Chapter Thirty Andres
The car ride was ripe with emotions.
Hers and mine.
I was so amped up about her coming face to face with her ex, it was all I could do to keep on breathing.
I was used to pushing myself. To facing uncomfortable situations head on. But I didn’t like the idea of Ellie being in the same room as him.
That motherfucker owed me a debt, and I intended to collect.
Just not yet.
Not today.
I had to remind myself of that frequently as the driver maneuvered the crowded streets.
There was the usual rush hour traffic, plus the dinner crowd out and about on the glittering streets of Manhattan.
I understood the reason behind the sparkly shit. It was a little Mica and Silicarb mixed with the cement and asphalt.
Really, who needed to know all that?
To a kid from Hoboken, New York was still the Big Apple. It was a concrete jungle.
If you could make it there, well, you knew the rest.
I spent my youth staring across the Hudson River. Checking out the city people traveled to from all over the globe.
I always was ambitious.
Fact was the city streets glittered with asphalt and minerals. But I knew it represented magic. And what was magic but possibilities?
That was the heart of New York.
Smoke and mirrors to some, made to dazzle the tourists.
But I wasn’t one of them.
I wasn’t passing through.
New York City was my home now. And I was a wolf.
A Volkov.
The city was mine.
Ellie and Sammy were mine.
And tonight, I was going to use everything I had to protect what was mine.
I’d worked hard and long to become the man I was today. A man worthy of Ellie and Sammy. A man who could keep them safe and love them the way they deserved to be loved.
I inhaled a deep breath, sucking in the flavors of my wife as she sat still and silent beside me.
I couldn’t imagine what was going on inside her brain.
I hoped she would share it with me when she was ready. But I wouldn’t force it.
Never that.
The driver pulled up to the curb and exited the vehicle, but I was already opening my door. He knew better than to try to touch the handle on my wife’s side.
The driver just stood there, as did the other bodyguard who exited the passenger side of the SUV. I nodded, appreciating their professionalism.
But I expected nothing less from Sigma International. Josef knew what he was doing, and so did those who worked for him.
“Wait there, Angel,” I told Ellie, and she nodded.
She didn’t know about the meeting I had earlier with my investigators, her lawyers, and mine. I hadn’t told her yet.
Ellie was unaware of the intel I’d gathered on Gary Peters, and his current wife and ex-secretary.
She was also blissfully unaware of the mountain of fabricated accusations Gary intended to slander my wife with at this meeting today.
But I knew about them. And that douchebag wasn’t getting the chance to hurl any of his filth at her ever again.
Tonight I was going to reveal what I’d been doing these past few days, putting in all kinds of hours to see it done right.
Tonight, I was going to shut down all the legal bullshit Gary had put into motion, and I was going to force him to back down.
Tomorrow, well, tomorrow was for something else.
Gary didn’t have many more tomorrows to worry about.
All I had to do was think about Ellie when I’d first laid eyes on her.
Her pretty face all bruised and bandaged.
Nose out of joint.
Her arm in a cast.
Oh, he was going to fucking pay for that.
I rounded the car and opened her door, holding my hand out to Ellie like I had on our wedding day.
Her golden green gaze met mine, and I held my breath. Watching her like the predator I was until I saw her decide. I exhaled the second she placed her hand in mine.
Then I helped her out of the car, wrapping one arm around her lower back.
I kissed her once. A hard, quick peck on her mouth just because I could.
“Do you trust me?” I asked.
“Yes,” she said, and I nodded.
Ellie said she trusted me, and I had to believe her. I had no choice. I just hoped to God she fucking meant it, because my wife wasn’t going to like what I was about to do.