ALVARA

xxii

KAISER ―

THE NEXT DAY, WE JOIN NIKITA, Igor, and Imani in the dining hall. Beside me, Alvara holds my hand in a death grip. We still have to keep up pretenses, and she isn't happy about it.

"Morning!" Nikita says cheerfully, scooping liberal amounts of whipped cream onto his pancakes. "Did you two lovebirds sleep well?" He winks at us suggestively. Imani nods at me while Igor ignores us.

I fight the urge to punch him in the face. He was clearly putting up an act for Alvara, my girlfriend, for whatever reason.

"Fine, thank you," I nod at the heir. Or should I say, the Pakhan? "I suppose a congratulations is in order?" I prod.

Nikita smiles sadly. I can't tell if it's genuine or not. "Father passed last night. Waffle?"

Alvara accepts the plate with a smile. Her mouth is a slash of red against her pale skin, like a gaping wound.

"Kaiser. A word?" Nikita asks casually. Without waiting for my reply, he stands up and walks away.

I stare at the man's retreating back. Maybe he really was losing it.

After excusing myself, I follow him as he strolls through the gardens, watching his dark head bob through the lush green hedges. It's an unusually warm day in Russia, with weak sunlight parting the cottony clouds.

At last he stops and turns to face me. The warmth on his face is gone and his celery-green eyes are calculating. Classic Nikita, trading his mask for another one. We'd once been close, but ever since he moved to Russia we stopped talking. Now, I didn't know where we stood.

He eyes the red marks on my neck, courtsey of Alvara's strangling last night.

"Didn't know you were into that kind of stuff." He gives me an insufferable smirk.

I let out a breath. "What do you want."

"How's Arcadia doing?" he asks casually.

I look back at the eccentric man in front of me, unsurprised. So he knew. "Faring very well. She sends her regards."

"What are you doing here, Kaiser?" His words are blunt, neither friendly nor hostile.

I let out a breath in relief. This is exactly my style; straight to the point. "Aleksander is missing, and we suspect he is here."

"'We'?" He squints at me. "Don't tell me you and that attractive woman are seriously together."

I glare at him, irked. "What's so hard to believe?"

Nikita gestures with his hands. "Well, she's... you know, and you're... you know."

I stare at my former friend for a few seconds before shaking my head. "Okay. Seriously. Where the hell is Aleksander?"

He claps a hand over my shoulder with more force than necessary. I try not to slap his hand off, or worse, shoot him with the gun tucked at my side. Alvara had recommended the model to me, and I've been carrying it around since. Seems like my fingers are a bit trigger-happy today.

"Don't see how Hugo sent you, the useless meathead you are, as the diplomat," Nikita says.

I straighten. I am taller than him by half a head, though there's no point in intimidating a man like Nikita with such a trivial fact. His head was so inflated he would drift off into the horizon if you tried pushing him off a cliff.