His eyes snap up to mine and his lips lift in a smile. “And I’m not sexy now?”
Oh, you have no idea how much, I want to say. Instead, I just laugh. “Are you fishing for compliments,Pakhan? My God, you are so vain.” I nudge him playfully, and we both chuckle. When the laughter trails off, I change the subject. “You said you have something to discuss.”
“Yes. I need you to bug Leonid’s room first. His office as well, but his room is the priority.”
“Okay. How do we go about getting me into his room? I could sneak in while he’s working.”
“There is always somebody around, a maid or some of the guys.” Roman shifts his weight away from his bad leg and leans his hip on the counter. “I’ll have to think about it.”
“What if I mess up?”
“You won’t.” He reaches for me with his hand as if he is going to touch my face, but then reconsiders and turns away. “Did you inform your parents that we got married?”
I cringe. “Not yet. Do I have to?”
“Yes.”
“Shit. Mom is going to kill me. She always talked about how she wanted to organize this huge wedding if I ever found someone crazy enough to marry me. Maybe I’ll just message her.”
A muscle ticks in Roman's jaw, and he leans toward me until our noses almost touch. “You can’t inform your mother that you got married via text message, Nina. You will call her and ask her and your father to come over for dinner.”
“Here?” I blink at him. “I can’t call them here. When my mom sees all the guys with guns, she’ll think I married into mafia!”
Roman’s eyebrows almost reach his hairline. “And your mother would be right.”
“Yeah, but can we leave out that small detail? She freaked out when she saw my nose piercing. My mother is extremely conservative; she even irons her towels. I’m not sure how she’ll take the fact that I married a crime lord.”
He laughs and shakes his head. “We’ll take them to a restaurant.”
I am not a fan of Nina’s mother.
As expected, she is shocked when Nina tells her we got married so suddenly, and to a man they have never met. However, based on the looks she’s been tossing in my direction throughout lunch, she is more concerned that I’m using a wheelchair than the fact her daughter married a stranger.
“Are you pregnant, Nina?” she asks casually between two bites of cake.
Next to me, Nina chokes on her wine.
“Jesus, Mom,” she says when she manages to recover. “Of course, not. We met a week ago.”
“But we are working on it,” I throw in and take Nina’s hand. “Aren’t we, love?”
Nina blinks at me, then smiles and leans in to kiss me. “We sure are.”
Nina’s father is sitting on the other side of the table, barely speaking. He’s been avoiding my gaze the whole evening. When he does look at me, he quickly looks away and hides his trembling hands under the table. I don’t like Samuel Grey, either, and it has nothing to do with the fact that he stole my money. He knows very well who I am, and he still let his daughter marry me to save his own ass. What a pitiful excuse for a human being.
On the table, my phone rings, showing Pavel’s name. It’s six in the evening, the clubs are still not open, so it can’t be club business. I take the call.
“Pakhan. We have a problem.”
Of course, we do. “I’m listening.”
“Ukrainians are here. Shevchenko wants to renegotiate the terms.”
“Tell him to contact Sergei. He’s in charge of that.”
“They already met earlier today, and Shevchenko says he has no intention of negotiating with him ever again.” There is a silent pause on the other side of the line, then, “Sergei tried to cut off his hand.”
“Wonderful.” I squeeze the bridge of my nose and sigh. “Where are you? At Ural?”