That wasn’t anything concerning. And it was a vague observation.
“And that you seemed close to smiling every now and then, as if you were thinking about something and reminded of being happy.”
Fuck.Thatwasconcerning. I’d been suffering from random thoughts about Natalie. Any time I let my mind wander, it went right to her. I’d wonder what she was doing. If she was lonely. What she wore to bed. If she wanted me in her bed. How the rest of her soft skin would feel with the fact that I knew how decadently satiny her cheek was.
“Well, shit.” He chuckled again. “That’swhat she’s talking about.”
I furrowed my brow at him as we stopped at an intersection. “What?”
“You do look like you’re thinking about someone. A woman.” He arched one brow. “I never thought you’d be the next one to settle down.”
I rolled my eyes. “Settle down?” I huffed. “I don’t even know her last name. Nothing about her. She’s just a stranger who caught my eye.”
“That’s it?” he asked, amused.
“That’s it. Just a bartender I happened to see one night.”
He pointed at the neon sign of the Diamond Mirage. “That shitty dump?”
Goddammit.I couldn’t explain this need to keep Natalie as my little secret. I wasn’t ashamed of her. But after seeing how much Mikhail struggled to convince Claire to want to be a part of the Orlov family, I worried that Natalie would be even harder to persuade. She was that skittish and scared.
It reinforced how badly I wanted her to be with me. To belong with me.
“I stopped in there one night,” I explained. He wasn’t asking for an explanation, but I couldn’t leave this hanging open between us. When my father was killed alongside my grandfather, it left my uncle to raise me. He had been my father figure, boss, and friend more than a mere uncle all my life. I didn’t like to keep secrets from him. “Afterward, when a couple of punks were causing trouble, I handled them in the alley and found some of the Giovannis’ drugs on them. The shit we’d eliminated in that one bust.”
He hummed, interested in knowing more.
“Another time, I spotted a dealer in there.” Changing the topic into business seemed to get him off the idea of my being interested in a woman.
“This isn’t Giovanni turf,” he said.
“I know. But I’m wondering if they’re up to something. Maybe trying to expand their distribution.”
“Then I suppose your fascination about being in this area is for work, not pleasure.”
Not necessarily.
“Sergei, if you have found someone?—”
“I haven’t,” I replied quickly, cutting him off. I, along with Andre and Roman, was one of the few people on earth who could get away with cutting him off.
“If and when you do,” he said dryly, as if he didn’t believe me, “please consider the efficiency and speed with which you bring her under our protection.” Wearing a stern, serious expression as he watched the scenery out the window, he was likely recalling how Claire had been targeted once she was identified as someone associated with him.
“I will consider that,” I replied truthfully. “But she is just a stranger, Uncle.”
A stranger I couldn’t stop thinking about.
A stranger I wanted to kiss again. To touch. To pleasure. To protect.
After I took him home, though, I drove right back out to the Diamond Mirage instead of going home. Blood still stained my clothes from the hit I’d taken out at the warehouse with Mikhail. I was filthy, sweaty, and in need of changing and cleaning up. Yet, I proved myself that I was a liar by going to see if I could get a glimpse of Natalie.
“Just a stranger,” I muttered to myself as I drove past the Diamond Mirage. Due to the late hour, I wondered if she was even there anymore. The bar looked closed. No one was inside. I bet Rosa had closed again and had left.
“Fuck it,” I whispered to myself, needing to see her.
I headed over to the apartment building I saw her enter. As I turned in that direction, I shook my head and hated how she controlled me like this. How weak I was with this need to see that she was okay. Just to see her, all to experience that lift of my heart and the happiness that crept in with the awareness that she was safe and sound.
I didn’t want to know how this was possible.
