Chapter Four
Roarke
I’ve been stunned before, with a taser and a gun, but neither had caused me to jolt the way her words do now.
Marry me, Roarke.
A part of me wants to believe that this is some kind of a prank, but the way she’s staring up at me, all wide eyes and tears, tugs at a heart I thought I lost long ago on the battlefield. But with her, it seems to come alive, beating frantically in my chest.
The thought of being married to Elena doesn’t leave a cold sweat running down my back.
Instead, it fills me with something dangerous—hope.
For a moment, I allow myself to imagine being tied to the most beautiful woman I have ever seen.
Spending every waking moment with her, touching and loving her, but…
Fuck, I have too many demons in my life, and it would be cruel to subject her to them.
Marry me, Roarke.
One of us has to think rationally here. “Tell me what happened back at your parents’ house,” I say as the elevator doors open on my floor.
I step out and urge her to follow. There are only two doors on this entire floor, and one of them belongs to my younger brother, Conor, who spends even less time in his place than I do in mine.
The O’Shea family has always been focused on work, and we’re the best for a reason.
“I don’t know what you’ve heard about Yuri Balshov—”
“I know who and what he is,” I tell Elena as I reach the sleek, obsidian door of my penthouse.
I raise my hand, already anticipating the smooth, cool metal of the biometric scanner.
My fingers brush against it, and the subtle click of the mechanism confirms the recognition, disengaging the lock.
I push the door open, holding it in place for Elena to enter.
“He is not a pleasant man.” And that’s putting it lightly.
Elena steps across the threshold, and I follow, the scent of polished wood greeting us. There are more windows than walls in the living room, a conscious choice on my part. Spending ten years in the darkest places will have one craving natural sunlight and fresh air.
“If you know Yuri, then you must know how terrible of a husband he’d make.”
I don’t believe the man would be her husband for long anyway. He’d kill Elena once he got bored with her. “Why do your parents want to marry you off so desperately?”
“Power,” she says, walking to a cream-colored couch and lowering herself down with a sigh.
“They were hoping to get that by marrying Sofia off, but they underestimated Matteo. I don’t believe he’s a man they can use as easily as they’d thought.
So now, they’ve shifted to Yuri. They threatened to switch to Bella or Gia as the bride if I didn’t agree, but Bella is still in high school, so they cannot legally marry her off now.
And Gia should be traveling abroad with her ballet company for the next two weeks or so. ”
“Matteo Rossi would never let them marry off any of his sisters-in-law to that man.”
“That’s why they wanted to do it today, while Matteo and Sofia are still on the island.”
That stops me in my tracks. My jaw clenches, and the muscles in my neck tighten as a wave of anger washes over me. I ball my hands into fists, the nails biting into my palms as I fight to contain the rage bubbling inside. “What?”
“My father already had the marriage license ready when I got there, and Yuri was set to arrive soon after me. They had an officiant ready and everything.”
They ambushed her!
How the fuck could parents do that to their own child?
My brother and I would kill Yuri before sending off our little sister Fiona to a man like him.
Hell, my parents would first ship my sister off to our family in Ireland before they let a man like Yuri breathe anywhere near her, but Elena’s parents were just going to send her off with a murderer?
“I need to call Matteo,” I say, reaching into my pocket for my phone, but Elena jumps up and grabs my hand before I can dial his number.
“No, don’t call him. I don’t want to ruin their honeymoon.”
“This is more important than any vacation, Elena.”
“No, it’s not,” she counters. “After everything that happened, they deserve this time together uninterrupted. My sister almost died, Roarke. She needs this honeymoon without worrying about anything or anyone else.”
Fuck. “Then I’ll call his second-in-command, Antonio, or even Nico, his step-brother and consigliere.”
“They don’t have the same authority as Matteo to stand up against a powerful bratva pakhan,” she says, pleadingly.
“Besides, they’ll only call Matteo and report it to him.
He’s their don. I just need some time. It will take my father at least a day to get a new marriage license, and by then, Gia will be on tour, and Bella will be back at boarding school.
I need to warn them to stay away from our parents’ house in the meantime.
Then I just have to stall until Matteo and Sofia get home.
If you marry me, there won’t be anything my father can do about it before Matteo returns.
I don’t think Yuri will care enough to come after me once I’m legally married to someone else. ”
She doesn’t have to say out loud what she is most afraid of.
There has been tension between the Balshovs and the Rossis, which is now at an all-time high, and this would likely spark a war between the families.
The city would bear the brunt of it, with many innocent people losing their lives in the crossfire.
It would kill Elena to know she indirectly caused it, so I lower my hand as I realize that she is right about contacting Matteo.
It has to do with more than just ruining her sister’s honeymoon.
Lives could be lost here.
“Alright,” I tell her, touching her cheek to soothe her, and so I have something to do with my hands. “Okay, I’m not going to contact them.”
“Okay,” she says with a relieved sigh. “Something is going on in the Rossi household, and they don’t need to deal with this.
Nico has been distracted after what happened to Sofia, and Antonio, well.
.. I noticed him acting strangely on the island.
Dante is too close to Gia, and if he finds out about this, he could do something rash and cause a war anyway. ”
“You’re always observing people, aren’t you?” I ask in an attempt to lighten the mood, pleased when I see twin spots of color on her cheeks as she flushes.
“Yeah, I’ve been people-watching since I was a little girl,” she says, walking back to the couch.
She turns to glance at the window and with the sun now setting, the room is bathed in the soft yellow hue.
“My sisters don’t know that my father has several illegal businesses, but I do.
It’s like you said—I’m good at observing people. Always have been.”
“And how did you learn about your father’s businesses?”
“I heard him discussing a drug shipment that was coming to the city and how he was going to bribe city officials,” she says, eyes still locked on the windows.
“No one really pays much attention to a child, and I could make out most of his discussion and piece together what he was saying.” This time, she turns to look at me. “Have you ever met Yuri?”
I lean against the wall to watch her. “No. He and my father have crossed paths. I’ve met his sons. They’re very private people, and from what I can tell, they’re nothing like their father.”
“I hope that’s true,” she says, brushing a hand through her mussed-up chocolate brown hair. “Maybe they take after their mother.”
“People say she was a kind and generous woman.”
“Yeah, that’s what I heard too,” she muses.
“I’ve also heard rumors that Yuri was a nice man before he lost his first wife.
Hard to imagine the man being anything but cruel, but some people say he was different before their oldest son died, and then later his wife.
People say she died from grief over losing her son, and watching his wife slowly fade away turned him into a cruel, unfeeling man. ”
That’s the story that has been circulated, mostly by the Balshovs themselves. The rumors I’ve heard, however, suggest a much darker history. “You don’t have to think about this now, Elena.”
She turns those beautiful eyes on me and my cock hardens in seconds. “Then marry me, Roarke,” she whispers desperately, and I can’t tell if it’s on purpose or not.
Whatever the case, it does the job and takes everything in me not to walk to her and kiss her. Fuck, I still remember the taste of her lips and how she felt pressed against me last night.
“Please.”
“Elena—”
“That’s the only way my parents will back down,” she says, running a hand through her hair, disturbing it.
“I know it’s too much to ask of you, but my father would never mess with you, and Yuri will walk away.
I’ve heard that he never goes after women that belong to other men—calls them spoiled goods.
I only appeal to him because I am young and unclaimed. ”
Unclaimed.
Fuck!
I should tell her no and turn down her ridiculous request. Surely, there has to be another option, but something tells me pointing this out to her will not put her mind at rest. Until I can figure something out, the best I can do is put her at ease.
“Alright then,” I tell her, surprised by the flash of pleasure that crosses her face. “We’ll go to the courthouse tomorrow. It’s too late now to do anything today.”
Her face falls at my words, but one look at the windows forces her to realize that I’m right. “Tomorrow then?”
I’ll have a solution by then, I assure myself. “Tomorrow.”
Her mood seems to lift, and the tension in her eyes is gone when we share dinner. Yuri’s name barely comes up again, and after sharing a comfortable meal, I lend her one of my T-shirts and show her to the guest room. After the day she’s had, I imagine she’ll be asleep before the sun has fully set.
With Elena in her room, I take some time to work in the office, making sure to call all the men protecting the girls to confirm that none of them have met with Giovanni Marino before instructing them to keep it that way until Matteo Rossi returns.
I wouldn’t put it past Giovanni to try using his nieces if he can’t get to his daughters.
I work until my eyes burn, and it’s the threat of a headache that has me finally pushing from my desk and heading to my bedroom.
I know I’m not going to get any sleep tonight—I rarely can without my sleeping pills, but those leave me groggy and tired.
With Elena in my care, I need to be alert. So no pills tonight.
Still, I try to sleep, but the nightmares are always an eye shut away, brutal with their attack. As the world fades to black, I hope the horrors of my past don’t haunt me.
Even if it’s just for one night.