Chapter 20
Chapter
Twenty
Kirill
Goddammit. I thought she’d forgotten her question.
Although there was a part of me that wanted to surrender the burden of my past to her.
One I’d suppressed. Only Kolya knew the full extent of how Russia had stripped the empathy from the boy who’d been forced to endure the frozen wilderness after being coddled by Irina.
In some ways, Ivan was right. I was too soft, and Roman would have been alive if I hadn’t hesitated in pulling the trigger.
“Ivan thought I needed to toughen up,” I said casually. “Irina spoiled me, you see.”
“Toughen you up?” Lucy asked. “Turn you into the Terminator?”
I chuckled. “I have more emotions than a cyborg, I believe?”
“Debatable,” she quipped. “So what was entailed in toughening you up?”
I gave her a gist of my stay in the cabin the first three months after I was exiled to Russia, skipping the parts where I had to shoot and skin rabbits for food.
Oh, I hesitated. Again. And I despised myself for such hesitation.
But as soon as the gruff old minder realized my weakness, we repeated murdering rabbits until I was numb to it.
We soon upgraded to bigger game like wild boar and moose.
When Kolya joined me, I still had some hesitation about killing hapless bunnies, but by the end of three months, it had all been erased.
“So after the cabin?”
“Kolya and I moved in with Anya’s family.”
“That was how far back you’ve known her?”
“Yes. Anya’s father was a powerful brigadier in the Moscow mob, and we joined his brigade.”
“You make it sound like the military.”
“We trained with the Russian army at times.” I didn’t need to explain the relationship between the mob and Russian politicians who had control of the armed forces. It was a complex synergy shrouded behind backroom deals.
“You returned to the US when you turned fourteen?”
“I returned for Aralina’s birth. My father wanted his heir but I made him sweat it out for a couple of more years.
” Ivan thought he could mold me into his image and control me when he retired.
But I wasn’t Roman, his chosen heir, who’d grown up for fifteen years under his rule.
When I returned from Russia, I barely had any emotion left for my parents, not even resentment.
Resentment burned itself out after the first year.
There was no place for emotion when you became a weapon for the mafia.
But my sister slowly made me care again.
“But why not Maksim? Is it because he’s illegitimate?”
“Maksim is better suited to running our legal businesses. Ivan understands this. Maksim has…” I smiled derisively.
“He…how should I state it? His moral compass is not suited for the bratva. Maksim is a genius when it comes to business strategy and prefers negotiation and civility over violence.” I’d been trying to get him more involved in the brava.
I stared at her empty glass. “You like the wine?”
Lucy touched her cheek. “It’s very good, and it suits the weather and conversation.”
I poured more wine into her goblet, but Lucy stopped me midway. “I need to eat some more…otherwise, you’ll be carrying me to the elevator.”
“I don’t mind.”
She rolled her eyes. “What about Maksim and violence?”
“Don’t get me wrong. Maksim can be violent, especially when it comes to his wife.”
“You mean he beats her?”
I chuckled at this. “No, he wouldn’t harm a hair on her head. It’s to anyone who looks at her wrong.”
Lucy breathed a short laugh. “Sounds like my brother and male cousins toward their wives. There’s a myth about the De Luccis in our family.”
“A myth?”
“Yes, when a De Lucci becomes obsessed, there is no escape.”
My lips curved. “Is that so?”
She glared at me. “Better not use that as ammunition. You breathe wrong in the direction of their women and they won’t care if they start the war we’ve been trying to avoid.”
“I wouldn’t dream of it.”
“But…aren’t Maksim and his wife separated?”
I nodded. “Yes. Ophelia wants a divorce, but Maks isn’t giving her one.”
Lucy’s eyes tapered and I knew I was treading into dangerous territory because I wasn’t sure I wanted a divorce either. But I didn’t want to talk about my brother and his troubles in his marriage. Thinking about them made my stomach queasy. I didn’t want to end up like him.
Obsessed with his wife.
I waved my hand with an offhand gesture. “Don’t ask me about it. I don’t stick my nose in their affairs. It’s their business.”
“Really? Seems it might concern you and the interests of the bratva.”
“Prenups take care of most everything. Now, why don’t we finish this tray of food so you can have your apple tart, hmm?”
Her eyes gleamed with pleasure. “You remembered.”
“I’m learning you very well, wife.”
I stirred Lucy to talk about less touchy subjects while I encouraged her to eat.
My brother’s marriage was a poor example of the institution, and my past was a minefield that would ruin this moment.
This moment, where, for once in my life, I craved the company of a woman.
A craving that was not based on sexual appeasement.
It was a craving of wanting to be immersed in every complex facet of her.
Fortunately, the her happened to be my wife.
And she was mine.
My wife was drunk.
She drank a moscato to go with her apple tart and ice cream. She was in a veritable food coma and happily buzzed.
I might feel a bit guilty, but not really because I had my arms around her while she was teetering adorably in her heels.
I had Sato bring the SUV around. It wasn’t every day that I’d willingly leave my Porsche in the city. I didn’t trust anyone else with it, only Sato and Kolya. And Kolya was probably still sleeping after the vodka he had last night. Besides, I didn’t want to give him an excuse to drop by the house.
As for asking another soldier to drive us home, I still didn’t want to show them I might be growing fond of my wife.
I trusted the men surrounding me, but they might tattle to their wives that their pakhan had become a doting husband.
Someone might overhear and use that as ammunition.
Especially since I couldn’t surround Lucy with an army of security.
Our agreement was one bodyguard. That was why I assigned her my best. Sato was overqualified, but he didn’t seem to mind.
“I’m drunk,” she mumbled as I settled her against me in the back of the SUV.
“Yes, you are, baby,” I murmured.
She stiffened, and I held my breath. Would she pull away?
But then she relaxed into me, and I released a relieved exhale.
I didn’t know what possessed me to call her “baby.” I’d never used it in this context.
I didn’t think I was capable of forming such a familiar endearment said in such an intimate tone.
But I was giving myself latitude to experience feelings that were slowly emerging from the cracked walls of my heart.
“Straight home?” Sato’s eyes met mine in the rearview mirror.
“Yes.”
The vehicle started rolling through the mid-afternoon traffic. I stared at the top of my wife’s head, settled so trustingly against my chest, and it made something inside it ache.
It had happened before—when Irina forced me to hold Aralina as a baby and left us alone in a room.
I thought I was going to drop her. But when my baby sister grabbed my thumb and wouldn’t let go, then stared at me with her blue-gray eyes, my stone-encrusted heart fissured.
A tiny crack that allowed traces of emotion through.
Emotions I’d used to telegraph reactions and make me appear more human.
But Lucy was arousing more than reactions in my groin, she’d aroused a confusing set of feelings along with it and an instinctive protectiveness that I was having difficulty regulating.
Since Russia, my whole life was about control, and after I’d struck a marriage contract with Lucy, she’d been sending me into an uncontrollable tailspin at an alarming rate.
The drive was peaceful; my thoughts were not. I was driven to explore this unique opportunity. And I was an opportunistic asshole. When we arrived at my residence, Lucy was barely awake. She’d kicked off her shoes and was having trouble toeing them back from under the front seats.
“Give me a sec,” she mumbled.
“I could carry you,” I told her.
I exited the SUV and watched her feet successfully attempt one. “If you’re having trouble putting your shoes on, maybe you’re not in a state to walk.”
“I got this,” she repeated.
I chuckled. “No, you don’t.”
I leaned in and plucked her from her seat.
“Kirill!”
“What?” I glanced down at her with amusement. “I’m merely doing my husbandly duty.”
Sorcha met us in the foyer. “Is Mrs. Zahkarova okay?”
“She’s fine,” I told my housekeeper. “She’s just drunk. Can you collect her shoes from the car?”
“Not so tipsy that I couldn’t walk,” Lucy slurred.
She was a hilarious drunk. This was the first time I’d carried her this way which was decidedly romantic. I remembered our wedding night when I tossed her over my shoulder.
Definitely an improvement.
“My room is that way,” she protested when she realized I was taking her to mine.
“It’s time we shared a room and stopped the gossip by the house staff.” Or prying by my mother.
“I’m not sleeping with you!”
“We can share a bed. It doesn’t mean I’m going to fuck you.” I glanced down at her again. “Unless you beg me.”
“I’m not sure…”
I set her down gently and couldn’t believe how I had tossed her on the bed on our wedding night. She sank into the mattress. Her glazed eyes studied my room.
“You can do whatever you want with our bedroom, just don’t paint it pink.”
“Kirill, we need to talk about this, but not right now.” Her shoulders drooped. “I need to put my head down.”
I crouched in front of her so we were eye to eye. “Sleep.”
Her eyes squinted. “You’re not going to take advantage?”