Once inside, I open my laptop, log in with my password, then press the live video. I see a blonde girl with the bluest eyes, wearing a black ballet leotard with jeans. While her ballet teacher smokes nervously near her.
She’s standing barefoot in the middle of the wide garden, quickly gathering her hair into a ponytail, an action that reminds me so much of her mother.
Anastasia adored ballet, and I was the only friend she was allowed to have in her life.
Because I was three years younger than her. It was she who named me Lev after her older brother was brutally killed. She could never accept the loss and created this new reality in her head where her brother lived while her parents died.
No one called me this name besides her, and that’s why Levi could never find me.
He was chasing a ghost.
“Miss Zencova, please. We need to rehearse for our show next week.”
Instead of listening to her teacher, she goes to the butler, who is holding a tray, and grabs a gun from it, making the teacher jump. “Miss Zencova!”
“Irina, we both know I suck at ballet, and the only reason I’m part of the show is becauseDedushkainsisted. I hate this shit.”
She points her gun at the target far away and shoots, reaching the bull’s-eye right away, and her butler claps.
“Fuck,” the teacher mutters, and accepts the wine from the butler, finishing it in one gulp.
The girl picks up a rifle next, and checks it out before moving to another target and shooting once again, a smile stretching her mouth when the target falls to the ground.
“Miss Zencova, please think about me,” Irina pleads. “I don’t need trouble with the Bratva.”
“Aren’t you my grandpa’s latest mistress? He doesn’t kill his fuck buddies.” She grabs one more gun and quickly loads it with bullets before firing it at the next target. Sadly, it misses the mark, and she huffs.
“Miss Zencova!”
Zoya grabs her cell from the tray, and in a second, my own phone rings. “Yes?”
“Since I’m sure you’re watching me right now, can you get rid of her? Her annoying whining makes me miss my targets. I don’t like it.”
Once upon a time, by sheer accident, I saved the girl from Jonathan and convinced the fucker she died.
She might look like her mother, but her character…that, she clearly got from her older brother.
A devil in disguise who wears a mask of an angel, that’s who she is.
“It can be arranged.”
“Splendid.”
“As long as you remember that it will put an end to our lessons.”
I’ve taught her how to fight and use all kinds of weapons. I've convinced Pakhan to send her to the best private school abroad so she can learn and hopefully join a good university.
In exchange, she keeps her perfect image, continues to dance ballet, and stays out of trouble, never showing her knowledge to anyone. Her classmates included since a lot of them belong to our world.
Pakhan is convinced she’d be the ideal wife to someone one day and form great alliances for the Bratva, because that’s what women do, according to him. Marry and bear offspring to make the Bratva prosper.
I have no fucking intention of marrying her off to the highest bidder.
“Fine. I’ll do the stupid show. Can’t wait for this to be over. Will you be back in Boston before I need to go?”
“Yes.”
“Great. See you then.”
