Her lips pursed at my comment. My suspicions amplified that this was a random apartment building that she used to throw people off from where she actually lived.
Internally I sighed, wishing she’d let me in a little and show me her actual home. But at the same time, I knew exactly why she shouldn’t.
“How’ve you been?” I asked, settling into a hard wooden chair.
“Can’t complain, everything’s been steady. What about you?”
How could I even begin to explain what was going on with me? That the same man who’d murdered my brother had saved me after I’d been drugged. How he’d nonchalantly sipped his soup while recounting how high-pitched my drugger’s screams were.
But I couldn’t admit any of that to her. Rumors had spread that I’d slept my way to my ranking, and me sleeping over at Dmitri’s house wouldnothelp matters.
Still, I didn’t want to holdeverythingback. I’d been forced to smudge the realities of my work to Gemma for her and my own safety. I was finally around someone with whom I could have an honest discussion about work.
“I still can’t believe I’m partnered with Dmitri,” I admitted.
Natalya’s eyes lit up at his name.
“What’s he like?” she asked, leaning forward.
Her excitement put me on guard, but I ventured, “We haven’t had a mission together yet… But he’s not what I expected.”
“I’m so jealous of you.”
“Want to switch?” I joked, and that conflicted part of me made its piercing presence known.
“Do you know how lucky you are?” Natalya shook her head, perfectly glossed hair bouncing across her shoulders. “I wishthat I was paired with him.”
“Why?” I asked. After all, everyone knew Dmitri’s brutal reputation.
“You knowwhy. We all know Dmitri Novikov’s going to be the next Pakhan. It’s just a matter of time.”
She wasn’t wrong. Everyone knew he was the Pakhan’s heir apparent.
“God, I would fucking kill to be in your shoes, Alisa,” Natalya said. “You should bedown on your kneesearning his favor, not antagonizing him.”
“That’s not happening.” Even though my body sometimes didn’t seem to get the directive, it would be areallybad idea.
“Don’t be stupid, Alisa. You need to suck up to himandsuck him off. Make yourself useful to him.”
My teeth gritted at the implication that the only useful feature I had was my sexuality.
Sometimes it stung how everyone I surrounded myself with thought so little of me. I was slowly killing my body for this competition, and I’dearnedmy ranking.
“I’m not sleeping with him,” I said, enunciating each word.
“If you don’t, someone else will.”
A text rang through on my phone, and I welcomed the distraction. For some reason, Natalya’s words left my stomach plummeting lower than the bottom of the East River.
My eyes widened as I re-read the text. My first mission with Dmitri.
Anovernightmission.
“And maybe,” Natalya said, “that someone will be me.”
Chapter seventeen
Alisa
