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Tatyana. That was Russian. Was that why Maggy brought her here? Was this spoiled brat family? Shit. He hoped not. "Grandfather is waiting. Is she coming with us?" He nodded toward the irrational woman.

Maggy sighed. "We'd better take her or she won't be here when we get back."

"She shouldn't be here now," the brat grumbled. "Fine, you all want to die, then who am I to stand in your way?" She reached into the car, plucked out a brown sweatshirt. She flashed her belly again as she tugged it on, the sweatshirt falling down past her knees. "Let's kill off Grandpa, too." She drew the hood over her head. "Hell. Why not?"

Nik chuckled. He couldn't help it. She looked like a monk, a very irate monk. Pavel snorted.

Even Maggy smiled.

"Laugh all you want. Your deaths won't be my fault." Slight shoulders slumped. "I warned you. Remember that when you're taking your last damn breath."

"Language, Brat." He should heed her warning. The woman was trouble, he felt it in his bones. Nik led the way through the casino's hidden passageways. He didn't look back to see if she was following, her stomping confirmed she was.

The handsome man would be the first to die. Tatyana peeked up at him, leaning so nonchalantly against the wall. Knowing that pained her.

The grandfather, quietly arguing with the woman, Maggy, was old but he didn't have the fragility of age. He was tough as nails. As was the handsome man, her eyes drawn to him again. Grandfather and grandson were two of a kind. Both stubborn asses. Noticing her attention on him, the handsome man raised an eyebrow.

Embarrassed she returned her attention to the grandfather, this Sergei everyone tiptoed around. As she'd lurked in the underground her entire life, she knew who he was. The head of a crime family. That meant nothing to Tatyana except for a little less guilt when he died.

He'd be second, dying after the handsome man.

Tatyana glanced at the door. The big ugly man blocked her escape. He might live. If they were close to a hospital and he was a slow bleeder.

It'd be her biggest death toll yet. It was her fault. She should have never gotten into the car.

She should have known Maggy, a woman with no real name, couldn't be trusted.

"Come here." The old man motioned to her, his gold rings flashing.

"I don't think that's smart." She stayed put. "It's safer if I remain here."

Both gray eyebrows rose. "I won't hurt you."

"It's not me I'm worried about." Tatyana was pushed forward, a firm hand on her back. She glared over her shoulder. The handsome man grinned, his brown eyes dancing.

"Thank you, Nikolay."

"My pleasure, Grandfather."

He did get pleasure from tormenting her, that sadomasochistic ass. The handsome man, this Nikolay, stood behind her, she felt his warmth, smelled his cologne. A pompous name, Nikolay. She didn't like it.

"Maggy says you wish to stay with us." Wise eyes looked her up and down. What he could see. The sweatshirt covered most of her up.

"Maggy is mistaken."

"I am glad." The grandfather's smile was pleased. "My assistance is not required, clover girl," he said to Maggy.

"Joey Chan will have her killed."

"Joey Chan?" Nikolay, Nikky she mentally nicknamed him, bumped into Tatyana's shoulder, knocking her off balance. He steadied her with one hand on her waist. It had been so long since she'd been touched like that, she was hypersensitive to it. That was the reason her stomach fluttered, no other. "How does she know him?"

"She doesn't." Great, now even she was referring to herself in the third person.

"The woman you took to the hospital was Joey Chan's wife," Maggy explained. "Without Sergei's protection, he'll go after you, next."

"Then, he'll die." And good riddance. The man, a wife beater, may be one of the few victims she wouldn't mind seeing dead.

"How do you plan to kill Joey Chan, Brat?" Nikolay, Nikky, remained close but no longer touched her. "Pavel," he said with a look at the big ugly man, "would find that challenging."

"I don't know." She shrugged. She'd given up trying to figure it out long ago. "Everyone around me ends up dead. I don't know how it happens."

"She has the evil eye?" the old man asked in Russian.

"She is a silly, scared woman," Nikky scoffed. "She sees one person murdered and thinks she's unlucky."

"Actually, this is my thirty-third confirmed death since my parents passed away," she corrected in the same language. "Before that, I didn't keep count." She had childishly thought the deaths would stop if she didn't acknowledge them.

"You speak Russian?" The grandfather stated the obvious. No reply was necessary, but she nodded anyway. "What's your name?"

"Tatyana." Not Tanya as Maggy called her. Her name was the only thing truly hers.

"Your family name?"

"I don't know. It changes with each move." It irked her that she didn't know the answer to a simple question like that. She felt like an idiot.

"You don't...," the old man spluttered. "Take that," he waved at her sweater, "thing off so I can see whom I'm talking to."

She hesitated. All of them were impeccably dressed in dark suits. Even Maggy wore a tailored pantsuit. To stand there in stained pajamas...

"Respect your elders, Brat," Nikky advised.

He spoke like he expected to be included in that grouping. "Respect is earned." Ass. She pulled the sweatshirt up, cool air hitting her stomach as her pajama top rose. While she struggled with the giant garment, there was a brush of skin against skin, a yank, and she was covered again. She dropped the sweatshirt to the ground, tucking her out-ofcontrol hair behind her ears.

"You wear no earrings," the grandfather observed.

"I have no earlobes." She flicked one. And her ears were pointed at the top. Elf ears, her mother had called them. "A family trait."

The old man, Sergei, rubbed his chin, staring at her freakish ears. "Your parents?"

"Dead." They had died when she was eighteen. The loss ached down to her very bones, but she was grateful they had lasted so long. No one else had.

"Your other family?"

She knew of none. Was he trying to pawn her off on someone else? "I'm not your problem. I can take care of myself." She didn't need someone else. She wasn't a child.

"I'll do this for you." The old man turned to Maggy. Again, Tatyana and her wishes were ignored. She slid a hostile glance at the handsome man. Their arrogance would be their downfall. "We will talk to Joey Chan and she will be protected."

She will be protected. Nik stared at his grandfather. Why? Why would he bring this trouble into their home? "The family will ask questions, want to know her history." They wouldn't blindly accept a stranger.

"Will they?" His grandfather stared pointedly at him, then at Tatyana. "Not necessarily." Nik took a step further away from her, disliking the speculation in those crafty eyes. "There's one relationship in the family they wouldn't dare to question."

"You're thinking...?" Oh shit. "My fiancee?" The frizzy-haired brat? "No way in hell."

Grandfather's forehead furrowed in thought before he smiled. "Why not? It is the perfect solution."

"No one would believe it, that's why." Nik paced, thinking of an out. "Look at her." He had to be callous, for both their sakes. "No one would think I'd choose her as my wife."

"Like I'd want you to choose me." Her voice dropped so only he could hear. "Ass." He clenched his fists.

Grandfather ignored her. "For every beauty, there is an eye somewhere to see it. For every truth, there is an ear somewhere to hear it. For every love, there is a heart somewhere to receive it," he quoted Ivan Panin. "And everyone knows love is blind," he added for good measure.

"It's too fast. They'll wonder why they haven't met her before." Or why he hadn't killed her yet.

"They won't. They know you, Nikolay." They thought they did. They thought he was like his grandfather, they murmured behind his back. He wasn't. He was nothing like Grandfather.

"You keep your plans to yourself, and when you're ready, you move quickly," Grandfather said with admiration.

"He'll have to move very quickly," the Brat said, "because I'm leaving."

A wave of a heavily ringed hand and Pavel blocked the door. "Enough." Grandfather's patience was at an end. "You will accept my hospitality."

That wasn't a request. Tatyana opened her mouth, she was about to get herself killed. Nik clamped a hand over it. She bit his palm and he tightened his grip. "Why do you want this?"

This wasn't about Maggy or a favor returned. There was more to this than that.

"It's not your place to ask why."

No, it was his place to obey, blindly, like a damn dog. He was tired of that shit. Nik released Tatyana.

"He'll die." She somehow took his release as permission to speak. "You're sentencing your grandson to death."

That she assumed he couldn't defend himself irritated him. He was a grown man, not a child. "She can be my fiancee, boss." Pavel folded his arms. Nik didn't appreciate the way his number one man looked at the brat. Like he'd be only too happy to take her off his hands.

"Yes." Tatyana peered up at Pavel. "You might have better odds at survival. Are you a slow bleeder?"

"I carry a hemostatic agent with me at all times; it helps to seal traumatic wounds quickly."

Why did Pavel always have to talk like a damn doctor? Nik couldn't understand half of what the man said.

"I was told it only works if they're superficial." Tatyana had no such difficulty.

Pavel's already too-warm-for-Nik's-liking gaze on the brat heated. "Correct, but any slowing of blood loss adds seconds to a man's life.

"That's true." Tatyana gave Pavel a big smile. "If anyone is to protect me, I'd want you to do it. You might live."

Like hell. "He is not protecting you," Nik barked.

Everyone turned to stare at him, Maggy's green eyes wide, Grandfather's smile mocking.

They thought he was interested in the brat. He wasn't. "Pavel's job is to protect me," Nik clarified. It had nothing to do with her.

"I don't need protecting. I can protect myself." She was back to that again. "Take me to the Crown Hotel."

"No," Nik said in unison with Grandfather. Why was Grandfather so insistent they protect the brat? A stranger.

Or was she a stranger? Nik examined her again, slowly, thoroughly, from her flip-flop clad feet to the top of her frizzy head. When his gaze eventually returned to her face, she stuck her tongue out at him. A small pink tongue that he wanted to taste.

"The engagement will be temporary until we deal with Chan," he decided. And who knew?

The brat might also finally give him a Sergei acceptable excuse to kill that pain in the ass.

"Or until you die." The sparkle in her muddy green eyes dimmed. "Whichever comes first.

Two

"A man may be truthful yet not honest."ȄSergei Kaerta
He'd die for holding her hand. Tatyana jerked, but Nikky's grip tightened. She was his fiancee, and she'd been told she'd act that way. She frowned up at his determined face.

Funny how that meant doing everything he said. "You live in the casino?"

"In the hotel." He didn't slow down, pulling her forward, as though he was afraid they'd meet someone. Considering she was clad in a giant hoodie and bloodstained pajamas, that fear might be justified. "Once I marry, I'll get a house. Until then...," His elegant shoulders lifted and fell.

"You have a suite?" That meant two bedrooms. The space needed if she was to be trapped with him.

"Yes." His thinly pressed lips relaxed into a grin. "Good, he's here." A big brute stood in the hallway, leaning against a door. "Boris."

"Boss." A respectful nod to Nikky. Not that the ass deserved respect. He didn't.

"She's your assignment." Nikky looked down at her. "She's never to be alone. She goes anywhere without you, you die, understand?"

"Yes, Boss."

"Not a good idea," she said mostly to herself as no one else was listening. "You go anywhere with me, you die, understand?" she warned the bodyguard.

"Boss?" Dark brows lowered in confusion.

"Ignore her."

As he did. Tatyana ground her teeth. "You are a real...ooph..." She was pushed into the room.

"...ass, do you know that?"

He slammed the door behind them. "You will respect me, Brat. I require absolute obedience. Lives depend on it." He crowded close to her.

He was trying to intimidate her. She wouldn't be intimidated. "If you value your people's lives, you won't introduce them to me."

"Respect me." He grasped her upturned chin.

His eyes were the color of the richest chocolate. "In public," she conceded. "In private, I'll do whatever I like." She didn't care what he thought, what anyone thought. They'd all die.

Thinking he'd won, Nikky's smile screamed satisfaction. The ass. She opened her mouth to tell him to go to hell and found it covered. His lips were firm and possessive, his tongue darting out to lick her, and his hand on the back of her head holding her still. She gasped at the contact. He took advantage of her opened mouth, leisurely exploring, sucking her tongue, stroking the roof of her mouth. The man could kiss.

He drew back, his expression even more triumphant. "In private, you'll do whatever I like."

"In your dreams." She stepped away from him, disgusted at herself for wanting him, a complete ass.

"Oh," He glanced over at the giant bed. "We'll be too exhausted for dreaming." The only giant bed in the room.

Panic swept over her. "I thought you had a suite." That's what he said. A suite. Two bedrooms.

"We have a kitchenette." He waved at it. "A sitting area. Bathroom. It is a suite."

"If you think I'm sleeping in the same bed as you..." He had another thing coming. She may have temporarily given up her freedom, at least until she figured out how to dodge the guard outside their door, but her body? Not a chance.

"Why? Are you a virgin, Brat?" His eyes gleamed.

"Of course not," she snapped. She yanked off the giant hoodie, flinging it to the floor, irritated that he struck so close to the truth. Only one man had lived long enough and although those two encounters, once the pain subsided, were interesting, they weren't anything she wanted to repeat with this man. No way, no how.