Page 50 of Maxim
“No?”
“Irina, I’m busy. Now if you’ll excuse me…” She pouts and folds her arms in annoyance. I’m guessing the word ‘no’ is not in her vocabulary. Well too fucking bad.
“It’s Serena.” I’m done with this woman. Nothing I said or did so much as hinted I had any interest in her. Hell, we didn’t even fuck! I do recall kissing her but it was like kissing a dead fish and I cut the evening short not long after that.
Refusing to be drawn into any more conversation with the woman, I climb into the SUV. Artem closes the door on Serena’s furious face and hops in the driver’s seat. He nods in the direction of the cafe across the street.
“Natalya left shortly after Serena approached you,” he tells me as the car pulls away from the curb.
“Fuck.” God knows what she must be thinking if she saw Serena kiss me. The whole sorry event was entirely one-sided but it probably didn’t look that way from a distance.
“Hmm.” Artem is a man of few words. A considered hmm from him speaks volumes. It tells me I’m in deep fucking shit, so I pull out my phone, all thoughts of the mayor forgotten, and hit call on Natalya’s number.
It rings and rings and eventually goes to voicemail.
So I try again.
And again.
Eventually it goes straight to voicemail without ringing, which tells me she’s either switched her phone off or put it into airplane mode.
My fists clench and I grind my teeth in anger. The fact she’s jumped to the wrong conclusion without giving me an opportunity to explain infuriates me. But before I can lose my shit, my phone rings.
I grab it, hoping it’s Natalya, but of course it isn’t.
“What?”
“What’s the mayor done this time?” Sasha asks.
“Nothing apart from being an obnoxious prick as per usual.”
“Is he still stalling?”
I exhale, willing my shoulders to relax. “No, he’s promised to get things sorted so we can break ground next month.”
“Then why the grumpy asshole mood? I thought you’d be happy he’s finally smoothing things over?” Sasha sounds perplexed. He knows how long we’ve been waiting for Kolanski to pull his finger out of his ass.
“Nothing, I’m fine.”
“Huh. Right. Not the vibe I’m getting, but whatever. Anyway, the reason I’m calling is that Stefan Lublik has reappeared.”
It takes a second to connect the name with the warehouse fire. “Where is he? Has he been picked up yet?”
“He visited his favorite whore while drunk, hit her about, and then refused to pay her. She wasn’t happy and called one of my guys to mouth off about it. The stupid fuck is currently passed out in a bar near the old munitions factory. A couple of the guys are on their way now to pick him up.”
“Good, let me know if he has anything interesting to say. I’ll leave it with you for now. I have someone I need to talk to.”
“Someone who’s pissed you off by any chance? A pretty brunette perhaps?”
“Goodbye, Sasha.” I end the call and pull up Natalya’s number again. This time I leave a voicemail message and follow it up with an SMS.
She has until this evening to reply or I will hunt her down and make her regret ignoring me. There’s no way she can hide from me because she has a tracking app on her phone.
Does that make me a stalker?
Possibly.
Do I care?