Chapter 6
Malik Labinjo better be glad he had a life worth saving.
Even thinking that pissed me off, because who was I to judge who was worth saving?
Fuck Targen Jones-Sidorov for putting me in a position where the thought even crossed my mind!
Ugh! He even had me thinking in run-on sentences and comma splices, no-nos for the author in me.
I jumped up from the bench at the foot of the bed to start pacing again.
This bastard really brought me here and just…
Left me. Abandoned me in a house full of too quiet, too huge, foreign men while he handled God knows what.
Of course, that was what he seemed to be best at, abandonment.
Even knowing that, I couldn’t work myself up to be truly scared.
How any bit of na?veté was left in me, I did not know.
These men looked like they would kill me for breakfast and eat me for lunch.
Human borscht, indeed.
I plopped back down on the bench, my eyes scanning the gorgeously laid out room again.
Half of the top floor of my house could probably fit in here, and I had a nice house.
The soft green and pale-yellow bedclothes and curtains were sumptuous, and I had watched my father and grandfather work enough to recognize hand-carved furnishings.
The bed was big enough for a whole family.
I was low-key envious of the huge his and her closets.
These people were rich.
And they thought of everything, with their spying asses.
One of those closets was stocked in my sizes.
That, combined with the fact that most of the products in the bathroom were my favorites, had me cussing their sneaky asses out…
the whole time I was in the enormous stone shower with its multiple shower heads and massagers. Might as well enjoy it while I waited.
But now, here I was, clean, exfoliated, and exasperated, waiting on a man I had promised myself I’d given up waiting on.
Where the hell was he? I was ready to tell him off and make him take me home, away from him forever.
Wait til I told Emory about this shit. My cousin would be as pissed as I was.
I reached for my phone… then remembered the last place I saw it was in Mikhail’s beefy hands.
Sighing, I stood again, making my way to the sitting room that fronted the suite.
I grabbed the remote control from the coffee table and turned on the 733-inch TV (that’s how big it looked anyway).
One of those true crime shows popped up along with a clock in one corner of the screen.
3:44 AM! Where the f—
My internal tirade was interrupted when I heard a low conversation outside the door, Targen’s unmistakable voice checking in with the guard stationed there. And then the door opened.
He stepped in quietly, his tall frame clad in another t-shirt, joggers, socks, and slides.
He’d changed clothes. But nothing he wore could hide how fine he was, all lean, corded muscles and long, loose limbs.
The weight loss made his cheekbones more prominent, his face just as striking as ever. But—
“Your scars.”
I bit my lip, mad that I’d let his ass know that I noticed anything about him. He looked at me, one corner of his mouth lifting in a small smile.
“Some kind of cream from a Russian healer. And a small surgery. My father doesn’t want it to look as if his enemies won.” He shrugged, as if it were nothing. I knew better.
“You want them gone?”
“They’ll fade a little more. They’ll never be gone. I’m good with that. How is the room?”
He changed the subject abruptly, his gaze brushing over me again before sweeping our surroundings. It was my turn to shrug.
“You know the room is gorgeous. It’s also not mine. Take me home, Targen.”
He walked toward me, every step sharpening the invisible pull of his alluring scent and his easy masculinity.
My heart settled into a slow, anticipatory thump.
I crossed my arms over my chest, refusing to back down.
When he reached me, he tilted my chin up and pressed a warm, mint-scented kiss against my lips.
“Patience, milaya. I will as soon as our house is ready,” he murmured before strolling past me and into the bedroom.
I marched behind him.
“Ugh! That’s not what I mean, and you know it! And don’t kiss me. I do not know what kind of Russian crack you been smoking that’s giving you these delusions, but I am not going to live with you, marry you, birth your children, none of it, crazy ass sociopath! I would rather—”
He turned, then, and before I knew it, his lips were on mine again.
Only, this was no little peck. Targen kissed the hell out of me.
His mouth, somehow firm but soft, coaxed my lips into parting.
His tongue slid inside my mouth, and in an instant, it seemed as if he were breathing life inside of me.
Our tongues mated as his hand lightly gripped my neck.
His kiss was slow, sensuous, and absolutely scorching as he tried to devour my mouth.
I moaned softly as he nibbled at my lips, his hands moving to rub and massage my back.
I don't want this, I tried to convince myself, even as I melted into him.
Finally, he pulled back, leaving a last lingering kiss on the side of my mouth.
“Been calling you ‘sweetheart,’” he said roughly. “Should have been calling you ‘honey.’ That's what you are. Honey skin, honey eyes, honey taste. Fuck, Theory, I want you so bad.”
I shook my head, twisting to get out of his arms. “You can't have me.”
“Yet,” he corrected, releasing me.
I missed his arms almost immediately. But I had to shake that off. “Targen—”
“I won’t touch your body, Theory, but I’ma kiss you. Both of us like it. And that’s good; my wife should always greet me with a kiss,” he taunted, a smirk slashing across his handsome face.
“Stop calling me that,” I hissed.
He sat on the bench, then patted the space beside him. “Come here.”
“No. Coming over there won’t fix this. Get up and—”
“You come here, and I’ll explain what tonight is about.”
I studied him for a moment, debating whether to believe him. But what choice did I really have? Huffing, I walked over and sat as far away from him as I could. I side-eyed him before demanding, “Talk.”
“You remember what I told you about how I got my scars?” he asked.
I nodded, wondering what that had to do with his snatching me.
“Well, while I was… gone, my brother and my father had eyes on you. Maxim had grabbed the piece of shit who hurt you and put him up for me. My family warned his, and they agreed to stand down. But nobody trusted that shit, and just as expected, they tried to slither their snake asses close a couple of times. But it was handled.”
My eyes widened, my attention suddenly riveted. An old fear, dark and consuming, rose inside me. “Targen! See? This is why I didn’t want—”
“Didn’t I say it was handled? I know you doubt me on a lot of things right now, but don’t doubt me on that,” he interrupted calmly.
“Any time they try to rise up, they will be put down. But word spreads, milaya. My family put you and yours under our protection. That makes you a known soft spot, a target. And I can’t have you out there like that.
I had every intention of coming back for you, but now that intention is backed up by an order from my pa—. ” he stopped abruptly.
“Your what?” I asked, frowning.
“You don’t need to worry about that right now.
But to protect you, I made a promise to Maxim.
I put myself in a position where his word is law.
To keep you safe and to lessen our vulnerability, he ordered that you be brought to me.
And to make sure niggas understand how serious the connection is, I need to make you family, make sure that coming for you or yours is the same as coming for me or mine. So, we getting married.”
He looked serious, too. Like he thought that he and Maxim and whoever else had a chance in hell of stealing me and dictating my life.
“Hell, no. You don’t even want this yourself. How you gon’ marry someone cuz some nigga—”
“My brother,” he supplied helpfully.
“Whatever,” I snapped. “How you gon’ let him make you do something you don’t even want to—”
“Nah, shorty, you got it wrong. I want to. I told you I was keeping you forever—”
I waved a hand as I scoffed. “Then you disappeared for a year. I’on believe shit you say. My family is not going to let you—”
“Your family? Prime and Ajani understand how this works. If it keeps you and the family safe, best believe they on board. And you want me to leave your parents, your grandparents without the protection of the Sidorov name? You really want them out there like that?” Targen challenged, hitting me right in my heart.
“The Sidorov name? Who the fuck are y’all anyway? You act like y’all some big, bad—”
“We are, malyshka,” he said quietly. “But bigger and badder comes with consequences, complications I should’ve thought out. I was too focused on the immediate threat, wasn’t thinking long-term. That’s okay, though. We were always gon’ end up married. This just pushes our timeline up.”
Process. I needed time to process. This man was telling me he was from a family of questionable background that he expected me to marry into.
My instinctive response was, “No.” I didn’t trust him.
I felt that I didn’t really know him. I definitely didn’t want to be a criminal’s bride.
But I had unwittingly brought potential danger to my family’s doorstep.
They didn’t deserve that. And while I knew Prime and Ajani dabbled in a lot of things, holding off multiple entities bent on revenge was a lot, even for them.
“My old man wants us married in the Russian Orthodox Church, but I know you might want a lil’ country Baptist preacher, too. We’ll do the private ceremony, then we can plan any kind of big, public one you want. I know—”