Five: Power Play

AXEL

"You knew who I was, right?" I said immediately as I stepped in front of her. She stopped walking immediately, eyes narrowed with boredom.

"That was why you pulled that little stunt back there."

"I don't care that much about you to pull anything because of you."

Her reply was curt, dismissive, as if I was totally unworthy of her time and it fueled my anger and fury even more.

"You don't care that much about me?" I drawled, stepping close to dim the space between us. We were in a dark alleyway and the only source of light was from a yellow bulb a good distance away and it distinctly highlighted her facial features for me.

Blank face.

Bored eyes.

Thin lips.

And angry stance.

As if she was just one step from murdering me.

But she wasn't allowed to murder me. We weren't allowed to murder each other. Our families have been enemies for so long it was going to take only the slightest mistake for the families to launch into a full blown war.

"But you know me well enough to know that challenging me and making a fool out of me like that was a sick move."

"You asked for a challenge, you got one, it's on you if your ass can't handle losing," she taunted, she had the nerve to fucking taunt me to my face and a low chuckle escaped from my lips.

"You really don't want to do this with me, Lisa Volkov, I don't care who you are, I don't care if you pulled a classic assassination off when you were 18, I don't care if you're from the fucking Volkov family," I warned, darkness hardening my voice to ice, "you really don't want to do this with me."

"I'm not doing anything with you," she answered in a still very detached voice, "other than put you in your place which I already did so I don't think we'd have any business with each other again, now, if you'll excuse me..." she started to walk away and my hand reached out to grab her wrist. Her eyes narrowed and she flung my hand away. We immediately got entangled in a fury flash of moves that had our bodies twirling and intertwining and when we finally stopped, our bodies were so tightly pressed together with her back against the the wall and my body pressing against her front.

With my knife pressed to her fucking throat.

And her gun pressed against my skull.

We were both heaving and panting and with each breaths from her, I could feel her breasts pressing more and more against my chest, her luscious body molding against mine. They were thoughts I shouldn't be entertaining, they were thoughts I shouldn't even be allowing myself to think at all but there was a small pulsing between my thighs and no matter how much I thoroughly hated this girl's gut, I couldn't deny that she was attractive.

Maybe a little bit too attractive.

"I'm going to have to blow your skulls off if you don't get your fuckinh knife away from my throat."

"No, Volkov, you'll do no such thing."

She glared at me before attempting to fling me off her body but she was no match for me and soon enough, we were entangled in another struggle and the next time we stopped, I had her pressed against the floor, her arms locked together with my left hand above her head while the other one was still pressing the knife against her neck.

She wasn't even attempting to fight me off, she just started up at me, a calm seething rage in her eyes.

I pressed the knife further against her neck till I saw flickers of blood.

She didn't even as much flinch, a testament to the amount of pain she must have had to withhold to become that kind of skilled assassin.

"I'm warning you, Volkov and this will be the first and the last time, I don't care who you are and I don't care the number of lives you've taken or who your fucking family is, the next time you pull this kind of stunt, I'm going to..." I pressed the knife to draw more blood and a sinister smile touched my lips when she winced slightly.

"I'm going to fucking kill you, Volkov and I'm not joking," I released her and I stood to my feet.

"If you as much know the underground as much as I'm assuming you do, then you should know what tail you're stepping on by trying to fuck with me."

She laughed. Lisa fucking Volkov had the nerve to laugh to my face as she picked herself up from the floor and she tucked her gun away in her trouser.

"You can bluff and brag about your exploits all you want, Axel Ivanov but I'll never become a number that you'll be to add to the list, you know why?" she stepped up to my person and even in what looked like a six inches boot, she still had to tilt her head all the way back to look at me in the eyes.

"Because I'll blow your head off before you can even get to make an attempt to take my life and the feuds between our families be dammed, I'll risk a fucking war just to show you what I'm capable of."

"I'll love to see you try, Volkov, I'll love to see you try," I turned back and started to walk away from her before pausing and turning back to look at her.

"And just a casual warning, Volkov, do your best to stay out of me, I can't be sure what I'll do to you if I keep seeing you."

"I'll advise you to do the same, Axel, I might get angry at just seeing your face and put a hole in your head so stay out of my way."

I cackled before walking away into the night with only one recurring thought in my head.

Lisa fucking Volkov.

I really hoped I was never going to see her again.

But life definitely has other plans for me or even for us.

“Excuse me,” the familiar female voice rang out after we collided with each other at the entrance of a class. My hands automatically reached out to steady her and she drew back immediately as she was on her feet.

“Sorry, about that, I…” she started to apologize but her voice trailed off immediately after our eyes met and behind the glasses, the brown eyes immediately seethed with malice I had gotten accustomed to in just a day.

It took me a while to figure out who the girl in a baggy shirt, big pants, converse, ponytail hair, and fucking glasses was.

Lisa Volkov.

But how?

My jaws slackened as I looked at her from head to toe. She looked nothing like the girl from last week, she looked nothing like the girl that dressed like that because she was now dressed in this, in something that made her look like an actual nerd and not a cold-blooded murderer.

And I definitely wouldn’t have recognized her if not for the murderous rage seething in her eyes before she turned back and stomped into the classroom.

I toned my annoyance down and followed her.

“Is your style a cover? Some sort of way to hide the fact that you can take the lives of everyone in this room without as much batting an eyelid.”

She sat down and I settled on the space beside her.

“I’m not an Ivanov so I see no reason to pretend to be what I’m not,” her comeback stung, “and there’s no way I’d take the lives of this many people, I only kill people who deserve to die, people who would rather die than live to face the consequences of their actions.”

She brought out a note and a pen.

“Ewwww,” I pretended to be touched, “patriotic much?”

The only answer I got was a slight scoff from her.

“And if you're not an Ivanov and you're not pretending to be who you're not, then why is the almighty Lisa Volkov dressed like this?”

“Because this is how I dress every day.”

“I don't assume that's how you'd dress to take people’s lives?”

She hissed loudly and glared at me before glancing around the class to see if anyone had overheard us and a humorless chuckle escaped from my lips.

Too much for not being an Ivanov.

The class was already getting filled up with students but no one was sitting close enough to mistakenly overhear our conversation. The most some girls were doing was staring at her, at us with narrowed eyes, pondering wondering what I was doing with someone like her.

Someone nerdy with glasses and pants and all baggy tops. I've always made my preference for girls obvious, all skimpy tops, perky boobs, and amazing curves.

If only they had an idea how curvy she was under all this bagginess.

I could bet most people didn't even know she was the same girl from last week and I wouldn't have to if we didn't happen to share this sort of peculiar relationship.

The girl from last week looked like an as sexy girl and this girl looked like someone who’d never tear her face from reading.

“I don't assume you don’t have anything better to do than to aimlessly follow girls to class so please get lost, I have a class to concentrate on.”

I snickered before dropping my notepad on the desk.

“Says who that I'm not a part of this class?”

Her eyes widened slightly with annoyance and maybe fury and I shrugged almost nonchalantly before it dawned on me what the implication of my statement is.

We were going to take this class together.

We'd be seeing each other every other week and forget the no-so-civil conversation we just had earlier, I was still seconds away from slitting her throat.

She humped in annoyance before packing her books and getting up from the chair at the same time the lecturer entered the lecture hall.

“Can we all get seated for the class?”

She humped before settling back down, annoyance and anger written all over her face and on every single one of her body movements.

I thumped my annoyance down knowing full well that this was going to be one hell of a semester.

And the question now was who’ll kill the other person before the semester ends?