VLAD (The V Games #1)(4)
My insides curdle, and my lungs fight for air. I’m paralyzed. If looks could incinerate, I’d be a puff of smoke right now.
His irritation annoys me and excites me all at once. I find my lips moving despite my sister’s hand reaching over to squeeze mine in warning.
I want to push him and keep his anger, his eyes, his attention all on me. To bask in it—to let it soak into my skin so I can remember what it feels like.
“Why wasn’t it an open casket?” I want to ask. The curious cat inside me has been wondering since the death announcement. Instead, I appease my sister and father, who would be angry if he knew I’d been drinking and interrupting a funeral of one of the other First Families.
“Sorry,” I offer with a stutter and a shrug, but his head has already returned front and center, and my words hit air, dispersing into nothing. My arms wrap around my middle and I shrink into the background, back into Irina—back into the shadow I’ve always been.
I’m not this rebel—not a woman who could be with a man like him.
I’m just a girl, a Volkov girl, who will do what she’s told and live like a bird with an injured wing, wanting so badly to fly away and make her own path, but stuck flightless.
I’m the quiet one. My sister takes the driver’s seat while I sit back, unassuming and calculating. A wailing sound draws the attention of most of the guests, and I follow their curiosity to see Vika, Viktor’s twin sister, sobbing and clutching onto Veniamin Vetrov. He’s holding her up with one arm without even looking down at her folded-up, limp frame molded against him like melting ice cream. She’s wearing a pink dress that is almost inappropriate for a club, let alone a church funeral.
Vlad draws my eyes. Again. I want to see his emotion, his empathy for his sister. Instead, he rolls his head over those impressive shoulders, and the tick in his jaw is back.
I take out my notepad from my pocket and let the pencil flit over the paper. My mind clears, and the room closes in until there’s nothing but darkness—all except Vlad in front of me.
The calm washes over me as I study his features, the dark tanned skin stretched over his impressive bone structure. Strong jawline. Neat, straight nose. Feathered fans of black lashes sprayed over dark, penetrating orbs. When he pinned me with them moments ago, it was like amber rays swirling around an eclipse. You know you should look away to avoid damage, but it’s such a rare sight, you can’t help but stare right at it.
I’m blinded by him.
Movement rushes around me, expanding the room and bringing me back to the present. Everyone is leaving. I stand, shoving the pad back in my pocket, and follow the coattails of my sister.
A vise grips my arm, halting my steps. I’m spun around and come face to face with the steel wall of Vlad. He towers over me, but I can’t meet his gaze for fear of what he’ll see in mine. His scent encompasses me, causing my head to lighten. He smells masculine and expensive, just like I imagined. It’s earthy, like rosewood, and warms places I haven’t been touched before. The lapels of my jacket are tugged open with the hand that was just wrapped around my bicep, and he shoves my flask into the inside pocket, the back of his hand brushing against my nipple as he does. It’s not intentional, but I feel it everywhere. He makes the air around me condense, and my lungs compress.
Breathe, I will myself.
The baritone hum of his voice hits me like a weapon when he says, “We should get lunch tomorrow.”
Thud. Thud. Thud.
My mouth drops open as my heart thunders like the cage of a Roman warrior before battle. I don’t know what to say, but I don’t have to say anything because I hear my sister’s lyrical tone.
“Sure, Vlad, I’ll have it set up and email you the details.”
Dragging my eyes upward, I see he’s sidestepped me and is looking and talking to my beautiful sister.
Of course.
Of course he’s talking to Diana. Not me.
I shake my head. A laugh bubbles up in my chest, but I gobble it down and leave them to get some air. My childish crush on Vlad has always been a secret, and it will remain just that.
Two Months After the V Games…
“The Vetrovs won’t budge,” I tell Father, a headache brutalizing me from the inside out. I refrain from rubbing at my temples and drain the rest of the vodka in my tumbler.
Father’s brows pull together in his signature scowl. Even at twenty-two, that scowl makes me feel as if I’m nine again and caught kicking a ball in his study when I’m not allowed inside.
Irritated.
Bothered as fuck.
Disappointed.
Yuri Vasiliev, my father, has a way of making you feel as though you’re not even trying, despite the fact that you may have done everything. He’s taught me well, but one thing I can never escape is the way he makes me feel when he’s scowling at me in a mix of disappointment and aggravation.
Knowing my answer won’t be good enough, I continue. “Yegor wants the land near the border. He wants the land because we want the land. There’s no convincing him,” I grit out. “I’ve spent the better part of three weeks offering him everything under the sun.”
But that’s a lie.
I haven’t offered the thing he wants most.
Father’s eyes narrow—the only indication of his mood. He knows what I want. Question is, will he give it to me? One would think he owes it to me after what he did. He sent my brother away. Banished him from our family and faked his death. Untethered him when we needed him most. We were supposed to be three heads, not two. By cutting off what he considered a weak link, he left us frail, considerably so.