Chapter 2: Attention

VANLUKE has spent his entire day recovering in a cheap motel. The girl left last night and he knows nothing about her besides being a veterinary practitioner. He never cared for any woman, much less for a girl. He brushes off memories of her and calls for his backup. He has more important matters to attend to.

His men came to bring him back to his suite in a five star hotel less than an hour away from where the nightclub was. His cousin, Danil Kromatova was waiting for him to arrive.

"Vanluke! It's so nice to see you in one shape!" Danil greeted him with a manly handshake which he gladly took.

"Call the boss," Vanluke started. Serving himself a glass of beer from the mini bar. "Tell him the bastards ran away with the money."

"Where were the goods?" What Danil was talking about was the guns their family was illegally selling throughout Asia. The last shipment was supposed to be successful but the contractor's shitty wife leaked the operation last night all because she didn't get a higher cut. Plus the contractor's bitch mistress was receiving as much as cut she got so everything was damn shit involving the NBI.

"The damn NBI got them," Vanluke took a shot of beer to his mouth.

"The money?" Danil joined him, serving himself.

"I didn't get it. Before we were able to make the exchange we were interrupted."

"Damn," his cousin drank all his beer in one go. "The boss will hunt him to his grave. His wife and mistress will be buried alive with him," he said in a grimace with pretentious pity. "Anyways, how were you able to patch yourself up clean? I believe you almost died last night according to your men. You were bleeding hard when they last saw you before today."

"I slipped into a nightclub, blend in. I met a girl, a Filipina. She's a veterinary practitioner. She helped me."

"What luck. You got treated by the right person."

"I thought otherwise. It's ridiculous I was mended by an animal lover."

"Vanluke, you are an animal," Danil laughs. "Did you sleep with her after?"

"No."

"Why not?"

"She didn't like me."

"What woman would not? Maybe she's not into men?"

"Shut up. Forget about her, we need to make a plan on how to retrieve the loss. The boss will take our heads if we don't."

"You don't need to ask," groans Danil.

VANLUKE and Danil spent the next forty-eight hours planning to make up for the loss. To complete that, a search party for the contractor and the two women with him was sent out under their command. While they wait for the result the two men leisured in the lounge to speak about the girl, a nice, private time to have some boy talk despite the crisis.

At the hotel's open veranda, the two of them shared a drink under the dark sky.

"What was she like?" Danil asks while sipping on his coconut juice in a real coconut shell. He didn't bother removing the blue paper umbrella placed on its side.

Vanluke slightly tilted his head, wondering. Carefully constructing the right sentences to reveal. "I don't know. She was common."

"Common girls drool over you. Come on, spill the beans, Van," Danil urged.

"She is just common, Dan. You're right, she should have fallen for me at first sight. But she wasn't interested in me at all. Not even sexual desire. I don't know her name nor did she bother to know mine. She left as soon as she got the chance. Besides knowing she is a vet, I don't know anything about her. Except she kept dodging my questions about how many times has been in a motel with someone."

Danil's lips drew the biggest smile yet. "Van, you know girls like her are the best fit for the family's women criteria. Simple, innocent but not so innocent, doesn't give a damn about you, uninterested in your face and body. 

"I doubt it."

Danil stares at him meaningfully and says, "Van, if you don't think about her like I do, you would've forced her to sleep with you."

"I wasn't interested."

"Stop lying, jerk."

"Can you shut up?"

"No way. In our line of work it's very critical to choose a woman you can trust your life with. Oh, I know! Let's run a background check, yeah?"

Vanluke heaves out a breath. His cousin loves to vex the hell out of his sanity. He focused on eating his steak instead of listening to the absurd ideas Danil come up with.

"If you still don't want her then I'll have her."

"Do whatever you want."

"Oh, come on! Vanluke, are you seriously not going to believe I won't take her away from you?"

Vanluke took a slice of steak in his mouth. "Yes."

"What makes you think that?" Danil challenge.

He didn't reply. He wasn't lying when he said he doesn't care that Danil will take the girl's breath away from him. Because he's not the sentimental type of person. He plans on marrying but he hasn't decided with whom yet. Especially when he's still securing his position as the heir to his father's job description, being the head of the Kromatova Family. He can't make another family while maintaining the other one.

"Okay, fine."

Vanluke felt relief when Danil finally gave up. Or so he thought.

"First to track her down, is going to have her for a wife. Deal?"

"To hell with it."

AFTER the dinner, Danil left to go to his own hotel. Vanluke came back to his suite to change the gauze pads on his wounds. While standing in front of a mirror in the bathroom, he gazed over the clumsy stitches the girl gave him on the gut. As he reminisced the times she was casually touching his skin, he imagined what she looked like. She has real long eyelashes. Her eyebrows are infinitely thick, not drawn by make up. Her lips wore no color but natural pink applied, probably, with a gloss. Her nose is fairly pointed for an Asian. He saw no jewelry hanging from any parts of her. Her chest…

Vanluke stopped. He blinked at his own thoughts. "What the hell are you thinking, Vanluke Kromatova? Fantasizing about a commoner? Have you gone low?" He scolded his own reflection. He shook his head in disbelief. He can't believe he thinks about that girl, of all women starting whom he had been with.

He stepped in the shower. He thinks it'll help him cool his thoughts. Then as the water rains on him from head to toe, a picture of that certain girl flashes before his wildest imagination. In his head, the girl is with him, no, that is not quite right. She was taking a shower alone naked. He entered the scene with the intent to seduce her. In his imaginary world he was caressing her all over, before taking her hard and wild. The cold water was nothing compared to the heat of the moment.

Vanluke opened his eyes abruptly. He was shocked at his own foolish waking dream. What's more shocking is he's already hard between his muscled legs. "What the hell…" he cursed. He closed his eyes unwillingly. When was the last time he cooled his hardness by himself? No other choice he continued on his evil desires. It took him no less than a minute before he came.

Cursing more he stepped out of the bathroom to take a phone call. "Dominika?!" He fumes over the call.

"What the hell are you angry about!" Dominika Kromatova, his elder sister, the head of intelligence central in the family, curses back.

"I need you to find someone."

"Is this how you ask your sister a favor?"

"Damn it." He calmed his voice down. He walked past his bedroom with a white towel around his still hard manhood. "Please, Dominika."

"Tell me why."

He can sense her grinning from the other side of the world. She wouldn't take any excuse or she'll never help him. "I found her."

"Who?"

"Your future sister-in-law."

"YOU'RE fast, Van," Danil smirks.

Vanluke and Danil are standing right in front of a simple apartment in a quiet, but populated subdivision. "I really was serious about stealing her. Father will definitely like her," he said in dismay.

"I found her first. Line is already drawn," he gave his final warning, not giving his cousin even a bat of an eye.

Danil put his hands up like he was hearing a warrant of arrest. "Okay! So what's your plan? What the hell are we doing in front of her family's home?"

"I'll be taking her with me back in Russia."

"She's a Filipina, Van. You think her family will just let you grab her and fly her to another side of the world? In the Philippines it's more like you live with your parents even when you're already married. I've done my research, and trust me, her father is strict but her mother will eat you alive."