaned and swing her laughing daughter around the room. She wasn’t ready to give up the rare good mood. Not yet.
“Mama! Again!”
She grinned and flipped the song back to restart. “My baby girl likes LMFAO? I always knew you had great taste.” She wiggled in an exaggerated way that made Hadley let loose a string of infectious toddler giggles.God, she loved that sound. She spun a circle and dipped into the water-filled sink to grab a clean plate to dry next. The apartment didn’t have a dishwasher, which wasn’t terrible since there was only the two of them, but there were days when she felt the lack.
The phone rang again, and Hadley toddled over to it. “Wait!” But it was too late. Her toddler pressed the green button, answering it. Olivia dove for the phone, scaring Hadley in the process. Her daughter instantly started crying, but she couldn’t do a damn thing about it right now. “Hello?” She slapped off the radio. “I’m sorry, I can’t hear you.”
“Olivia.”
Her heart damn near stopped at the silky Russian voice coming through the line. She took the phone away from her ear and glanced at it. Yep, Sergei’s number. It shouldn’t surprise her that Dmitri used his favorite minion’s phone to make this call—he wouldn’t want any more strings connecting them than strictly necessary.Why is he calling now?
She took a shaky breath and tried to kill the panic creeping up inside her. “Dmitri.” No need to ask what he wanted—he’d get around to telling her when he was damn well good and ready.
“I hear you’ve been making new friends.”
She closed her eyes.Cillian. That had to be who he was talking about—he was the only thing that had changed about her life in the last week—but that didn’t mean she was going to roll over and play dead. “New city, new friends. You know how it goes.”
“Hardly.” A pause in which she could perfectly picture him narrowing his eyes. “You haven’t accessed the money I wired intoyour account.”
She didn’t ask how he knew that. New York might not be the Romanovs’ in total, but enough people owed him allegiance that it wasn’t surprising he had someone at her bank. What she didn’t get was why he cared so much. She couldn’t ask him. No one asked Dmitri Romanov a damn thing. “I don’t want the money. I don’t want the strings that come with it, either.”
“Life rarely cares about individual wants. I’m surprised you haven’t learned that by now.”
She had. That was the problem. She hadn’t asked to be born as Andrei Romanov’s bastard daughter, and she sure as hell hadn’t wanted his sudden change of heart. In a world where family was everything, she’d grown up as a barely tolerated individual within the realm of the Romanovs. It had sucked, but at least she knew she couldn’t rely on anyone else but herself. To have Andrei suddenly decide that he wanted her to actuallybea Romanov…No fucking way.
She rubbed the bridge of her nose, trying to ignore Hadley’s wails. “If the money is so important to you, take it back.”
“You know it’s not about the money.”
If it was, she might have just taken it. Maybe. Olivia leaned against the counter. If she could just get through to Dmitri, there was a chance he’d leave her alone. “I don’t want to be a Romanov. That was never my place, and Andrei deciding it before he died doesn’t change that.”
He paused. “I gave him my word, Olivia.”
Damn you, Andrei. You didn’t have time for me during your life. Was this just one final “fuck you” before you took that one-way trip to hell?She closed her eyes, violating her determination to wait him out. “Whatdo you want, Dmitri?”
His voice went hard. “Next time Sergei calls, you answer without hesitation. Is that understood?”
That wasn’t an answer, but it was clear that he didn’t really care about giving her one. Big surprise there. “You don’t own me.”
“On the contrary, I own everything about you. Your freedom is a luxury thatIallow. If I choose to, I can snatch it back, and there isn’t a single thing you can do about it. And your daughter…”
