Page 25 of Forgotten Vows
Part of me was shocked he had the gumption to reply and half of me was proud that he wasn’t afraid to address someone who practically oozed harsh masculine power like a demigod.
“Then you’re a very observant boy,” Luka drawled. “Because I’m not convinced I want Konstantin Petrov’s daughter in my house.”
Asshole.I was more than that. I wasn’t just my father’s daughter. I was a woman in my own right. I was a mother. And until this morning, I was determined to be an ordinary citizen, an average nobody—not a daughter of any Mafia family.
“Then tell those guards at the door they’re not doing their jobs,” Lev said plainly, gesturing in the direction of where the Dubinin men stood as the background sentinels they were. “They told us to come inside.”
Luka seemed to smirk. His stare was too cool to know whether he was amused or not. For all I knew, Luka could despise children and was counting down the seconds until he could order us out of here.
Ivan never talked about his uncle much. Of course, I’d heard of Luka Dubinin. Most of what I’d heard was what my father told me, and those were all heated complaints. I’d grown up with the knowledge that my father hated Luka and envied him for the excess power he possessed, more than what my father ever could’ve obtained.
When I knew that Ivan was a Dubinin, Luka and my father became equal halves of the elephant in the room. Ivan and I didn’t need details. Just knowing he was a Dubinin and I was a Petrov was plenty to set the scene, just like Romeo and Juliet. Rivals. Not friends.
“They let you inside because I told them to,” Luka explained.
“Why?” Lev pressed.
I almost winced, nervous that Lev’s natural inquisitiveness would derail the approach I wanted to use here. We were here so I could demand protection for him. We were here because I couldn’t keep him safe on my own anymore. I didn’t have the money or strength to single-handedly keep Lev alive and well forever. It was a fear I’d been avoiding facing for so long, but I wasn’t so proud that I couldn’t admit the need for help now.
With how chilly Luka’s welcome was so far, I had to tread carefully, yet firmly, in stating my request. Lev could be curious why Luka didn’t want us here. For my son to understand why Luka wouldn’t want the daughter of a man he loathed here, a long, complicated, and twisted lecture would be necessary. Just the same, though, Luka could demand that I tell him why I came here with this boy he’d never met or known about.
“Because—” Luka cut himself off, lifting his gaze slightly to indicate he was acknowledging someone else coming into the room.
I turned, spotting a woman. The slender brunette entered with a young boy, but they both stayed back near the guards near the door to this massive study, where I had been taken when I demanded to speak with Luka after we’d arrived.
“I told my men to let you in because I was curious,” Luka explained.
“Curious about what?” Lev asked.
This time, I tugged on his hand. I didn’t want to shush him, but I wished he’d slow down with these questions like this.
“About—” Luka stopped himself again, glancing up as the sound of hurried footsteps approached.
Once more, I risked giving the Dubinin boss my back.
As I turned, life blurred as if I were living in slow motion. One second, the air was normal, suspended with a usual weight of gravity rooting my feet on the floor. The next, I felt like I was simultaneously falling and soaring. My heart raced as the vision of Ivan Dubinin hit me.
He was there. He washere. In the same room as me, rushing in like he had to run to get here. We breathed the same air. Our gazes locked with no tangible hurdles to impede us.
And I had my answer.
He looked the same, yet not. Still tall, with that muscled physique, the tattoos revealed on his hands and still fit and sporting those immaculate dark suits, a gun in the holster at his hip.
But it was the sheer shock of staring back at his dark-brown eyes that mesmerized me before. The thrill of watching his lips curve in a frown, as if I’d stumped him in a fun argument. The shift of that longish brown hair that he kept slightly unruly, as if needing any help to look like that much more of a rugged bad boy.
He washere.
At first sight, I couldn’t tell if I wanted to cry out of joy to see him after missing him or if I wanted to scream and scowl with all the rage I’d kept pent-up inside me for too long.
The anger won out. It overwhelmed me. Watching him rush into the room and locking his stunned gaze on me, I couldn’t contain all the fury I bottled in. I was angry at him. I was angrier at myself for this stupid, underlying attraction that sparked at the sight of him after all these years, that I could react to him at all.
One step forward distanced me from Lev.
And one more step closer enabled me to have the right angle to bring my hand up and land it on him. I slapped him, surprising myself with how instantly the need to return some pain to him filled me.
“You heartlesscoward!”
I let that accusation ring out clearly. It could echo forever in this big room for all I cared.
