“For what?”
“You can’t threaten Ava’s grandmother, but maybe you can tell her the truth and pay her off.”
“That might work.”
“Or you can do the most obvious thing and tell Ava what happened. Let her make a decision from that.”
“No.” I pulled out my phone and dialed Valentina.
Maxwell gestured to my phone. “Who are you calling?”
“The crazy woman. She can at least give you your shoes.”
The phone rang twice and then Valentina came on the line. “What do you want, mosquito?”
“Maxwell’s shoes.”
She sent out a loud groan over the line. “Where are you?”
“Outside the door.”
“Why?!”
“Because I need him.”
“Don’t you even think about sleeping with him, Misha—”
“Just give me the damn shoes!” If I could have put my hands around Valentina’s neck, I would have.
“I just threw his shoes out the window. Go ahead and pick them up, while you take my leftovers with you. Enjoy his dick. It’s not much.” She hung up.
I put my phone back in my pocket and walked off.
Anger rose in me.
Maxwell called behind me. “What did she say?”
“She said she threw the shoes outside.”
Maxwell muttered, “Bitch.”
“Don’t you even think about sleeping with him, Misha.”
The urge to ring her little neck came upon me again. It was an impulse that I battled with whenever we were in the same city.
When is she going back to Canada?
I pressed the elevator button. “Bitch is right, Maxwell.”
It wasn’t that I hated Valentina, I just wanted to choke her sometimes. And she had a lot of excuses for why she’d become who she was. When a beautiful creature grew up around monsters, and then was spoiled and protected by them, the creature grew into a terrifying thing.
And Valentina could terrify the best of them.
The only girl around so many boys, she learned how to fight before she knew how to read. She hung with Kazimir, stealing and rumbling just like he did. She grew up hard, acted like a man, moved like one too, fucked as many women than the average man could.
Those were all the things that I loved about Valentina.
If she wanted to play games with the people she fucked and put them through tests, then fine.
It was when she bothered me–the only way Valentina could—that made me yearn to strangle her.
“Don’t you even think about sleeping with him, Misha.”
Valentina never forgot anything either. No matter how small of a detail it could be. And it could be a dirty secret, or something that one didn’t want to deal with, and as much as she could, she threw it in the person’s face so that the person could never forget the dirtiness within them.
We all rode on the elevator—Maxwell, my guards, and me.
Maxwell turned my way. “Thanks for the suit.”
“It’s Brioni.”
“I’m digging him.”
“He would dig you in that suit too.”
Maxwell raised his eyebrows and then he checked me out. “My suit kind of looks like yours.”
“We’re matching.”
“Why?”
I shrugged. “Why not?”
The doors opened.
I rushed off.
“Find his shoes. The crazy woman threw them out the window.” I gestured to some of my men. “When you find them, bring them to the airport.”
I checked my watch.
Barely fucking twenty minutes.
“We don’t have time to get you new shoes.” I guided him to my car. “But I am going to get that bag of money. Maybe I can pay the grandmother off.”
“It’s worth a shot. The truth and money might keep shit calm.” Barefoot, Maxwell jumped in the car.
I got in too. “And if that doesn’t work, then we’ll come up with something else.”
“Well if not, then you just. . .you know. . .call it a wrap and move onto a new chick.”
“There is no new chick, Maxwell.” I started the car and turned to him. “I want Ava. That’s it. There is no other option.”
“There’s always another option.”
“Not for me.” I drove off.
Chapter 7
Ava
The Vogue Paris interview was going well.
“You’re Russian is very good,” the journalist Mrs. Anderson said. “Did you learn the language before coming here for school?”
I smiled. “No. It was a rapid immersion into the language.”
At sixteen, the academy accepted me. I flew out by myself and was in the school’s dormitories a week after my birthday. The school had become increasingly open to foreign students. The only thing that helped was that there were about ten Americans there, stumbling through the language along with me.
The first year was a bitch. Yearly tuition was over 680,000 rubles, or $21,000. There was no way that my grandmother or I could afford it. Thankfully, I’d earned a scholarship. And the school worked me for every coin.
And the language barriers persisted. In technique classes we smoke French. In other classes, instructors ordered their commands in Russian. I had to learn French and Russian fast. There was no time for excuses or complaining. I had to suck it up and move forward.
“How long have you been dancing?” Mrs. Anderson asked.