Chapter 3
Lilian. Lilian. Lilian.
The name rattles around my head over and over like a mantra. Like a song that I just can’t get out of my mind as I wrack my brain over and over again in an attempt to figure out if I have ever met a Lilian in my life. She’s not somebody that Nikolai has ever mentioned to me. I thought that I knew everybody he worked with - his past, his history. I thought that he had opened up to me, that we were a team.
Was I wrong?
I don’t want to think that he’s capable of lying to me… no matter what he does for a living. Everything that he does is to protect me, to keep me safe and to build a life for us. A future. He’s always saying that. Yet, this morning he refused to stop long enough to even have breakfast with me. He rushed through the dining room and ignored the plate that I had set out for him. He didn’t even bother to ask what plans I might have made for us… today he was supposed to be home with me.
Instead, all I got was a rushed afterthought of an explanation that there had been a development in the war. He had grabbed a pastry and winked at me as he breezed through and then he was gone.
I’m sick of war. I’m sick of everything that splits his focus and even more I hate that he won’t include me. It’s not like I wasn’t raised in a similar environment. I could be useful to him. I do know a thing or two about what he’s busy with. But no, of course not. Not something that a girl like me should worry about.
I think that was the comment that got to me the most.
I can’t stop pacing. I would sit, but my ass is still raw from the punishment that I had received last night. He had spanked me until I screamed. Granted, I had cum just as hard as the pain stung but now I’m paying the price for it. At the time, I had been all for it. I had thought nothing of it because that was the nature of our relationship. But given how cold Nikolai has been to me all morning? Refusing to answer my calls or texts, location off? Now I’m starting to think that it’s something more. Something worse. I feel like a crazy person. Does he want me to worry about him? To stay here in this prison disguised as a mansion? Is this some sort of punishment for not following his orders?
I am not one of his soldiers.
I am his wife.
And as such, I will do as I fucking please.
If Nikolai isn’t willing to talk to me about Helena, I know somebody who will. Nikolai outright refused to tell me what Alek did to deserve such treatment. He refused to tell me what happened or how long he was planning on keeping him prisoner. In fact, he had started to seem rather pissed off that I was daring to ask such questions in the first place.
Then he had distracted me with his hands… and his mouth… and, dammit, I had caved.
In the light of morning my mind is clear. Clear enough anyway. There’s no reason to keep Helena’s brother alive if he doesn’t need him for something. The rest of the Ivankov line is dead, so clearly, Nikolai is using him to locate his sister. My only guess, if not hope, is that Nikolai wants to finish the job that he started.
It’s easier to sneak down into the dungeons the second time because so many of Nikolai’s men are out doing whatever it is that is so damned important that he can’t have breakfast with me. At least, I think that it’s going to be. It feels colder down here this morning than it did the last time. I’m overly aware of the thin fabric of my leggings as I go down there. The t-shirt that hangs off of one shoulder is comfortable, but maybe I should have grabbed something warmer like a sweater . I can feel my nipples hardening against the cold the further I walk. Even my thick, comfortable socks aren’t enough to keep the cold from biting at the soles of my feet as I move silently toward Alek’s cell.
No sooner have I started to fiddle with the annoyingly loud new keypad that Nikolai had installed last night then the front door alert chimes. Loud and insistent, I hear Nikolai swearing from the entrance. Adrenaline spikes battery acid into my veins as I run away from the basement stairs and up to see why he’s yelling.
Nikolai is covered in blood.
Not an uncommon sight, but still shocking every time I see it.
My feet skid to a stop in front of him as my hands fly to my husband’s chest in search of where he’s injured. Nikolai ignores me until he disables the security system and re-arms it. He catches my wrist with a wry smile.
“It’s not my blood.” Nikolai says smoothly. “Do not worry.”
His accent is always thicker when he’s still high on his bloodlust.
I wonder absently how many people he must have killed today. How many families will be missing men because of my husband? Is it always justified?
“Productive day then?” I ask as I pull my hands away from him, the blood sticking to my palms. His only answer is a grin and then to wrap me up into his chest, kissing me firmly. I can feel the length of him digging into my stomach. Bastard. If it weren’t for the gore that he was covered in, I might be tempted to wrap my legs around his waist.
Hell, who am I kidding, I’m still tempted. Very tempted. But, given that we are technically fighting right now I’m not going to. I push away from him with a half-assed complaint about my now ruined outfit.
“You look good with a little blood on you, I’m not going to apologize for that.” Nikolai breezes with an arrogant smirk before turning me loose.
The kiss left me a little weak in the knees, so I stagger a bit.
I didn’t think that the conversation was over but he’s already jogging up the main stairs toward his office.
“Wait, Nikolai…” I call after him, rubbing the blood from my hands off onto my shirt as I go. He doesn’t stop until he reaches his office where Horus, his new right-hand man, is standing in wait. When had he even gotten here? The bastard moves impossibly silently. I like Horus, but I can certainly see why so many people find his nearness so unsettling.
“Report.” Nikolai demands as he grabs an imported cigar and drops heavily into his leather desk chair.
Horus starts to give a report, and then pauses to look at me like neither one of them even realized that I am standing right here. Clearly, Nikolai doesn’t want me overhearing.
“Do you need something, pet?” Nikolai asks.
The moniker is starting to feel like a leash instead of something sweet that he calls me in the bedroom. It’s starting to make me feel more like property than I’m strictly comfortable with.
“Yes!” I say firmly. “I need to talk to you.”
“I’m busy, maybe later? We can order in dinner from that Thai place that you like?” Nikolai offers.
Any other day it would be enough to shut me up. I would take the crumbs that I’m being offered, but not today. I’m not going to be pushed away as something that he only has to deal with when he feels like it. I’m not going to be just another object in his house.
“I don’t think that this can wait.” I say firmly.
Something flashes across Nikolai’s face. Something that I’ve never seen before.
“Who is Lilian?” I ask. Even just speaking the name that I’ve been obsessing over for the last day makes me feel nauseous.
Nikolai’s lip curls upward like I’ve insulted him.
I just want to know if he’s going to tell me the truth. I just want to make sure that this isn’t all for nothing and that the man I love is still in there. I want to make sure the core of him, his heart, is still with me and that he hasn’t already slid back into the version of him that I… the version he was before we had become what we are now.
“I was wondering when you were going to ask.”
Now that pisses me off. If he knew, then why didn’t he just tell me? Why wouldn’t he choose to be up front with me so that there would be nothing to worry about in the first place? I’m tempted to say as much, but he speaks again.
“Don’t you see that this is what he wants, pet? That man is a monster. I told you that. I thought this was settled. Do not listen to a damned thing a dying man says, Anya, he will say anything for his freedom. Do you really think that it doesn’t benefit him to have you doubt me? To play with your mind like this?” Nikolai looks at me with clear disapproval. “You are better than this, Anya.”
Guilt and anger swirl inside of me in equal measure.
“Then why would you not–”
“Is this what we are doing now?” Nikolai leans forward with his elbows on the desk. It’s a little intimidating. Damn him and the fact that he’s conditioned me to be so damned fucking horny the moment he gives me that look. “Have I ever given you any reason to doubt me?”
Well, no. Not technically. But the doubts still linger anyway.
“I know that you’re confused. I know that you want answers, Anya, but I do not have the luxury of time today. Do you understand that? You must be patient with me. As I would be with you. Can you do that for me?” Nikolai asks.
How can I deny him that?
I bite my bottom lip and nod reluctantly.
“Good. Then be my good girl and run along.” He says in the tone that always makes my toes curl. I know what that means. Be patient and then tonight I will be rewarded until I can no longer remember my own name. I do want that. Nikolai always knows how to make me cum so hard I see stars. Maybe I’m overreacting.
Nikolai gestures to Horus to remove me from the room. He crowds into my space until I have two options: leave willingly or be forcibly removed. I don’t tolerate anyone manhandling me but Nikolai.
I hesitate in the doorway. I glance over my shoulder at Nikolai, already focused on his work. “You promise that you will tell me later?”
Nikolai glances up with a smile that doesn’t meet his eyes. “Of course.”
Horus places a hand between my shoulders and pushes me gently out of the room so that the door falls shut heavily behind us - and that is that.
I don’t so much as look at the man trailing behind me as I stew in my irritation.
I know what I would see if I were to look into Horus’ dark features right about now. He’s not likely to tell me much more than Nikolai. He is loyal to a fault.
I can’t shake the feeling that Nikolai just lied to me. Right to my face. If he doesn’t explain himself tonight, what am I going to do?
“You should not speak to him like that.” Horus speaks softly to me in his mother tongue. It was just a fluke that we both happened to speak Arabic. A rusty language that I knew in my childhood that I had dusted off quite often since Horus had moved up in the ranks. It was a bond, it had forged a friendship that I don’t think Nikolai even knows about.
“I will not be just another woman who is afraid of making him angry. I can handle it.” I say back with the same accented anger that I had used on Nikolai, albeit in another language.
“You should be.”
“If you are so worried, then perhaps you ought to stop pretending that you don’t know a hell of a lot more than you are letting on,” I retort as I turn into my bedroom. I stand in the doorway to the massive room that Nikolai decorated without my input with my arms crossed over my chest. “Because I can tell that you know more than you’re saying.”
Horus is conflicted. He and I have forged a close friendship, there is no denying that. However, his loyalty is first and foremost to my husband. He would be betraying him if he answered my question. I understand, and I care… mostly.
After a long moment of tension, I can see the flicker of resignation in his eyes. “If he does not… then I shall.”
I give him a look that clearly says “you better” and close the door in his face.
The moment I’m alone, sadness takes hold of me for reasons that I can’t fully explain, cold, icy fingers wrapping around me and holding me tight. I pass the day in bed for lack of anything else to do. Does Nikolai truly not understand that, by moving us all the way across the country like this, he’s effectively isolated me? He’s all that I have here and if he removes that… what am I even doing here?
Nikolai doesn’t come to dinner.
It’s not until I’m changed for bed that I wander through the house in my satin pajama in search of my husband to come to bed with me that I finally find him.
He’s in the gym, training. It’s something that he prides himself on. He keeps his body in top shape and is ready for a fight at a moment’s notice. He always has been. I know how disciplined he is but I thought that with the way things had been left between us in the afternoon, he would have been ready to fix things. I feel like an second thought and I don’t fucking like it. I stand in the door to the gym with my arms crossed over my chest. With his headphones on he doesn’t even notice me.
Gone are the days where he worshipped the ground that I walked on, apparently.
Well, fine. If I’m going to stand directly in front of him without him even noticing me, I’m going to get my answers elsewhere.
It doesn’t take me long to find Horus.
Sitting in the kitchen watching a rugby game on one of the many sports channels with a sandwich on a white plate in front of him. Messy, but a surprising favorite, I guess. He looks surprised to see me as I ease into the seat beside him and take half of his sandwich without asking.
“Talk.” I say around a mouth full of food.
“He did not tell you?” Horus asks in Arabic as he cleans his hands.
“No, he does not even see me apparently.”
“Fine… but you will not like the answer.” Horus answers ominously.
“I’m a big girl. I can handle it.”
Horus gives me a look that hints that no, I won’t be able to handle it. But he speaks anyway.
“The man in the basement is Helena Ivankov’s brother. We have it on very good authority that she is pregnant.”
Just like ripping off a bandage, the news is laid bare in front of us so suddenly that I can’t speak. I’m speechless. I don’t even know where to begin with that bomb that he’s just dropped on me. Pregnant? My first instinct is to question whether or not it’s Nikolai’s - but that’s foolish. We have been married for long enough now that if Helena had been pregnant with a child of Nikolai’s, she would have already had it by now. No, having his children will be my right and mine alone.
My brow furrows. “No, wait - what does that have to do with Lilian? That’s not what… there’s more to this…”
Horus is silent to a long moment, like he doesn’t want to tell me anything else that he knows. Fuck that. I’m not going to let him get away with keeping anything else to himself. No way.
“Listen, I need you to start talking right now or else I’m going to–”
Horus cuts me off with his steady words.
“The prisoner is wanted not only because of his sister, but also for the woman that he was once involved with. Lilian was the one who got away, to put it delicately.”
“From Alek?” I ask, confused.
“No, from Nikolai. Ms. Lilian was very important to Mr. Volkovich for many years. They had a very passionate relationship until Alek came around and stole her. It is my understanding that he feels that Alek not only stole his woman, but also planted his sister to move against him.” Horus speaks plainly, only offering up the bare facts and none of the gossip or details.
I don’t even know where to start.
Stole her? I don’t think anybody can steal anything from my husband. Now, that’s not to say that I don’t think that they wouldn’t try. I’m sure that they absolutely would. However, Nikolai isn’t exactly the sort of person that would let something like that go. He got to the position that he’s in now for a reason.
Which means that she left… or she had an affair maybe?
“Naturally, Mr. Ivankov doesn’t see things the same way. He claims that Lilian was the love of his life and she left Nikolai because she was pregnant with Alek’s child. Something about wishing to start a family together.” Horus finishes and takes what’s left of his sandwich back from me. I’m too stunned to eat anyway now.
“Did she cheat on Nikolai?” I ask, thinking that this is the most obvious question.
Horus wipes his face and shakes his head. “No, they were on and off. It seems that Ms. Lilian moved between the pair of them. At least that is my understanding.”
An ex.
All of this was about an ex? Because Alek slighted him? Nikolai was supposed to be finished with the Ivankov family. He was putting our own marriage at risk because of some petty vendetta from the past? Why should he care about Lilian when he has me now? There has to be more to this. There just has to be. Any other alternative just might break my heart.