Page 34 of The Mistake

“Not a soda?”

“I’m actually not abig sugar lover.”

“You’re not?”

She shook her head. “What about you? Do you like sugar or carbonated drinks?”

“No.” I signal the waiter and order a fine whiskey for myself and a glass of ice water for her.

The waiter looks a little perplexed but I knowhe’s new. It won’t take him long to figure out who he’s disrespecting. I watch him go to the bar and the barman leaned forward, whispering in his ear. One look from the waiter, and he appeared to shit himself. Good.

Returning my attention to Charlotte, I see the smile I’d placed on her lips had faded and she glanced down at the table.

“Did you have a nice day today?” I asked. Small talk was notmy forte. I’d never been interested in making conversation. Small talk was too much of a distraction and got in the way of most shit. I didn’t have time for that in my life.

Charlotte nodded. “You, er, you don’t spend a lot of time in your penthouse apartment, do you?”

“I spend as much timethere as possible.”

“But you prefer your country home, your estate.”

I nod my head.

“And because I’m there, you’ve not returned to your home in a month.”

The waiter returned with our drinks. “I’m so sorry, sir. Is there anything more I can do for you?”

“Bring our meal over without spilling iton our laps.”

The waiter nodded and bumbled his way as he moved from the table. I noticed the tears in Charlotte’s eyes.

“Would you like me to leave?” Charlotte asked. “I couldstay in the small, erm, I think it’s like beach house at the bottom of the garden if you’d like?”

Hubert told me she’d been exploring the house and gardens. There was a small property at the bottom of my gardens where I liked to go to be alone. If she’d gone there, had she seen one of my secrets?

Away from the shit and chaos of my work, there was something I enjoyed doing. I liked to draw and paint. I hid it away and I kept it locked. No one, not even my guards knew what I did there. Whenever I went to my studio, no one was to come near me. It was one of the few places I had in this world that took me away from all the shit and allowed me to think. No one, not Hubert, not Vlad, and I don’t think even Ivan was aware of my secret.

“You will not be moving out of our home. Work has dominated my life the last month, which is why I’ve been needed here.”

“Oh,” Charlotte said. “So it’s not because I’m there.”

“No.” It wasn’t a total lie. Dealing with the Ivan death fallout had come with a great cost. I know we were all feeling it. Me, Victor, Peter, Slavik, and Andrei. Not to mention the knock-on effect of Oleg’s territory.

Threats to our lives came with the territory of being the sixbrigadiers in Ivan Volkov’s Bratva. We dealt with death every day, and those who would like to overthrow him. There were many who would like to see Ivan fall.

The bastard son, the one that was fucking stupid and incapable, the one that was thrown away, shouldn’t be able to rise up the ranks. Not only had Ivan become strong, he’d taken everything from his father, claimed the Bratva as his own, and changed it.

No one really knew what Ivan was capable of.

Some believed he was immortal. Some kind of super-being for what he did. I knew Ivan could bleed. I’d seen it, but I also knew when it came to pain, he rarely felt it. The man was a machine, a monster, and he feared nothing and no one.

The waiter brought our food over, and Charlotte gave me a smile. I likedher smile. I didn’t want to like her smiles, but I did.

****

Lottie

OneWeek Later

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