Chapter 31 #2
Jeremiah King stood up in his three-piece charcoal-gray suit. His hair was slicked back, and his clean-shaven face had an almost boyish look to it. I found him more tolerable than his older brother.
“Kirill.” He extended his arm.
I stared at it for two seconds before I shook it. I could almost feel the collective relief of everyone in the room. “King.”
“Mrs. Zahkarova, nice to see you again.”
Lucy shot him her fake smile, giving me fleeting relief that I wasn’t the recipient of it anymore and that I had a sharp woman backing me up.
Aralina came up to us and hugged me extra tight. There might have been a warning in there to behave. When she released me, she turned her attention to Lucy, but I grabbed her attention back.
I signed, “I’m away for a couple of days and you find yourself a boyfriend?”
Aralina clapped a hand to her mouth as if to hide a grin before signing, “Long story.”
I raised my gaze to King. “You know I’m never going to approve of this.”
Aralina looked pleadingly at Ivan.
“Son, I think you need to stay out of this.”
But what irritated the fuck out of me wasn’t my father, it was how King had his arms around my sister. “I’ll handle this. Don’t worry.” He kissed my sister on the side of the head.
What the fuck?
“Handle what exactly, huh, King?”
A malicious glint in his eyes turned me wary for the first time because it eroded his affable nature earlier. Sensing the tension spiraling inside me, Lucy stepped closer and linked our fingers.
My mother walked in with tea. “Let’s all settle down and talk this over like civilized adults.”
“What I’m saying,” Ivan grumbled. “And you thought I was the unreasonable one.”
“We know about the trust, Ivan,” I told my father.
“Great! Then there’s no need to repeat what we talked about last night,” King said. “I do have something to say to Kirill and Lucy in private.”
Aralina typed into her phone and showed it to King.
“Soon, baby. There’ll be no secrets between us, but this one is up to your brother to tell you.”
Baby?
My parents cast worried faces toward me.
Fucking hell. And I was supposed to be the one on the offensive. Could I just bury this prick in my mother’s rose garden? Unfortunately, he seemed to have charmed my sister. And Aralina right now was staring daggers at me. When did this fucking happen?
“The garden,” I said and clasped Lucy’s arm to guide her. No way were we talking in Ivan’s office. I’d always been careful not to say anything that my father could use against me.
“What do you really want, King?” I gritted. “Did your brother put you up to this?”
He chuckled. “You really think I’m Theo’s attack dog? No, he doesn’t support this.”
“I find that hard to believe. You’re always plastered to his side.”
I cast a derisive glance at King, but he was staring at the ground, his jaw tightening. I must have struck a chord. “Is this you showing your older brother that you know how to pick a better bride than he ever did?”
We reached the garden and headed straight to the fountain.
“I have affection for your sister,” he started.
“Since when?”
“Not that it’s any of your business, but we’ve been seeing each other for six weeks now.”
I turned to Lucy. “Did you know about this?”
“You think if I knew it was King, I wouldn’t have stuck my nose in it?” Lucy snapped.
“Like you stuck your nose in the trust?” King shot back.
Lucy opened her mouth but shut it again. Shit, we hardly talked about the trust when we’d been ensconced in the cabin. I should have asked Sato to check in on what Aralina was up to. Foreboding clenched my gut. Did my sister do this for Jeremiah? Used Lucy to help her?
The irony.
I clenched my fists. This particular King was a smooth talker. But Aralina wasn’t easily swayed. She could be timid around strangers, but she was spunky around the family and could smell bullshit like Lucy did. What the fuck was my sister up to?
“I’ll cut to the chase,” King said abruptly. “I don’t want Ara to think I’m here other than for her.”
I scoffed.
The way he was staring at Lucy enraged me. I was about to tell him off when he said, “I know you were in the trunk of Viktor’s car.”
Lucy’s face lost all color, and a chilling dread seized my throat in a chokehold.
“What?” he said derisively. “Nothing to say?”
“That’s ridiculous,” I growled.
“Oh, spare me the lies, Zahkarov! You think you’re the only ones with connections to the state police?
I had my tech go through the trunk with a fine-tooth comb.
He found skin samples and a drop of blood that belonged to Lucy.
” He turned to her. “You really should have your DNA scrubbed from DNA sites.” Then back to me.
“I also know you sent those dirty cops to do a bogus traffic stop. You didn’t even care that Lucy was—”
It happened so quickly. I wasn’t even aware my hands grabbed his throat until I heard Lucy screaming at me to stop. Fury tinted my vision red. But just as quickly, I let go, appalled he’d made me lose control. He figured out how to push my buttons.
My wife had become my weakness.
King staggered back, coughed, and fixed his tie.
“I’m heading back inside. Your story about Viktor moving guns and drugs is not holding.
I had doubts to begin with. You can bet Theo does too.
And guess who else might? The Moscow mob.
You better check on your guy, who’s your deep fake expert.
He might be missing. And Anya, I wouldn’t trust her. She’s desperate.”
He stared at Lucy. Lucy, whose eyes I couldn’t meet.
“There’s a surveillance cam you guys missed.
There’s a recording of you and Davenport going into the club, but neither of you coming out despite what generated video your guy made.
Both of you seem to have come to terms with your marriage.
” He smiled sadly. “I wouldn’t want anyone tearing you apart. ”
“What do you want, King?”
“Don’t come between me and Ara. Your secrets will be safe with me. After all, if we become family, I don’t want us littered with scandals.”
He fixed a sympathetic gaze on Lucy again before he backed away and left us.
My eyes trailed his retreating form because there was a part of me terrified to meet my wife’s gaze, which was right now burning a hole through me.
For a split second, I wished King had lingered for a few minutes longer instead of dropping this fucking bombshell in our midst.
“Why can’t you look at me?” Lucy asked.
So I did what she asked and flinched at the accusation in her eyes.
“Good, you feel a stab of guilt.”
“Lucy…”
“You sent those troopers to intercept Viktor knowing that I was alive in that trunk.”
“It was different between us then,” I said quietly, because it was a lame excuse to give the woman who was my wife now. A woman who, I was finding out, I would burn the whole world down for.
“I could have been killed!” she shouted harshly. “I was just a pawn, and since you can’t kill me, it would be a coup for you if I became collateral damage and your conscience would be clear, you manipulative son of a bitch.”
“Are you going to hold my actions before our marriage against me?”
“People don’t suddenly change.” She started pacing.
“Then what?” I challenged. “You’re going to treat these past ten days like they never happened?”
“Ten days out of the four months you kept this from me. You could have confessed everything this weekend!”
“It didn’t cross my mind.” It really didn’t. For me, it was a nonissue. “Does it really matter?”
She glared at me and then strutted into the house. I went after her and stopped her forward momentum. “Where are you going?”
“Away from you! I need my family.”
“I am your family,” I snapped, ignoring the piercing pain in my chest her latest statement evoked. “Your husband, in case you’ve forgotten. You don’t just walk away from me.”
“I’m not. I just need my family,” she cried.
Her voice hitched. “I just want their honesty.” She lowered her voice.
“You, Ivan, and I don’t know if Aralina played me too.
” She splayed her hands in a confused gesture.
“I’m not leaving you, Kirill. I know that underneath all the caring you showed me in the last week is still the same manipulative, cunning bastard.
I just need to see them. Gain perspective.
” At my expression, she scoffed. “Don’t worry, I’ll keep your secrets.
And you have to deal with that too.” She pointed to the parlor room.
Didn’t I say before I would probably prefer to spend time around her family rather than mine? “You’re taking Sato and a couple of guards with you.”
She huffed. “I know.”
“I…I’ll see you tonight?”
She nodded, smiling sadly.
I exhaled a fractured breath. “Take care.”