Chapter 14 Nikolai
NIKOLAI
“If I find out you’re lying to me, I will take you apart piece by piece and make sure you understand exactly why honesty matters to me.
” I keep my voice calm, conversational even, as the threat rolls off my tongue.
"And when you're begging me to end it, when you're praying for death, I'll keep you alive just long enough to see me burn everything you've ever loved to ash. "
I end the call and toss my phone onto the seat beside me.
Dmitri shifts in the passenger seat, a smirk playing at his lips. "Subtle as always."
"Subtlety is overrated. Especially when that shipment was due two weeks ago."
“I don’t imagine you’ll have any more delays after that.”
“That supplier isn’t stupid enough to let me down again.”
“You know, for someone who just got married, you’re very tense,” he says.
“Because someone is trying to kill my wife.”
My wife.
I’ve been married for eighteen hours. But I haven’t seen Holly since she walked off after the ceremony last night because I had to fly out early this morning for a meeting in Seattle.
Now we're heading back to the lodge from the airport, and I am expecting fireworks when I arrive.
I watch the landscape roll past the car. The snow has stopped for now, leaving the world crystalline and perfect under the afternoon sun. Mountains rise on either side of us, their peaks disappearing into clouds that promise more snow to come.
We’re half an hour from the lodge when a sign for a Christmas tree farm catches my eye.
"Alexei, pull over."
He doesn't hesitate and guides the SUV off the road and along the driveway leading to the farm. The tires crunch against packed snow as we come to a stop.
Dmitri looks at me like I've lost my mind. "What are we doing here?"
I'm already opening the door, stepping out into the cold. "Wait here."
The tree farm is mostly bare. What's left are scraggly things, half-dead and sad. A man in overalls and a heavy coat emerges from a small shed, eyeing me with the wariness of someone who knows trouble when he sees it.
"Help you?" he asks.
"I need a tree."
He gestures to what remains. "That's all I got left. Two days before Christmas, you know. The good ones went weeks ago."
I scan the pitiful selection and shake my head. These won't do. Not for her.
"Thanks anyway," I say, already turning back to the SUV.
Dmitri's watching me with barely contained amusement as I climb back in. "Strike out?"
"Drive," I tell Alexei.
We continue up the mountain road, and I find myself scanning the forest on either side. Looking for what, I'm not entirely sure, until I see it.
About twenty feet off the road, standing proud among its lesser brothers, is a Douglas fir. Full branches. Symmetrical. Perfect.
"Stop the car."
Alexei pulls over again, and this time both he and Dmitri follow me out. The three of us stand at the edge of the road, looking at my prize.
"Nikolai," Dmitri starts, but I'm already walking to the trunk.
Alexei pops it open without being asked. Inside, among the usual assortment of things we might need, is a carefully organized collection of tools.
"You have a saw?" I ask.
Alexei reaches past the crowbar and the bolt cutters and pulls out a folding saw. "Never know when you might need to carve something up."
I take it from him with a nod of approval.
I shrug off my suit jacket and hand it to Dmitri. He takes it with a raised eyebrow but says nothing.
The snow is deeper here, untouched and pristine. My dress shoes sink into it with each step, but I don't care. I'm focused on the tree. On making my wife happy.
Saw in hand, I kneel in the snow and find the right angle. The first cut bites into the trunk with a satisfying crunch. Then another. And another.
Behind me, I hear Dmitri's low chuckle. "This is insane."
"Probably," I grunt, working the saw back and forth. "But you know what they say, happy wife, happy life."
“Then it better be a magical tree."
I don't answer. Just keep sawing.
Alexei appears at my side, and together we guide it as it starts to tip. It falls with a soft whump into the snow, sending up a cloud of white powder that catches the sunlight like diamonds.
"We'll need the rope," I tell Alexei.
He's already retrieving it from the trunk. Between the three of us, we manage to haul the tree back to the SUV and lash it to the roof rack.
Dmitri hands me my suit jacket and I brush the snow off before shrugging it back on. My hands are freezing, but I barely notice.
"You're playing a dangerous game, Nikolai," he says.
"I always do."
"This is different."
Maybe it is. Maybe I'm losing my edge, letting a woman with big brown eyes and a sharp tongue get under my skin in ways that could prove costly.
But as we climb back into the SUV and Alexei pulls onto the road, the tree secure above us, I find I don't care.
If Holly wants a tree.
She's going to get a goddamn tree.