There’s a soft chime from her computer monitor and she hits a key. “Their challenge is about to begin. Would you care to follow along?”
“Of course,” I said. Gingerly stepping behind the desk with her, I watch the cave map with the two blinking dots at the entrance.
She puts in her headset, listening intently. “If they are reluctant, motivate them.”
The two dots suddenly start moving and she points to the screen. “The red dot is Dubois, the blue is Jeong.”
The two dots progress quickly for the first few minutes, they’re almost to the halfway point. Then it breaks down, I can almost feel their panic as the blinking dots halt. The blue one surges ahead and the red dot catches up. There’s another pause, and I remember the feel of the cave ceiling pressing down on me, the scant inches of air between the rock and the water. I know what they’re feeling right now. This time, the blue dot moves on, and the red one is stationary.
“Are your divers going to retrieve Dubois?” I ask.
The Dean looks over at me, brow arched. “Would your father?”
Folding my arms, I watch the blinking red dot. “No.”
I expect to see Jeong’s tracker make it back to the cave entrance, but about two hundred feet away, the blue dot stops and doesn’t move again.
“The good tank must have been damaged in their fight.” She sighed disapprovingly. “You may go, Mr. Turgenev.”
Chapter Nineteen
In which there is rage-walking and girl wisdom.
Heather - Conan Gray
Mariya…
I’ve never felt this hopeless.
It’s after midnight and I’m rage-walking around the campus, shivering in the sweater I grabbed that isn’t enough for a cold-ass night like this.
I know that if I called Ekaterina, my sister, or my sisters-in-law Ella and Tania, they’d have good advice for dealing with unfeeling bastards. After all, every one oftheirmen started out that way. However, then comes the questions, and they will get angry on my behalf, and then it might go to Maksim, who has a responsibility as my brother and the Pakhan of the Morozov Bratva. We’ve always had a special bond, he still calls meMalen'kaya Nepriyatnost',Little Trouble. But if he gets involved, this could endanger our alliance with the Turgenevs. Alexi and Lucya are strong and loyal friends.
I had always loved the idea of being a part of their family, it’s just the teeny, tiny detail of having to be married to their asshole son. I was raised knowing I’d be married as part of an alliance. I was prepared for it. But now I’m realizing that this will be the rest of my life; pushed and pulled between his fucking mood swings, fit only for producing children… the intense loneliness of never having the chance to love my husband and be loved in return, being truly intimate.
Maybe it would have been bearable if I didn’t see how much Lucca and Tatiana love each other. They’d both nearly given their lives to save the other last year. Instantly, without a second thought. Who knew that Lucca, who had been the haughtiest, least approachable man on campus would fall for Tati and turn into the sweetest who showers her with tenderness? He treats her with respect, not like an annoyance, which brings me back to the reality of what my life will look like with…him.God, I hate him so much that I can’t even say his name.
“Mariya? Are you okay?”
Groaning silently, I try to reshape my expression into something that doesn’t make me look murderous. “Hey, Matt. I’m just fine.”
“It’s uh… kind of cold out here, huh?” Matt Carson, the blond, surfer-boy-looking guy who chatted me up in the library is smiling uncertainly at me, messing with the zipper on his jacket.
“Oh, yeah. You’re from the southwest part of the U.S. right? So this must feel like living in a walk-in freezer most of the time.”
He shrugged, chuckling in that charming, careless way men have when they know they’re good-looking. “My dad used to take us on these ski vacations to Deer Valley in Utah. Cold as fuck. Loved the snow, just not freezing my ass off in it.”
It felt good to laugh. “You definitely chose the wrong college, then.”
“Maybe,” Matt said, “but it’s not so bad.” He was looking at me differently. I’ve been trained all my life to ignore this kind of looking. To discourage men from ever thinking they would ever have a chance with me. “You’re shivering,” he said, looking concerned. “Here.” He pulls off his jacket and drapes it over my shoulders.
“Oh, you don’t have to-” I try to hand it back to him, but he steps back, holding up his hands.
“Hey, I know you’re off limits. Turgenev couldn’t have made it more obvious if he’d peed in a circle around you.”
The image is so oddly hilarious that I let out a horrible, girlish giggle. “Well, he is culturally obligated to be possessive and annoying.”
“I’ve never had much contact with the Bratva,” he says slowly moving into a walk with me, “my father’s syndicate never works with any of the Russian outfits. But I know alliance marriages are still commonplace, even today, huh?”
