Oleg swallows but doesn’t blink, not even when the smoke burns his eyes. He doesn’t dare show weakness or disagreement. Inwardly, he calms himself by imagining putting that cigarette out in Vladimir’s eye.
“What happened?” he asks like a good lapdog. He knows what’s expected of him and how to play the part.
Vladimir grins, his fleshy jowls shaking. “Volkov came to her rescue. He left Mikhail Turgenev in Romanoff’s to go running after her like a dog saving his favorite bone.”
“Fine, so he feels something for her.” Maybe. “What do we care?”
“Bes is having difficulty getting his target. Alex is too well guarded, too careful, especially after the failed shooting attempt. But now he has a weakness.”
“You want me to get the girl to get to him?”
“Took you long enough to figure that out. Is the old brain less sharp these days?”
The rebuke gets Oleg’s hackles up. “Just checking if you want a specific course of action.”
“Be creative.” Vladimir’s jovial gaze hardens as he stumps out his cigarette on the polished surface of Oleg’s ten-thousand-dollar antique cherry-wood desk and drops the butt on his priceless Persian rug. “Use her to get Volkov alone. Kidnap her, kill her… I don’t fucking care.” He pushes to his feet, the action heavy. His measured words are thick with a threat, this one aimed at Oleg. “Just do the job. Alexander is much too powerful to fuck this up.”
Oleg swallows again, getting up so as not to disrespect Vladimir by remaining seated, even as his hands shake with the urge to strangle the man facing him. “I’ll get the results you want, but you have to let me do this in my own time. I have an agreement with the NYPD that—”
“Your time has run out.” Vladimir turns for the door, paying Oleg the ultimate insult by giving him his back as he says, “Do it, or I’ll find someone else.”
17
Another crazy work week flies by while the first early snow covers the streets with a layer of white powder that quickly turns muddy in the late morning. Alex calls every day, but I reject his calls.
We’re in a strange kind of ceasefire where Yuri doesn’t show up to drive me around and Dimitri isn’t standing on the street corner of my apartment building or sitting in the same subway carriage as me, at least not within my sight. No more gifts and meals are delivered. Alex must’ve realized I’m immune to them. Well, kind of immune, because I’d be lying if I said the gestures didn’t touch me in some way. Who doesn’t like to receive flowers and beautiful messages hand-scribbled in cards?
What I minded weren’t the gestures, but the motivation behind them. Alex sent me flowers not because he wanted to, but because he thought that’s what I wanted him to do, which shows how little he understands me. It’s not about the dinners or the flowers for me. It’s about bonding, building a meaningful relationship. And since a meaningful relationship isn’t Alex’s objective, we keep on turning in this infinite circle of exhausting unfinished business, with him chasing and me running.
Joanne says I’m over-analyzing and over-thinking the whole situation. According to her, guys all have the same agenda when they send flowers. She says it’s just a different kind of foreplay or seduction. When I look at it like that, I have to conclude that Alex is really pursuing me hard. For someone who can have any woman in the world, he seems to truly want me. There’s hope in that, a small possibility that there’s something more in our attraction than just the sex. If it were only the sex, he would’ve already replaced me with someone else.
And maybe he has. The mere possibility makes my chest ache. I don’t want him for only sex, but I also don’t want him to have anyone else. It’s a selfish notion that borders on jealousy. Oh, who am I kidding? I’m swamp-monster green when I imagine him with another woman. Just look what seeing him with Dania did to me.
Round and round in circles my mind goes. While I’m debating seeing him or not, I’m avoiding him as I try to come to some kind of decision that involves a truce between my mind and my heart. As much as the latter is begging me to give in, the rational side of me is screaming for me to run in the opposite direction and protect my feelings. And more than my feelings. The man has dealings with the Russian mafia, for crying out loud.
To distract myself, I go out for lunch with a couple of the nurses I work with, and I have dinner at my mom’s place twice during the week. I cram every free minute I have full of activities and people to avoid coming to the decision I can’t bear to make.