Lies of My Monster (Monster Trilogy #2) by Rina Kent

“A whole week?” I don’t attempt to hide the disappointment in my tone.

“I have a few important meetings this week that I can’t get out of.”

“Fine, I guess.”

“Did you know that you look adorable when you pout?”

I smile and resist touching him when everyone is watching, including Karina from behind the curtain in her room.

Leaning close, I say, “I’m going to miss you.”

“Fuck,” he murmurs. “Now, I want to come along.”

Yes, please.

“Go.” He taps the top of the car. “Be yourself.”

I grin, wave at everyone, and then I drive away from the mansion.

Goodbye, Aleksander Lipovsky. From now on, I’m Aleksandra Morozova.





27





SASHA





By the time the week ends, I’m bored out of my mind.

During the first few days, I kept an open mind and explored the surrounding forest, hiked to the top of the mountain, and screamed from the bottom of my heart.

I was so happy to wear girl clothes and sports bras instead of chest bandages. Though I still wore my men’s sweatpants and hoodies. What? They’re comfier.

Then I did my daily workouts in the garden surrounding the small cottage.

Despite having wood stacked inside the house, I cut some more logs and threw them in the fireplace.

The cottage is located in the middle of nowhere, with only a mountain and a huge forest surrounding it.

On the inside, it looks like a fairy tale. The dark wood of the walls and the flooring gives the architecture an elegant feel.

There’s a cozy sofa opposite the fireplace, over which hangs a TV. There isn’t much service here, but there’s a flash drive that’s stacked with hundreds of movies and TV shows. I tried watching some, but I don’t have the patience to stay still for hours. I’d rather be moving around.

Which is why I’m getting positively bored out of my mind.

I need to stay calm, though, because I have another six months of this.

Jeez. How am I supposed to survive that?

But anyway, that’s for later. I stare at my phone for the hundredth time today, just to re-read the exchange I had with Kirill earlier.

Kirill: I’m coming tonight.

Sasha: Really? To the cottage?

Kirill: I meant in your cunt, but yeah, that, too.

Sasha: I can’t with you.

Kirill: That’s my charm. Do you need anything?

Sasha: Just you is fine.

Kirill: Fuck, Solnyshko. You need to stop saying shit that makes me hard while I’m surrounded by people.

Sasha: I’ll make it up to you tonight. Promise.

To say I’m starved would be an understatement. I miss him like crazy. It doesn’t help that he was busy with work these past few days, and we barely spoke over the phone or through texts. So I spent the whole week obsessing over our wedding pictures that he sent over.

I hate being away from him. Even during that period when he wasn’t talking to me, I was by his side every day, so this distance is making me anxious.

I keep wondering if he’ll be okay. What if someone attacks or attempts to assassinate him and the others don’t act fast enough?

It's hard to chase away those thoughts despite knowing Viktor, Yuri, Maksim, and the others are there for him.

Guess that makes me a control freak, because sometimes I believe no one other than me will be able to keep him safe.

Which is both wrong and unfair to the others. Especially Viktor.

But anyway, Kirill is coming tonight, and I might have gone a bit overboard with the preparations.

There are still many containers of food, both the ones Anna gave me and what was in the fridge. However, I tried to cook a fancy dish I found on the internet.

Needless to say, I burned it.

So now, I’m moving to plan B, which is reheating my food. In hindsight, I should’ve just done that from the beginning.

I guess I wanted to cook for him—or try to. Obviously, I suck at this.

Planning missions and shooting targets? No problem at all. Everyday things such as cooking? Tragic failure.

I managed to at least set the table decently. I have his favorite drink—whiskey—on the table, and mine, too.

While I’m a stereotypical Russian who loves their vodka, Kirill is more sophisticated and only has Macallan. Neat.

He does drink vodka when it’s offered to him, especially by the elders in the brotherhood, but it’s not his drink of choice.

He’s flexible that way, which makes him charming from the outside looking in.

Kirill is the type who’s fine with bending his choices and preferences if it helps in getting close to the right people. That’s why the smartest ones in the organization, namely Rai, Vladimir, and Adrian, are the most wary of him.

Rai often calls him a cunning fox, and she’s not wrong. He's not too hard to be snapped or too mellow to be pushed around. He’s just…an enigma.

And I love everything about him—including his manipulative side. I like to believe that he wouldn’t hurt the people he cares about the most, such as Karina and his men.

Konstantin, even.

Kirill acts like his brother is the most annoying existence on earth, but he refuses to take serious action against him. Yes, he sabotages him here and there, but it’s not permanent damage, and I think he only does it to spite Yulia instead of Konstantin.