Page 7 of Broken Sins (Volkov Bratva 3)

When they see that I’m out of things to bitch about for a second, the one on the left—I’m pretty sure it’s Anton—speaks up. “I am sorry, Miss Volkov, but your father has given us very strict instructions not to leave you unaccompanied at any time. You were not supposed to separate from us today.”

I hold up a hand to cut him off. “Keep your voice down!” I hiss. I glance around to make sure no one heard him call me by my real last name. “First things first, let’s get this clear: I don’t give ashitwhat my father told you. I’m a grown woman. I don’t need babysitters.”

“We are bodyguards,” says probably-Matvei, “not babysitters.”

“What is there to protect me from?” I screech. I want to tear my hair out. They may be trained killers, but they are dumb as rocks sometimes. Like fricking robots, programmed to do one thing and one thing only: whatever Luka Volkov tells them to do.

“Your father has many enemies,” Anton answers firmly.

I look around the parking lot. Palm trees wave overhead, the sky is impossibly blue, and the sun is heating the air to a balmy but breezy seventy-five degrees. “What enemies?” I say. “Look around you. There’s no one here who even knows who I am, much less gives a damn about me. Just let. Me. Live. My. Life.”

Matvei starts to say something else, but I sigh for the billionth time since this infuriating conversation began and turn away. There’s no point in continuing it. We’ve done this whole song-and-dance way too many times and it always ends the same way: whatever my father wants, my father gets.

Speaking of the devil, my phone starts to vibrate where I have it tucked in my sports bra. Dad’s ears must have been burning. I retrieve it and answer with an irritated, “What?”

“That’s no way to greet your father,” he chuckles.

“Not the time, Dad. Your shaved monkeys are getting on my nerves today.”

I can hear him frowning through the phone. “Are you giving Anton and Matvei a hard time? They’re good men, Milaya. They’re there to protect you.”

“Protect me from—you know what, never mind. It’s not even worth it.”

“Good.” I sense that he feels like that settles things, which irritates me even more. But I decide to drop it for the time being. “How are you?”

“I’m good. School’s hard. Professor Mills is a pain in my ass.”

“Stefano Mills?”

“I don’t even want to know why you know his first name, Dad.”

“It’s my job to know things,lubimaya.” That’s his pet name for me. It meansmy love.I’m not feeling the love right now, though. At the moment, he feels more like my prison warden than he does my father. “Do you want me to—hold on, your mother wants to talk to you.”

“Hey, baby,” Mom says after the phone is exchanged. “How’s your paper coming?”

“Hey, Mom. It’s almost done. I spent a few hours in the library yesterday cranking on it.”

“Good. Doing anything fun this weekend?”

“Not sure. Anastasia wants me to go to some frat thingamajig. I’ll probably go there if I can’t dream up a good excuse.”

“Having some fun is good too, you know. As long as you’re being safe.”

I hear Dad in the background, grumbling something about “… she’s going to a frat party?”

“Yes, honey,” Eve scolds him, muffling the phone away from her mouth with one hand. “She’s a twenty-two-year-old girl. That’s what twenty-two-year-olds do.”

“I don’t like it,” Dad answers.

I just laugh bitterly and shake my head. Like yelling at Anton and Matvei, this is a ritual I’ve been through a thousand times before. Mom wants me to have fun, Dad wants me to stay locked away like Rapunzel in the castle, and I just want everybody to leave me alone. In the end, nobody gets what they want, and we all agree to argue about it some more next time around. Hip-hip-freaking-hooray, I love my life.

Mom and I chatter for a while about all the things going on in each of our lives before Dad gets back on the phone. “Milaya,” he says in that stern voice of his, “this professor …”

“Professor Mills?”

“That one. Do you need me to do anything? I can handle anything you need. If he is giving you trouble …”

“No, no, no,” I say hurriedly. There’s a dark, ominous undertone to his voice that I want to steer far away from. He is Luka Volkov. When he says he’ll “handle someone,” there is no telling what that means. “He’s just being a hardass. It just means I have to work harder. That’s all. No need for anyone to handle anything.”

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