Chapter 23 #2
Only she doesn’t move, staring at me with fire in her eyes. I don’t have time for discussions, so I lift her up, throw her over my shoulder, and leave with her despite the protests that explode from her smart mouth a second later.
The dress is fucking enormous, and the feathers cover my mask. I can barely see where I am going, and it’s getting dficult to carry her, especially because she is kicking and punching me in the back, throwing curses at me that are not at all worthy of a delicate woman like her.
Even if I slapped her ass, it would have no effect because of the tulle layers and whatever the fuck else she has under this skirt.
“Put me down!” Katya screams, still fighting me.
I don’t say a word, focused on getting to the car as fast as possible without being intercepted.
Of course, things cannot go that easily.
Out of nowhere, two men appear in front of me, blocking my access just as I am about to exit through the rusty door. The car is only a few yards away, and they prepare to shoot, but I am faster.
With two shots, I hit both their heads, and they drop in a manner that is not graceful at all.
“Oh my God!” she exclaims in horror, her entire body now stiff, no longer thrashing over my shoulder.
I manage to open the door and set her in the passenger seat.
“Do not do anything stupid, Ekaterina. We need to get out of here now.”
She says nothing, probably startled by the sharpness in my voice, but I close the door, knowing I have already set it so it cannot be opened from the inside, and round the car toward the driver’s side.
I cast one last glance at the cathedral, my heart caught by a strange feeling.
Worry for my brothers.
“Status,” I demand as I get into the car, switching the conversation to the vehicle’s speaker.
I speed off, pull off my mask, and throw it into the back, then insist again.
“Status. Someone.”
“They’re mercenaries,” Yar answers after several irritatingly long seconds. “I’ll bet they’re colleagues of the ones who abducted you the night Katya performed.”
I frown, trying to disappear quickly into traffic, as far as possible from the place where chaos is unfolding.
“Can you get out?”
“Yes. We’re leaving now. We’ll meet you there.”
The pieces are starting to come together. I had a suspicion, but today’s information about the mercenaries only strengthens my theory about my suspect.
A man who was inside that cathedral.
A man who realized the nature of my relationship with Ekaterina some time ago.
A man I would never have believed capable of such a move on a chessboard far larger than I had imagined.
“Is that why you didn’t make it to my recital? You were abducted?” Her broken voice pulls me out of my scattered thoughts, out of the voices whispering me ideas and unanswered questions from every direction.
I let my eyes linger on her beautiful face, her makeup still flawless, though her lipstick is a little smeared along her lower lip.
My fault.
Her hair is slightly mussed, but that only makes her more alluring, awakening in me the desire to touch her again.
“They tried, but obviously, they failed.”
Her eyes widen, and she draws in a deep breath through lips parted in shock.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” she shouts, turning completely toward me. “You lied to me!”
“Actually, I omitted the truth. I didn’t lie about anything, and you never asked me why I didn’t show up.”
“If I had asked, would you have told me?”
I don’t hesitate before answering. “No.”
“Why?!”
“Because I didn’t want you to have another unpleasant memory tied to your concerts.”
“And because of something that stupid, you preferred to let me think you were with another woman and let me go? I thought you didn’t lie!”
She screams, furious, but I don’t think she has the slightest idea how attractive she is.
“Do not confuse truth with honesty,” I say shortly.
“Actually, maybe that’s what you wanted. For me to leave,” she throws at me, believing every word.
“You know very well that isn’t what I wanted, Ekaterina,” I answer as calmly as I can, even though on the inside, I feel the fire growing.
“That’s exactly the problem. I don’t know anything! You don’t tell me anything! You don’t give me a single sign for almost two weeks, but then you show up at my wedding, kill the priest, and who knows who else you murdered in there! Who the fuck gave you the right to do that?!”
“I did.”
She freezes at my short, obvious answer. But a small voice in my head tells me I should explain.
“I needed this time to find out who was trying to keep you away from me. I needed to know you were safe, because someone was coming after me, and I risked putting you in danger.”
“And now I’m not in danger?”
I lift one shoulder with nonchalance, and my voice is very calm. “You are. But now I know who I need to protect you from. That’s why I took you from there.”
“And that’s also why you forced me to play out that cheap little theater at the altar?”
From the tone of her voice, I can tell she is getting more furious.
“No,” I answer, confused, because I don’t understand why it’s so hard for her to realize. “I took you as my wife because I wanted you from the first moment I saw you, at that Christmas Party.”
She needs a few seconds to speak again.
“We are not married, Artem.”
I smile. She is so sweet!
“I’ll give you a little more time to get used to the idea.”
Katya says nothing, which makes me glance at her quickly to see what is wrong. She is staring at me with her mouth open and her eyes wide.
Not her prettiest face, but I don’t make any comment. I already married her, so I accept her, for better and for worse.
Although...
“Close your mouth, because you’re making me think about what I could put in it.”
She punishes me with a punch to the shoulder, but because she lacks strength, I barely feel it.
“Do you realize what you’ve done?! You destroyed everything! Now I’ve lost everything I worked for, everything my father worked for! His legacy is destroyed!”
She gestures wildly.
“Oksana! Mikhail!” she says suddenly, even more panicked.
“They’re both safe,” I tell her, knowing my men made sure all the people important to us were extracted first.
“Why would I believe you?”
I frown. “Why wouldn’t you?”
“Because look at the chaos you caused!”
She calls it chaos.
I call it art.
“Mikhail knew about my plan. Do you really think he would have sat there so calm the entire time if I hadn’t spoken to him beforehand?”
The information only makes her angrier. After a few seconds of looking at me just as strangely as before, she hits me again with her small fists against my shoulder.
“You people are fucking insane! And you didn’t think maybe you should have told me too?”
“The fewer people who knew, the more believable everything seemed. And the safer it was.”
She stops her harmless little attack, and I am certain she understands the situation, but that doesn’t keep her from remaining upset.
“You’ve only made things worse,” she murmurs, folding her arms over the chest, covered by the corset encrusted with fine stones, and settles back into her seat, as far away from me as possible.
I’m not saying anything anymore, because I park in the underground level of one of the buildings we own, where our hideout is, and where I am supposed to meet my brothers. More precisely, the top floor of the building, structured into three apartments, one for each of us.
“What is this place?”
“A place no one knows about. Only me, my brothers, and now you.”
“We’re not going back to the mansion?”
“You already miss home?”
“Stop it, Artem! The situation is far too serious for you to start testing your sense of humor now, with bad jokes!”
I stop the car in one of the parking spaces reserved for us and turn toward her.
“It wasn’t a joke. It was a simple question.”
“A misplaced one,” she snaps.
I shrug again. “If you say so.”
I get out of the car and walk around to her side to open the door.
I extend my hand to help her down from the tall vehicle, but she refuses me. This time, she is actually adorable, struggling angrily to gather all the layers of the dress now stained with blood even across her chest.
The perfect bride.
She studies the surroundings in silence, even when we get into the elevator, her eyes on the panel indicating there are only five floors up to the penthouse.
This building is only a few minutes away from the one where we have our underground fun, but it would have been stupid to keep everything under the same roof. The more scattered we are, the better, while still keeping everything within one area.
The elevator opens into an empty hall where three massive metal doors are visible. Mine is the one straight ahead, and I open it after entering the code only my brothers and I know.
“2401.”
And now, so does she.
“Meaning?” she asks, confused.
“The access code. Don’t forget it.”
“Your birthday?”
I enter the apartment, making room for her to step past me, then answer. “At the mansion, I recently set the access code to your birthday, but we can change this one too, make it the same, if you’d like.”
“Why would you use your birthday as an access code?” she keeps the subject alive, even more stunned. “If someone wanted to get in, that would be the first thing they’d try!”
I smile, though only formally.
“Precisely because it is so banal, no one expects me to lower my guard that much. Besides, the keys are equipped with fingerprint sensors, and only four people have access.”
“I thought you said only you, Sasha, and Yar know about this place. What four?”
“You,” I answer shortly.
That makes her whirl sharply toward me, even though she had already moved forward to study the apartment, decorated in a modern and simpler style than the house where we stayed. The same dark colors dominate, black and gray, but I like this style more.
“Me? Since when?”
I think for a moment before answering, moving toward her. She takes one step back, and I find myself deeply pleased by this dance.
Or rather hunt.
“Since I first slept in your bed and knew what would come next.”