Chapter 8 #2
“But it’s not stopping the Kings?”
“They’ve been asked to let it go.”
“I don’t think they have,” I said. “It probably doesn’t help that you were fawning over Kirill earlier.”
“Despite how I felt about Bruce in the end, I am grieving. Kirill always gave me comfort.” Her eyes flashed. “It pains him to hold back because of malicious people like you.”
“Like me?” My temper flared. “Anya, you realize you’re talking about my future husband.”
She gave a tinkling, mocking laugh. Dammit. Even she made that look sultry.
“That shows you how far Kirill is willing to go to protect what we have,” she said. “Why do you think he put a time limit on your marriage?”
“He didn’t.” He mentioned a year at the minimum, but I was petty enough to put doubt in the woman’s head.
Unperturbed, Anya said, “He is doing all this to protect me. Kirill and I have a bond you will never share with him.”
“If you say so,” I gritted. “It’s too early to say.”
“He will come back to me in the end. And we’ll have everything,” she sighed. “Maybe we can be friends, Lucy. I might even fix you up with a good man after this is all over.”
“I doubt it,” I told her. “We can’t be friends because you’re despicable to behave this way at your husband’s funeral.”
“Whatever.” She walked toward the door. “You’re na?ve. You don’t get to judge me for what I have done to survive.”
She pulled open the door. “Now I have to return to my guests.” Her mouth twisted. “To play the grieving widow.”
When the door closed, all the blood had gone to my head. My face was burning like a furnace, and I itched to hurl the heavy volume law books at the door.
I looked around the dark wooden paneling. This didn’t look like an office with secrets but merely a library to retreat to. A simple desk stood at the center with a vintage green banker’s lamp. I read that they were mostly green because it gave a calming effect.
“I feel sorry for you, Bruce,” I muttered. My phone buzzed. It had been buzzing for a while.
Kirill
Where are you?
That was five minutes ago, about the time I was busy stuffing my face with food.
Did you walk into a ditch somewhere?
Asshole.
Lucy?
Answer me!
You should know better than to wander off. I better not find you snooping
And then this last one.
Where the fuck are you?
Me
Chill, dude.
I had my litany of questions to ask him.
When I opened the door, I spotted Kirill heading my way with a thundercloud on his face. It was the most emotion I’d seen him express. Against the gloomy surroundings, he looked like a grim reaper ready to scythe my head off.
I closed the door quietly, just as he reached me. His hand wrapped around my wrist, and he yanked me forward.
His head lowered, and before he could say anything, I snapped, “FYI, I wasn’t snooping. Your precious Anya dragged me into the room.”
“She’s not my precious Anya,” he snarled. “What did she say to you?”
“Let me see. That you’ll do anything to protect her, including sacrificing yourself by marrying me.” So, I embellished? I was good at dramatics, and I had Mamma to thank for that.
Kirill muttered an expletive, and he transferred his hand on my wrist to around my waist to keep me plastered to his side as he marched me from the quiet corner of the house back to the gathering.
I could feel him seething, proving Anya was right, and she was the only one who could break Kirill’s seemingly unflappable control.
That annoyed the competitiveness in me. That ability to rattle cages. I had trouble keeping up with his brisk strides. But with the crush of people, no one seemed to pay attention to the urgency with which we were exiting the premises except for two people.
“Slow down,” I hissed.
“Keep up,” he shot back.
“The Kings,” I said in a low voice. “Don’t look, but they’re watching us.”
Kirill slowed his stride, but the arm around me tightened.
Anya headed in the Kings’ direction, probably to distract them. At this point, I was relieved to be out of that gloomy mansion. It wasn’t even because almost everyone wore black. It was knowing what transpired there. The cover-up of a murder and I played a part in it to prevent a war.
I never hated the mafia more than I did right now. A bitter taste saturated my tongue that I was helplessly hurtling deeper into its world with faulty brakes.
When Kirill had me safely ensconced in the SUV, he punched the control for the divider and turned to me. “Talk. What about the Kings?”
“Jeremiah King approached me at the refreshments table and asked how I knew Anya.”
“And?”
“I didn’t even mention your name. I told him to get his information elsewhere and left him standing there.”
Something flickered in Kirill’s eyes. Admiration? Amusement?
“Anyway, I didn’t know who he was then, but I noticed him and his brother in the graveyard.”
“Theodore King,” Kirill muttered.
“They suspect something?” I asked nervously, because the Kings didn’t appear to be powerless men, especially the older one.
He looked like he was as ruthless as any mafia boss I’d encountered, if not a bit more polished, steeped in centuries of generational wealth and power.
I bet Margo or her ancestors had arranged marriages for them before.
“I’ll handle it,” Kirill said.
“Oh no, you’re not going to keep me in the dark,” I snapped. “I was flying blind in there, and it would have helped if you had filled me in on what Anya knew about that night. Did she know I saw Bruce killed?”
“Of course not. She doesn’t know you were there.
She knew Viktor had killed Davenport and the state troopers had killed Viktor.
I didn’t tell her I was going to marry anyone, but somehow she found out Wednesday after our prenup meeting.
And that’s why I informed you she knew before we came to the funeral. ”
“How did she react to it?”
“She didn’t,” Kirill said. “At least not in front of me. She’s not new at this, Lucy. When I tell her not to react to whatever news she hears about me and play her part, she plays her part.”
“She didn’t look like the grieving widow to me when we met her at the funeral line. She looked like a damsel expecting you to save her.”
“You sound jealous.”
I scoffed. “In what way do I sound jealous? It’s my neck on the line too.”
“Exactly. Keeping you in the dark about what Anya knows was a lapse in my judgment. I’d apologize, but I wasn’t expecting you to leave my side.”
The audacity of this man to put the blame on me. “I was hungry and in danger of collapsing.”
His eyes narrowed.
“Low blood sugar.”
“How was I supposed to know about your medical condition?”
“It’s not a medical condition; it’s how my body reacts to a lack of food.” Or a consequence of my sugar-laden choices.
He looked as if he wanted to argue some more but thought better of it. “Then, I apologize for my dismal oversight in your care.”
I rolled my eyes. “Don’t have to be dramatic.”
“It’s not being dramatic if I’m not taking care of my future bride.”
It would have sounded sweet if not for Anya’s declaration of her bond with Kirill. I kept that to myself. I knew better than to give him any inkling that I was jealous. Knowing Kirill, he wouldn’t hesitate to use it to his advantage. How many scandals had I seen involving jealousy?
Besides, we had pressing problems to deal with. “What are we doing about the Kings?”
He eyed me contemplatively, eliciting a chilled skitter up my spine.
Anxiety reminiscent of the feeling when the cardiothoracic surgeon exited the OR to tell us whether or not Dad’s surgery was a success.
But Kirill didn’t have a trace of sympathy on his face.
Chilling remoteness carved his features into stone and sucked all emotion from his eyes. “We’ll move up the wedding.”