Chapter 29 Holly
HOLLY
He leads me into the great room and only leaves me so he can secure the lodge. I stand near the fireplace, my arms wrapped around myself while he checks the windows and doors and resets the alarm.
He covers the bodies with sheets, but I can still see the outlines of them. Still smell the copper tang of blood in the air.
He comes back into the room where I'm still hugging myself, trying to keep it together, but my hands won't stop shaking.
"The code is 120656," he says, his voice steady and controlled. "If anything happens, anything at all, you punch those numbers into the keypad by the front door or the back door. You can trigger the alarm and alert my security team or disarm it."
I nod, committing the numbers to memory. "120656."
"Good." He studies my face for a moment, and despite the calm mask he wears, I catch something flickering in those ice-blue eyes. Fury. It's there for just a second before he locks it down tight. "You'll be safe here, Holly. Noone is getting in."
“But they did,” I whisper.
He nods. His face cut from stone. “Yes, malyshka, they did. Because someone gave them the code. But I have reset it. New code. No intruders.”
“And the men outside who patrol the perimeter?”
“Dead.”
I freeze as the word settles over me.
When he tries to lead me over to the couch, I shake him off.
"Just tell me," I say. My voice is shaky. "Whatever it is, just tell me what is going on."
“Please, malyshka, you should sit. Because what I am about to tell you is going to be a lot to accept.”
“I don’t need to sit. I just need you to tell me everything you have been keeping from me.”
He runs a hand through his hair. When he turns to face me, there's something in his expression I've never seen before.
Fear.
Nikolai Morozov, the man who just killed three intruders without breaking a sweat, is afraid.
"Your mother," he begins, then stops. Starts again. "Your mother wasn't who you thought she was."
"What does that mean?"
"Her real name wasn't Sarah Winters. It was Katerina Orlova." He watches my face carefully so he can manage my response when it comes. "She was the only daughter of a very powerful man. A man known as The Wolf."
I stare at him blankly. The name means nothing to me.
"Yuri Orlova," he continues. "He is the Pakhan of the Orlova Bratva."
"I don't understand. My mother was a schoolteacher. She grew up in Vermont."
"That's the identity she built when she fled your grandfather." Nikolai's eyes hold mine. "She changed her name. Changed everything. Married a boy she fell in love with and never looked back."
My father.
"She spent fifteen years hiding but living the life she wanted to," Nikolai says quietly. "Fifteen years pretending to be someone else. And she was good at it. So good that even a man with Yuri’s reach couldn't find her. Eventually, Yuri had her declared legally dead.”
"How do you know all of this?" I ask.
Nikolai is quiet for a long moment.
"Because I am in an alliance with him."
The confession hits me like a slap. “You know him?”
"Very well.”
“You’d better tell me what the hell you’re talking about.” My voice trembles. “Because I am very fucking confused right now, Nikolai.”
“Yuri and I are in an alliance of six heads from six powerful families. We're not friends. We're not family. Half of us can’t stand the other half. But together, we're untouchable. There is no government or corporation or family or anything with as much power as we have.”
Alliance. Powerful families. Untouchable power.
I have to sit down on the couch after all.
Nikolai continues. "One day, Yuri asked me to find his daughter. He told me she ran away thirty years ago when she was seventeen." A muscle ticks in his jaw the way it always does when he’s annoyed. "I didn’t know anything about her, why she fled, or why she stayed missing all those years. But my instincts told me the old man was up to something. That there was more to the story. So I went looking for her like he asked me to. But I also looked into his past. I have vast resources. People who are experts in a diverse range of skillsets. So I had a forensic accountant look into Yuri’s finances and discovered that a week before your mother fled Yuri’s home, she had inherited a fortune from her grandfather.
Yuri, however, was overlooked by his father in his will and got nothing.
Two days later your mom was in a terrible car accident.
Fortunately, she walked away from it. But she knew it was an attempt on her life. ”
My hand goes to my mouth with a gasp. “By her father?”
“Yes, Yuri tried to kill her. He wanted her dead so he could get his hands on her money. Afterall, he was her next of kin. But she was too quick for him and was able to flee before he could try again.” He falls silent for a beat, then continues.
“But Yuri never stopped looking for her. Even after having her legally declared dead.”
“Why?”
“Because Yuri doesn’t like loose ends. He couldn’t risk her resurfacing one day, and he wasn’t about to hand back all that money.”
My hands begin to shake. Then my whole body. Not from cold but from something deeper. Something that feels like the foundation of my entire life cracking beneath my feet.
“It took me a few weeks, but I eventually found her. Then I discovered she was dead. Died in a car accident with her husband. That, of course, led me to finding out she had a daughter."
"Me," I whisper.
"You."
There’s a blanket beside me and I pull it around my shoulders, but it does nothing to stop the cold spreading through my chest. "So you came looking for me."
He pulls in a deep breath, then lets it out roughly. "Yes."
I look away. “And you found me the night at the gallery…”
“No, I found you before that.”
I look up. “How long before?”
“Two weeks. Maybe three.”
“Three weeks.” I don’t understand. But as the seconds tick by, something slides into place. “You’d been watching me for three weeks?”
He nods. “Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because I knew Yuri would come after you when he learned of your existence.”
My chest tightens. "You told him about me?"
He shakes his head. “No, I never mentioned you to him. But he’s got good instincts. He knew I was withholding information. So he had someone follow me. By the time I realized I was being followed, it was too late. I had led them to you.”
“How?”
“Because I couldn’t stay away, malyshka. I knew I had to protect you from the men he would send. So I followed you. Watched you.”
“You stalked me? Why didn’t you approach me?”
“Would you have believed me if I’d told you any of this?”
I’m finding it hard to believe him now, and I’m married to him.
I shake my head and look down. “No, I wouldn’t.”
“I knew I had to come up with a plan to protect you. That’s when I decided to marry you.”
“How would marrying you protect me?”
“The alliance Yuri and I are in. We live by a strict set of rules. The first rule being that all spouses and family of each member are off limits. They are protected. And if that rule is broken, then the member responsible for breaking it is not only removed from The Six, but they are also stripped of everything… fortunes… lives.”
“Meaning?”
“As my wife you’d be safe.”
“But why would you care if I was safe. I wasn’t anyone to you.”
“Because the moment I saw you, I wanted you to be.”
Warmth tugs at the edges of my frayed nerves. All this time it was about protecting my life.
But then another thought creeps in and sends an uneasy feeling into the pit of my stomach.
“How much was the inheritance Yuri stole from my mom?” I ask.
Nikolai hesitates long enough to feed the doubt circling in my gut.
“A hundred billion dollars.”
A gasp falls from my lips. “A hundred billion dollars?”
And there it is.
A hundred billion reasons why he would want to marry me.
Not because he wanted a wife.
Not because he wanted to protect me.
But because he wanted a hundred billion dollars of cold hard cash.
Money he could get his hands on by proving his wife was the rightful recipient.
Because he has the time, the money and the resources to do it.
I feel sick.
I grip the arm of the couch to steady myself, but it doesn't help. Everything is spinning. Everything I thought I knew about my life, my parents, myself, Nikolai—it's all dissolving like sand through my fingers.
I’m so fucking na?ve.
The night at the gallery. The lodge. The seduction. The fireplace and the piano and the tender touches and the whispered words. The arranged marriage.
All for a hundred billion dollars.
I feel cold. And so fucking stupid.
My voice comes out strangled. "You used me. You married me because I'm the heir to a stolen inheritance you intend on getting your hands on somehow."
Nikolai’s jaw hardens, and blue fire burns in his eyes. As if I had reached out and slapped him.
“No, it was never about the money, malyshka. It’s only ever been about wanting you.”
“You expect me to believe that?”
“I am a very rich man, malyshka. I don’t need anyone else’s money. I have more than I could ever need in a million lifetimes. Don’t be mistaken. This has only ever been about you. I. Only. Want. You.”
“You expect me to believe you chose me over a potential hundred billion dollars?”
“You really have no idea what you do to me, do you?” he growls. “Or the effect you have on me?”
“No, I suppose I don’t.”
“The first time I saw you, solnyshko, it was like being shot in the fucking heart. It put me on my ass and took my breath away. We passed each other in the street as strangers, and you smiled at me, and that brief look destroyed me. It broke me apart and put me back together a different man. That one look shifted something deep inside me. Something I didn’t understand. ”
I can only stare at him. Outwardly I’m frozen. But inside I’m in chaos as I listen to him.