Page 25 of Bratva's Innocent Obsession
“It was books for me,” I reply. “The guards would sometimes, if I begged, go to the book swap corners that some hotels have, and pick me up whatever was in English and closest to hand.”
“What books did you read?” Kon asks, with all the appearance of being interested, and I list everything I can remember. He hasn’t read any of them, but he listens.
“I’d love to choose books to read,” I say wistfully, and Kon stares at me as though he’d die if he looked away. “Read in my own space, without anyone else around.”
I tell him about the hotels we stayed in. Four to a room, always mixed up so you couldn’t try anything because there wasn’t the friendship and trust built up. Yevgeny encouraged snitching.
No privacy. The most you ever got was in your own head.
We can’t be far from London now, and with proximity comes doubt. What will my sisters think of me? Will they even want to know me when they realise that I’m not their innocent sixteen-year-old dancing sister anymore? That I’m more than a little torn by life.
Hearing about Kon’s life in Volk and afterwards makes it all easier to cope with. The loss, the years with my sisters I’ll neverget back. The relationship I’m not sure they’ll want if they know me again. It’s been a long time since I saw my sisters, and I let them down.
Because if Kon survived Volk, and is rich enough that he has a private jet, kind enough that he rescued a whole ballet company, and drop-dead gorgeous to boot, there must be hope for my modest ambitions.
My friends safe and free, to see my sisters again. Money to buy my own books occasionally, and a bit of fun and laughter in my life.
Kon stops in the middle of a story about Harlesden when a man he calls Vadik hovers nearby, wanting to talk with him. He seems to be senior in his organisation, maybe just below Kon himself. Mostly they speak in Russian, far too fast for me to catch more than the occasional word. But when he dismisses Vadik, Kon doesn’t return to our conversation like he has all the other times, instead looking serious.
“So what happened to the restaurant?” I ask. Not because I’m that invested in the story, but because I really, really like talking with Kon. I’m starving for more of him.
He shakes his head, and glances out of the window, then back to me.
For the first time, there’s heavy silence between us, and my heart drops to my feet like iron.
Seconds tick by, and my bottom lip wobbles. What should I do? Am I dismissed? I guess that’s it, I should go and sit somewhere else that I don’t belong.
Kon lets out a deep sigh.
“I’m sorry,” he says abruptly. He doesn’t meet my gaze and a muscle ticks in his jaw. “About last night.”
I’m not.
I nod and raise one shoulder as though this is nothing to me. I don’t know if I can speak.
“I shouldn’t have…” His brow furrows.
This was so much easier when our bodies did the talking. When his heat and weight were over me, and I could pretend I was giving in. Being forced.
What’s wrong with me that I liked that?
“Things got out of hand.” He studies a point on the carpet.
“It’s okay.” Look, I managed to say something. Ten out of ten, me. “It’s me that should be thanking you, and maybe apologising as well,” I say awkwardly. “For paying for the night with me, for everything you risked, for coming to rescue me and for getting us all out.”
Kon’s brows dip low, looking down at the floor. “You’re welcome. It was nothing.”
“I guess you were paid.” Probably a lot of money. I wonder how Hayley and Payton managed that, and a wave of guilt crashes over me that I made this even more difficult and expensive by insisting all the girls were saved. This is just a job to Kon, I suppose.
“No. I did it because I was the one in the Maths Club who could.”
Oh wow. That’s… I don’t even know what to think. He did it for his friends, I guess.
“That’s some club,” I say with a confused laugh.
“And because I didn’t care if I lived or died.” His gaze strokes over my face like a caress, his expression soft even as he says bleak words.
“I’m sorry.” That’s so sad.
