for a few tense moments, Dimitri nodded. “Then rest easy. Nothing will happen to him. I will stay out of sight while I’m here. Unless there comes a time where I need to step in.”
A loud horn blared on the street just behind us, making us both turn in that direction. Just an angry motorist—there didn’t seem to be any other kind in this city.
When he turned back to me, his hand rose to cup my cheek, just like the day we’d said goodbye. His thumb brushed over my jaw, getting rather close to my mouth. His eyes darkened noticeably, but I ignored it.
It was just Dimitri and the crush I knew he’d never act on.
Because he would never betray Batya like that.
“Don’t think that you can trust him, Alexia,” he said gravely. “The second you do is the second he’ll prove you wrong.”
I didn’t know what to say to that, so I only nodded.
With his ominous warning ringing in my ears, Dimitri adjusted his hood. “Do zavtra.” Till tomorrow. Then he vanished around the corner.
Okay, so recap.
Nico said the Rossettis were basically mortal enemies of the five families.
Dimitri said that all was not as it seemed.
Who to believe?
The man I’d known for nearly fifteen years, whom I trusted with my very life? And my father’s life?
Or my husband of six days?
“This is everything I could find on her,” Ace said as he dropped a thick manila folder onto my lap.
I immediately scooped it up and started digging through the files. After learning of her Cambridge education, I was eager to know more about Lexi and what other secrets she was hiding. “Anything of particular import on your first glance?”
Taking the opposite end of the leather couch in Dad’s den, Ace spread his arms out behind him. “Looks like you’ve got a smart one there, Nico. I couldn’t find any payouts from Sergei Kozlov to Cambridge or to any of the other prestigious schools in England she attended. And my search was very thorough.”
Being the tech genius that he was, I believed him. Ace was a security specialist and unofficial hacker. If we needed information about anything or anyone that we didn’t have direct access to, Ace was our guy to make it happen. He could tap into nearly any government or law enforcement database, which had been extremely helpful as of late.
“So, she got into Cambridge on her own,” I concluded. Sifting through page after page, I came across several photos from her modeling days, including one of her on the cover of Vogue. “And this was after her modeling career?”
“Yeah, which sparked a few interesting questions.”
I glanced up at him over the folder. “Meaning?”
“Her contract with her modeling agency was rescinded before the termination date was reached. There was well over a year left of her representation period. And from what I read, she was the one who backed out.”
“Why?”
He shrugged. “No reason was ever recorded.”
Huh.
Maybe she’d just gotten sick of that life? Wanted to go to school and get a degree? It was curious, though, why she would have given up a life of fame, notoriety, and wealth. Not that she didn’t have that as Sergei’s daughter. But as a model, she hadn’t been affiliated with the Russian mafia. She’d simply been Alexia Kozlov, international supermodel.
“What else?” I flipped through more documents.
“Well…she’s not Sergei Kozlov’s biological daughter.”
Everyone’s heads jerked to Ace. Luka stopped his pacing in his usual spot in front of the fireplace. Cris and Rome sat bolt upright in the twin wingback chairs, slack-jawed.
“What?” I blurted out, stunned.
“You want to explain that?” Dad said.
“He adopted her when she was seven,” Ace explained. “Plucked her from a tiny village in north Siberia. The adoption papers were mostly bare bones, some of them may have even been falsified. But there’s no record of her having any other family, nor how she wound up by herself. There were, however, medical records from a Russian hospital shortly after the adoption. Lexi was brought in for extreme malnutrition, dehydration, and protein deficiency.”
Jesus.
Who the hell had been taking care of her all that time? Where had she been living?
“And Sergei never had any other children, correct?” Cris asked.
Ace shook his head. “No. And we all know the story of Claudia Kozlov.” Everyone did in our world. “About five years before he adopted Lexi, Sergei’s wife had a miscarriage. It supposedly caused so many complications that she wasn’t able to have any more children after that. Rumor has it that she became