Lev: a Shot Callers novel - Belle Aurora Page 0,42

I’m grateful for that.”

I smiled at hearing him speak about his sister. “Why doesn’t she have a boyfriend?”

“Like I said, she loves so much it hurts. And Nastasia has loved Viktor from the time we were children.”

I sat up at that point, mouth gaping. “What? Vik Viktor? That Viktor?”

“The very one.” He was enjoying my astonishment. I could tell.

I was stunned by this information. I sputtered, “But they don’t even like each other!”

“On the contrary,” Lev revealed. “Viktor loves Nastasia very much. In fact, he spends every night in her bed.”

I wheezed out in disbelief. “No way!”

He shrugged, his eyes alight with mirth. “She thinks no one knows, but often, when I can’t sleep, I walk around the complex and his car is parked in front of her house. Every single night.”

Oh, my God. That was who she was with the night before. The god who kept her awake with his tongue skills was Vik. But then…

“But Nas makes out like he’s a womanizer.” I was baffled.

Lev nodded. “He is.”

My head was starting to hurt. “I don’t understand. Why would she put up with that? I wouldn’t. He’d be out on his ass.”

“Love,” he advised gently, “is a doing word. And sometimes the people who least deserve it are the ones who need it most.”

He was right, of course. This conversation we were having was easy. Almost too easy. I was coming to recognize that Lev Leokov was an open book. I only needed to discover the language in which his pages were written.

Chapter Sixteen

Mina

The impromptu picnic Lev and I had been on came to an end soon after Lidiya had fallen asleep. The poor thing started to sweat in the mild heat, so we took her home to finish her nap in the comfort of her own bed.

I left Lev to do whatever it was he did in the afternoons, and went upstairs to shower and change for work. I decided on comfort over class and wore a plain black tee over my blue jeans, finishing off with the black pumps that were clearly going to be the death of me—that is, if I couldn’t learn to walk in them.

It was like walking on stilts, for crying out loud!

I zhuzhed my long, wavy hair, taking it into my hands and scrunching it as I lightly sprayed it with hairspray, and then I washed my face and reapplied my makeup, thickening the eyeliner a little for that dramatic cat’s eye effect. I lightly glossed with something that was pink and smelled of cake, and the scent was so delicious that I wanted to eat it.

Don’t worry. I didn’t. Licking your lips didn’t count.

My feet bare, I took the stairs two at a time, being as quiet as I could as I made my way to the kitchen. I was hungry and remembered there being leftover brownie bites from our lunch. I opened the fridge, held onto the door, and peered inside, leaning in to get a closer look.

The brownies had disappeared.

Hmmm.

I looked harder.

So had the apple slices, the cheese, and Ada’s muffins.

My brow bunched. I wasn’t going crazy. I know I put them in there when we got back to the house. I even hid the brownies behind the juice so no one would touch them.

I checked again, looking deeper into the fridge than was necessary.

Nope. They were gone.

The fruit bowl sat on the kitchen counter, and although it had ripe bananas, shiny apples, and bright green pears in it, I wanted those damn brownies. So I started to search for them.

While I was downstairs, I went to check on Lidiya, and smiled when I saw Mirella sitting on the chair by her bed, reading. She spotted me and lifted her hand in a wave. I returned it, my eyes sweeping over the little princess sleeping soundly in her toddler bed.

That only left one place.

I made my way back up the stairs, but turned right and walked the length of the hall toward Lev’s office. He told me he went up there to work, but I had the sneaking suspicion he might also have another reason to go up there.

The door was open a crack, less than an inch, and I peeked inside.

I knew it!

I swung open the door and uttered a victorious, “Gotcha.”

Lev paused, a brownie bite halfway to his mouth.

My feet carried me over to his desk, where his laptop sat open. I took the brownie out of his hand, threw it into my mouth, groaned with pleasure