Velvet Devil: A Russian Mafia Romance (33)

“Bree, focus.”

“Sorry. I’m just trying to wrap my head around this.”

“You and me both.”

“Stop saying that,” she snaps.

“Sorry.”

“No, no, I’m sorry,” she says quickly. “I’m just… stunned. And worried. Cami, this is kidnapping.”

“Technically, yeah.”

“And legally, morally, spiritually, psychologically… I could keep going.”

“I get it. But Bree, he hasn’t hurt me.”

“Yet!” she screeches. “Yet!”

“That’s the thing,” I say. “I don’t think he’s going to.”

She stops short and gives me an odd look. “Cami…”

“What?”

“Nothing. I’m just trying to figure something out.”

“I wish you wouldn’t.”

“Cami, you don’t still have feelings for the man, do you?” she blurts.

I end up doing a brilliant impression of a goldfish. Lips flapping uselessly with no words emerging.

“That… that’s a ridiculous question.”

“Is it?” she asks. “Because you just took about ten light years to answer a very simple question with a very obvious answer.”

“He’s responsible for every bad thing that’s happened in my life in the last six years,” I remind her.

“Mhmm,” she agrees. “But he’s also responsible for Jo.”

And bingo, she’s hit the nail on the head. That’s the impossible reality of my life right now. Isaak Vorobev is the reason my world imploded six years ago.

But he also—unbeknownst to him—gave me the biggest joy of my life.

Jo Ferrara.

My daughter.

“Have you told him?” Bree asks quietly.

I lean back in my chair and rub my face. “Of course not. And I don’t plan to, either.”

“Mhmm…”

“You know, I really wish you would stop saying ‘Mhmm.’”

“What’s wrong with ‘Mhmm’?”

“Nothing’s wrong with ‘Mhmm.’ What’s wrong is your tone.”

“There’s no tone.” She brushes a stray lock of hair out of her face innocently.

“I wish you would just come right out and say it.”

“I thought I already had.”

“I don’t have feelings for the man. I never did.”

Bree frowns. “Well, ‘never’ is a strong word…”

“Bree!” I snap. “I had one conversation with him one night.”

“And you also slept with him that same night.”

I close my eyes and cover my face with my hands. “Fuck.”

Bree laughs. “You don’t have to do that, Cami. Not with me. I was glad you finally decided to break your dry spell. I just wish you’d chosen a different man.”

“You and me—”

“Cami!”

I grin. “Sorry.”

“Where are you, exactly?”

“I can’t tell you that.”

“Why not?” she demands.

“For one, I don’t actually know. For another, I don’t want to piss him off and ruin my chances of getting out of here.”

“You think that’s likely?”

“I think he’ll keep his word,” I admit.

“Okay, well, wow.”

I sigh. “What?”

“You like him,” she breathes. “And if not ‘like,’ you definitely have this kind of… begrudging respect for the man.”

“He hasn’t actually lied to me.”

“He hasn’t had the chance to!” Bree points out. “You’ve known him for what, a couple of hours in total, if you string together all the time you’ve really spent together?”

“I know, I know, you’re right,” I say in defeat. “Of course you’re right. But I’m going with my instincts on this one. Maybe if I cooperate, then I’ll have a better chance of seeing Jo. Maybe I’ll get the chance to be a real mother to her.”

“Hey now, stop that right now. You are her mother.”

I wipe away the tears threatening in the corner of my eye. “In name only. But let’s face it, you’re more of a mother to her than I am. You’re the one who puts her to bed and washes her hair and holds her when she’s sick or sad.”

“Oh, honey…”

But she fades off. She has nothing to say, because she knows it’s true. It’s all true. And Bree is too honest to patronize me by pretending otherwise.

“This is a curveball I didn’t expect,” I tell her. “And I’m trying to figure it out. For me and for Jo. Like you said, he is her father. I don’t know how long I’ll be able to conceal her from him.”

“Are you worried about how he might react?”

“Honestly, I haven’t even thought about how he might react. I’ve got enough to worry about.”

“Like Alex whose name is not actually Alex?”

“Among other things, yeah. Maybe he’s just karma.”