Chapter 11
Aurora~
As soon as Kasimir Korolev walked me to the door, instead of leaving, he had informed me that he’d be making himself at home until his brother showed up or told him otherwise.
However, what had been more disturbing than that?
The man had been humming The Wheels on the Bus the entire ride home, and I’d had no idea what to make of that, and I still didn’t.
Plus, that white eye of his was also unnerving.
At any rate, leaving him in the living room, I’d gone straight upstairs to take a hot shower, and once I had scrubbed myself clean of that asshole’s blood and brain splatter, I’d thrown on a nightgown, prepared to stay holed up in the bedroom all night.
Confident that I was safe for the moment, I finally grabbed my phone to call my father because there was no way that I’d ever keep something like this from him or my brothers.
Even though the situation hadn’t been as threatening as it could have been, my father needed to know that, for better or for worse, I had tipped my hand.
“Alba, why are you calling so soon?” he asked as soon as he answered my call. “It’s my understanding that you’ve already called your brothers to inform them that all is well.”
“There was an incident at the reception,” I informed him, getting straight to the point.
“An incident, you say?” he echoed.
“I was ordering a beer at the bar, and that’s when one of the guests said some...some unflattering things about me, and while I probably should have let it go, I didn’t,” I confessed. “I think I was tired of them all speaking Russian as a way to intimidate me, and so I reacted.”
My father chuckled as he asked, “And in what way did you react?”
I let out a tired sigh before saying, “I insulted his mother, and I’d spoken in Russian to get my point across.
Not thinking that any of the Korolevs would side with me, he attacked me, and I...
well, I fought back, shattering his knee, breaking his nose, and doing as much damage as I could before Viktor Korolev finally stepped in. ”
“And what happened then?” he asked, his voice sharper than before, surely concerned that I might have been harmed at the hands of my new husband.
“Korolev shot the man before sending me on my way,” I answered, suddenly feeling exhausted from this entire day. “However, he now knows that I speak and understand his language, and I’d been hoping to avoid that for as long as I could.”
My father chuckled again. “Your temperament would have made that impossible, Alba.”
“Perhaps,” I conceded. “Still, he knows that I’m fluent in Russian and that I’ve been trained to fight well enough to defend myself from grown men.”
“And I take it that’s another thing that you’d been hoping to keep from your new husband?”
“Of course,” I huffed. “Despite the rings on my finger, he’s still the enemy.”
“Do you expect that this will cause problems between the families?” he asked, getting back to business.
“I don’t know,” I answered honestly. “Depending on which side you’re on, both of us could be blamed for the encounter turning violent.”
“And did your new husband say anything to you?” he asked, and I understood his need to know the details. After all, even if this wasn’t business, I was still his only daughter.
“He made some references about not letting me leave him, but I think he was probably under the assumption that I’d use this incident to get an annulment or something of that nature,” I answered, sweetening the words to keep my father from losing his shit.
After digesting that bit of information, he asked, “Do you feel like your life is in danger? Do you need to come home?”
Honestly, I wasn’t surprised that my father was giving me the option, knowing how it would affect the truce, but I also knew that he knew that I’d never tuck tail and run.
He knew that I’d rather stay and fight than run back home like a coward, and so he really wasn’t risking much by asking me those questions.
Just like he hadn’t been risking much when he had asked me to marry into the Korolev family to begin with.
I was a fighter, probably even more so than my brothers, and my father knew that.
Everyone knew that.
“I’m fine,” I told him. “I also made sure to use my blue luggage set when I packed my clothing.”
That had my father chuckling again. “I should have guessed as much. Especially when your brother told me that you’d only taken three bags.”
Since it’d been made clear that I’d be moving in with Viktor Korolev and not the other way around, I’d seen no point in packing up any furniture or personal belongings.
So, I had packed only my clothing and toiletries, leaving everything back at my condo with the plan to visit my home at least once a week to check in on the place.
At any rate, my blue suitcases had been designed with false bottoms that could conceal up to five guns and about six knives, depending on their sizes, and that was the set that I had chosen to bring to my new home, mostly because I wasn’t stupid.
So, unbeknownst to the Korolevs, I was highly armed with whatever I needed to defend myself should the eldest Korolev decide that I was more trouble than I was worth.
“Papa, did you know that Kasimir Korolev randomly sings The Wheels on the Bus?” I asked, still trying to make sense of the younger man.
My father let out another low chuckle. “It is rumored that he sings that song whenever he is about to kill someone. Now, I’m not sure if that is true or not, but it’s my understanding that it’s somewhat of a...I’m not sure, a...a compulsion of some sort.”
“I see,” I muttered, finding that odd but interesting.
“Let me ask you this, do you want me calling Aleksei Korolev about this incident or not?” he asked, forgetting about Kasimir.
“No,” I answered strategically. “If you call Aleksei, then he’ll have no reason to learn to trust me.”
“Because you assume that he ever will?” he questioned.
“That man will never trust me,” I laughed. “However, I don’t want to give him any reason to not trust me, either.”
“Understood,” he replied evenly.
“No matter how beneficial this arrangement is, the Korolevs will always be the enemy, and that is not anything that I’ll ever lose sight of, Papa,” I told him.
“I’m here for the greater good of our family, and that includes seeing them through the same pair of eyes that I’ve always seen them through. ”
After a few beats of silence, he said, “I know that you don’t need me to say this, but I am very proud of you, Aurora. As much as your brothers are capable of leading this family once I am gone, you have accomplished things that they never could, and...well, I am just very proud of you, Alba.”
Normally, I wasn’t an emotional person, but the events of the day and the acceptance of my new life felt a bit overwhelming right now, and I knew that I was going to be missing my family terribly within these next few weeks.
The rules hadn’t been established yet, and so it was very possible that my new husband might forbid me from returning home, or even something as simple as going to my own church.
“I love you, Papa,” I told him. “And no matter what happens, I’d do it all over again for you and everything that we’ve built over the years. La famiglia prima di tutto.”
Family first.
“Always,” he agreed. “That’s why you just have to say the word, and we’ll go get you. I don’t care what the church says about your vows.”
“I appreciate that,” I said, feeling a bit stronger. “I really do.”
“Okay, well...I’ll let you handle things as you see fit, but if you need me to call the Pakhan, just let me know,” he offered. “I have no problem handling this for you, Aurora.”
“I’m fine, Papa,” I assured him. “If anything changes, I’ll be sure to let you know.”
“Fine,” he said. “However, I will be speaking to your brothers about the incident.”
“Of course,” I replied easily. “Just be sure to let them know that I am okay and that I’m handling it.”
“I will,” he promised. “However, I expect to hear from you first thing in the morning. Understood?”
“Yes,” I quickly answered. “You have my word.”
“Ti voglio bene, figlia mia,” he said seriously, calling me daughter in the sweetest way.
“I love you, too.”
He hung up, and done pacing the floor, I set my phone on the empty nightstand, certain that it’d been cleared to indicate which side of the bed belonged to me.
Now, while I understood why Viktor would choose the side closest to the door, I still didn’t like it.
Instead of feeling protected, I felt trapped, and even though I knew that the windows were probably bullet-proof, that didn’t ‘make me feel any better.
However, before I could give it any serious consideration, the door to the bedroom opened, and in walked the man of the house, and I wasn’t sure where he had stopped off to clean up first, but he was wearing different clothing, and there wasn’t a speck of blood on him.