Now?
But I hadn’t done what I needed to do yet!
He couldn’t fire me.
Not yet.
I’d come here knowing I wasn’t cut out to be a damn maid and aware that I’d only be here long enough to steal the intel my uncle coveted.
But—
“Oh, for God’s sake,” a woman scolded behind him as she breezed in. “Don’t shock her like that, Andre.”
I blinked as Claire Orlov entered the wide foyer.
Andre cleared his throat, smiling smugly and looking at me like he was the devil himself. “You’re fired and rehired.”
“What?” I frowned at him and willed my heart to slow from panic mode. My skin tingled with the spread of goosebumps his words had caused me to experience. Shock. Dread. A gut-sinking fear. All of it. His announcement that I’d been fired—and no longer had a reason to be here for my uncle’s deceiving plans—had scared me that much.
Mikhail Orlov entered the room after his wife. He gave me a grave, sober stare like always. It wasn’t like how my uncle peered at me, like I was always lacking, but with suspicion. These two didn’t come over to Andre’s building often, but whenever they did, I felt like an intruder on the family.
“You’re accomplishing nothing as my maid,” Andre said.
I furrowed my brow again.
Claire sighed and put her face in her hand. “Finesse, Andre. Jeez.”
“You’d be far more helpful as my office assistant,” Andre decided.
“I—I would?” Hell, his officewaswhere I needed to be to spy for my uncle. Just… not with Andre there.
“It’s a mess in there, and you can help me organize it,” Andre said. “My, um, sabbatical from work won’t last forever,” he saidwith a glance at his father. “So why not move you to help me there before my leave is over?”
Mikhail raised his brows, eyeing me as if waiting to see how I’d react to this offer.
Maybe it was nothing more than his being my uncle’s rival, and the fact that he was a ruthless Mafia boss, the Pakhan of this Bratva. But Mikhail Orlov instilled a healthy dose of fear in me just from his stern looks.
I’d noticed him watching me closely whenever he was here. I’d caught on to the lack of trust from him.
Wouldhebe okay with me near his son in any office?
I had to wonder. Because sometimes, it was impossible to convince myself that Mikhail Orlov was just as duped as Andre and everyone else. That somehow, this powerful Mob boss knew I wasn’t who I said I was.
“Give her a chance to think it over,” Claire said with a small smile for me. “I don’t have long to check your wounds.” She clapped and gestured for Andre to act like a patient, not a relative.
I nodded once at the sweet-toned Brit. “I’ll… think about it,” I told Andre, wheeling the vacuum cleaner out of the room.
Think about it?
I held my breath as I passed by the watchful glare from Mikhail. Excusing myself as I wheeled the vacuum cleaner felt like I was running away from Andre’s offer.
No, not an offer.
And there wasn’t anything to think about. The way he’d said it, it was an order. A fact stated.
He was “firing” me just to rehire me as an “office assistant”?
It’s absurd.
