Chapter 39 Narrow Escape
LISA
I was still feeling the after-effects of the mind-blowing round of sex I had with Axel. After we both gathered our breaths, he helped me clean up and to dress up, and while at it, we had to resist giving
into the temptation that our bodies were craving and have another round of sex.
He offered to drop me off in front of my hostel and while I desperately wanted to turn his offer down, accepting it was the most logical thing to do. It was already late and besides, it was just to drop
me off in front of my hostel.
"You don't have to look so dead," he said the second I fixed the seat belt, "if riding with me makes you look that dead, you might as well get down."
What the hell?
I glared at him before turning the door knob. He drove off immediately, rendering me incapable of getting down.
"You know, you might as well stop the car if you don't want me to ride with you."
"It's not about me, it's about you, you look so fucking uncomfortable as if I'm going to smolder you to death in my car."
"Well, I can never be so sure about that, you're an Ivanov and..."
"My first and only rule that I have about our arrangement," he interrupted me, his voice a bit stern, "is that we keep our families out of our conversations. I don't want you talking trash about my family
at every opportunity you get."
"Really? What if I can't do that?"
"Then our deal is off."
"I guess that's where it ends then, it's been depressing putting up with you these past days."
"Really? Why would you want to do that to yourself?" He asked with genuine curiosity, his eyes flickering away from the road to look at me for a second, "why would you deny yourself multiple
orgasms just because of something as trite as that and we both know as hell that the past few days weren't depressing, especially not with you screaming and begging and coming so hard around
my cock multiple times."
"You can be so sure I wasn't faking it."
"Your screams and pleas were so loud baby, they can't be fake."
I rolled my eyes to the back of my head, "God! You think so highly of your cock."
"You're obsessed with it so why not?"
"Damn, you're so insufferable."
His reply was to flash me another wink that had my stomach melting and before I knew it, I scoffed out a laugh and he reciprocated with the corners of his crinkling into a smile.
My laughter died in my throat and his smile disappeared at the same time. We must have realized how awfully wrong that felt between the both of us, sharing something as personal as a smile was just all shades of wrong of us. Fine, we've had sex multiple times but that was just a plain physical encounter. Smiling together, laughing together, and sharing an inside was something our relationship couldn't bloom into and I was as hell going to keep it like that.
I got down in front of my hostel and immediately started walking towards the main entrance, I felt dread breaking out on my body, wrapping itself around my neck and suffocating me, it was difficult
to breathe, difficult to get a clean breath.
I slowed my steps because something felt dangerously wrong. I didn't know what it could be but I was sure that my sixth sense wasn't playing a joke on me and my body wasn't overreacting.
I got an inkling of what it might be when I saw one of our family's black Audi parked right in front of the entrance and my body was instantly filled with more dread.
And panic.
And anxiety.
Angel must have found out, I thought to myself, contemplating between turning back or just walking into the hostel and just ignoring the car.
Because why exactly would they come for me right at this moment when I just got down from Axel's car?
I imagined my punishment, I imagined my dad's disapproval, I imagined Angel basking in the fact that she was right about me, I imagined how humiliated I'd feel and...
God! I wished I had never gotten into that arrangement with Axel Ivanov.
But still, I didn't regret the effects of getting into the arrangement with him.
The door of the car pushed open and that was when I realized I had already walked to the car, albeit subconsciously. I took in a very deep breath to calm my nerves before stepping into the car.
I expected to see Angel sitting on the other side, a big and self-satisfied smile on her face but the whole back seat was empty and as soon as I settled in, the driver glided the car out of the parking spot and started to drive away.
I didn't ask why both the driver and the soldier sitting in front with him had come for me and I couldn't even ask them because I knew they probably wouldn't have an idea, even if the reason doesn't have anything to do with what I was doing with Axel so I couldn't ask them. They were strictly following orders and I'm sure their order, like always must have been, to go and bring Lisa from school. I tried to distract myself with other thoughts during the ride to the house but it was a fucking futile task with my thoughts going overboard and my nerves getting the best of me. I knew I should delete whatever incinerating messages I had from Axel on my phone but instead of doing that, I fixed a more complicated security code on my phone so it won't be unlockable by any other person
apart from me.
My anxiety and tension worsened immediately after we drove past the main gates and started driving toward the main house. I tried to calm myself down, tried to console myself with the fact that I was a full-grown adult and I was free to sleep with whoever I wanted to sleep with.
But down, I knew that was completely irrational, the person I was sleeping with was Axel Fucking Ivanov, a major enemy that won't hesitate to burn down our family if he was given the chance.
Fuck, he might even create the chance himself just to get rid of us.
The car came to a halt in front of the house and I took long, deep, calming breaths before opening the car and stepping out. It's been a week since I came home to convince papa to allow Tricia to get
a sewing machine. He didn't even need convincing, he agreed as soon as I started talking about it. It was Angel who made it her fucking business to disagree with us and she had the nerve to say the electronic machine is would make too much noise and be a disturbance in the house.
Of course, I didn't pay any attention to her and I went ahead to get the machine with Tricia so I wouldn't be surprised if she had more of her men discreetly follow me so she could pay me back in my
own coins.
Geez. The way she grated on my nerves deserved to be fucking studied in Havard.
The sitting room was quiet and I made my way to Papa's study because that's where they always are when they have important issues to discuss.
I was about to knock on the door when...
"The Ivanovs?" that was Angel's voice and it sent a wave of panic coursing through my body. Was I right? Had they brought me home because I'd been caught? Or was it just because I've been
frolicking around and doing everything illegal with a certain Ivanov that made me overreact to the simple mention of their family name?
"We don't have anything to worry about, we'll just make them do all the hard work before..."
I strained my ears to hear more but...
"Welcome home, Miss Lisa," came a cherry maid's voice from behind me. I whirled around to smile at her before waving her away but it was already too late. I couldn't eavesdrop again because my
presence had already been announced so I just knocked before entering.
I entered and brief pleasantries were exchanged before I settled opposite Steff and Angel. Dad was sitting on his chair. For all my headaches, Angel didn't look self-satisfied or smug, she looked normal, putting all my suspicions to doubt and she cleared them all when she placed a picture on the table and slid it towards me.
I relaxed a breath I didn't know I was holding because this wasn't about what I'd been doing with Axel, it was about taking life because whoever was in that picture was already a dead man.
I picked up the picture. "Sergio Fernados, aged 45," Angel started as I stared at the plump man in the picture, "he used to oversee our major casino in Hong Kong but he had the nerve to double cross us by stealing our money and setting us up with the FBI."
What? I exclaimed internally. He didn't look like a foolish man but he had indeed acted foolish and dug his own grave when he decided to set us up with the FBI. Stealing from us was already a sin punishable by incapacitating the thief, maybe taking one of their hands and one of their legs but setting us up with the FBI? He became a dead man walking the minute he made that decision. "We were able to scale through because of our connection in the FBI and our guy has been hiding but still living a lavish life. We confirmed that he's in Macao," she dropped a plane ticket on the table, "your flight leaves by midnight, and one of our guys will pick you up from the airport when you land. Sergio frequents a strip club and that's your forte, you take his life with that, t one thing he loves
the most."
I didn't even care about the last part of her sentence.
"My flight leaves at midnight and you're telling me at 10 pm?"
She didn't flinch at my tone.
"The guys have been waiting for you since 5 pm and you weren't picking up your calls so what would you have us do?"
I didn't have a reply to that because I knew what exactly I'd been doing and it was one thing I would never voice out to my family.
"Okay," I glanced down at the picture again, picturing the man's funeral already, "consider it a done deal."
Her lips curled into a tiny smile because that was at least, the only thing we agreed on.