14. Ruslan
Ruslan
The bruise changes everything.
One second I’m irritated that Emma disappeared for half the morning without checking in. The next, all I can see is the shape of fingerprints darkening her wrist. Someone put their hands on her.
My pulse drops. It does not rise. It drops.
The dangerous kind of calm settles over me.
“Emma.”
She looks distinctly alarmed by my tone. She should be, because whatever happens next will not be civilized.
I take another step forward, closing the already thin distance between us.
“Who.”
Her throat moves.
“Rus—”
“Who.”
The word comes out sharper this time. More Russian than English. More Pakhan than businessman.
Emma glances toward the bedroom like she’s considering escape. Interesting. Very interesting.
She’s seen me angry before. Yet somehow, she looks more concerned now.
“Say something.”
She exhales slowly.
“Andrei.”
I stare at her. She stares back. Waiting. Perhaps wondering if she should run.
A reasonable instinct.
“Andrei.”
Emma nods. “He took me. Not for—I don’t think he was planning on—”
For one brief second, I genuinely don’t understand the sentence. Then it clicks, and the room goes cold.
“What.”
“He grabbed me outside a coffee shop. Or, he had one of his men do it.” Her brow knits as she relives the memory. “I’ve never seen those kind of men with him before. I don’t even know how he found me.”
My vision narrows.
Coffee shop. Morning. Outside. Alone.
Every detail slots into place. A part of me growls, You can’t let her roam alone. No more. I want her tied to me, want her body caged in by mine.
Andrei.
I turn away immediately before I do something unfortunate. The suite suddenly feels too small. A restless pacing starts, and I can’t stop it, irritation growing at the fact that Emma is seeing this side of me; the side that’s less in control.
She remains wisely silent.
My phone is already in my hand by the time I call Stepan. He answers before the second ring. Russian pours out of me. Fast, sharp. I barely register my own words.
Locate everyone assigned to Andrei. Find the vehicle. Find the men. Find who touched her.
I want names. Addresses. Schedules. I want to be able to slit their throats if they so much as look at her again.
Stepan doesn’t interrupt; he knows better. By the end of the call, three separate people are guaranteed to have the worst night of their lives as soon as darkness falls.
I disconnect, turn, and begin pacing again. My hands are shaking.
“Andrei put his hands on you.”
Emma blinks. “Technically, yes—”
“Technically?” The word comes out as a growl.
Her eyes widen slightly. “He grabbed my wrist. Rus, it wasn’t anything…he didn’t do more than that.” She’s oddly calm about this, and it makes me wonder just how and by whom she’s been hurt by before.
If it was my brother, Bogom klyanus’!
I look at the bruise again. It’s visible, all too real, and on something that belongs to me.
No.
Not mine.
The correction arrives immediately, and I crack my neck, pausing long enough to appraise Emma. She’s calmer somehow. Is it because she’s here, with me? No; she knows better than to feel safe with me.
You’re the reason those bruises are on her wrists.
I should have let her go, should have let her run. Instead, I’ve brought her right to the monster’s gate.
Years.
Years I stayed away from Colorado. Years I left my brother to his political games, his public image, and his carefully curated future.
Then, within days of my arrival, he abducts the woman staying under my protection.
Unforgivable.
“Rus.”
I ignore her.
“Ruslan.”
Still pacing.
“Rus.”
The third attempt finally cuts through.
Emma is standing now, watching me carefully. She reaches out a hand, grazing my upper arm. Unconsciously, my body turns toward her, like the tide shifting for the moon.
“You need to calm down.”
I laugh. It’s a dark sound, wrong, and it only makes me aware of how ugly I am.
“No.”
“He’s trying to provoke you.”
“He’s succeeding.”
“Exactly.”
I stare at her. She folds her arms, cocks a hip, and all of a sudden, I’m reevaluating her: this woman I read as insecure, skittish, just over a week ago. Who is she? The question never really goes away. And the closer I get, the longer I’m near her, the more intrigued I become.
The anger still prowls beneath my skin, but some small part of me notices that something has changed. The walls are still there, but they’re lower now.
Less defensive. More tired.
She sits slowly on the edge of the sofa.
“He threatened both of us.”
I remain standing.
“He threatened you.”
“He threatened us.”
The correction surprises me, as does the venom in her voice. As if she’s upset by that thought. Apparently, it surprises her too, because she looks away immediately afterward.
Then Emma sighs.
“Okay.”
“Okay, what?”
She rubs her forehead.
“Okay, he’s awful. I don’t know what you’re doing, why you’re doing it, but I feel it, too. That something is wrong.”
Progress, though I never needed her consent. Still, it warms something in me that Emma sees too. Pries loose a part of me that I didn’t know was gripping onto the truth so tightly.
“He was always awful. Just good at hiding it.”
Emma lets out a humorless laugh.
“You’re really enjoying this part.”
“A little.”
That earns a glare. Good. The room feels slightly less murderous now, even if only slightly. There’s a lull, the muscles in my upper back loosening, before Emma asks, “Will you tell me? What he did to you?”
For a moment, I’m tempted.
I want to get on my knees. Crawl to her, wrap my arms around her. And tell her about all the grief and confusion and anger my life has wrought.
“He took my home from me.”
That’s all I’ll give her. She doesn’t need to know why Colorado is important. She doesn’t need to know about my father, or the illness that came quickly, or the way my mother moved on so fast it gave me whiplash.
Emma looks down at her bruised wrist before lifting her gaze back to mine. “For what it’s worth...” she hesitates. “I’m on your side.”
The words bury themselves deep inside, and I feel my knees go weak…closer, closer, to kneeling for her.
“Provided,” she adds quickly, “you don’t involve me in anything illegal.”
There it is.
Emma’s line in the sand. The boundary. The wall.
Oddly enough, I find myself grateful for it. And I’m smirking, just a little. Because if she didn’t have boundaries, I might already be crossing too many of my own.
“I can agree to that.”
“Really?”
“Mostly.”
“Ruslan.”
I sigh. “Yes.”
She relaxes slightly. Not much, but it’s enough.
The problem is that I can’t stop looking at her. At the bruises and exhaustion beneath her eyes and the stubborn courage that keeps surfacing every time life knocks her down.
I want to know everything.
The thought arrives suddenly. Violently.
I want the missing pieces. The secrets. The reasons she reacts the way she does.
Why she notices security placements.
Why she lies all the time, or wants to, and why she’s so damn bad at it. There’s something in her that’s inherently good, and that’s reason enough to understand I don’t deserve to know this woman.
The contract explicitly forbids a background investigation. I agreed to it.
Yet the temptation remains.
We’re interrupted by a low rumble, and we each look down at her belly. She covers it with a hand self-consciously, a blush tinting her cheeks.
I clear my throat. “Lunch.”
She looks up. “What?”
“They took you from the coffee shop. You’re obviously still hungry. I have some business plans to look over, but after, I’d like to take you to lunch.”
Her nose scrunches up, and I add quickly, “Nowhere fancy. A food cart, if that’s what you want.”
That earns a laugh. She bites her lip, those weather eyes searching mine, and then she nods. “Okay. Sure. I can wait a little bit.”
I force myself toward the desk. Toward work. Try to ignore the rustle of her moving through the suite behind me, settling in somewhere. Her deep sigh.
“Thanks, Rus.”
The nickname is sweet and soft. I close the office door behind me, determined not to look back.
Somewhere in Denver, my brother has made a very serious mistake.
* * *
The next morning, I wake-up on the couch with a crick in my neck and murder still simmering pleasantly beneath my skin.
Not ideal.
The suite is quiet. Pale autumn sunlight spills across the carpet through the windows; the city already murmuring down below. For a brief moment, I forget where I am.
Then I remember.
Colorado. Andrei. Emma. The bruises.
A sharp knock echoes through the suite before I can reach for my phone. The bedroom door opens first, and Emma emerges wearing a white hotel bathrobe, curls still damp from a shower. The sight catches me off guard for one irritating second before she pads toward the entrance.
“I’ve got it,” she mumbles.
A hotel employee stands outside holding a cream-colored envelope.
“Delivery for Mr. Smirnov.”
Emma accepts it with a suspicious look and closes the door. By the time she turns around, I’m already standing.
“What is it?”
“No idea.”
The envelope is expensive. Thick paper, an embossed seal.
I know what it is before she even hands it over.
My thumb cracks the seal, and Emma leans closer as I unfold the card. Her scent is intoxicating, distracting, and it takes me a moment to focus.
Then I laugh.
Because there it is, an official invitation to Andrei Cheney’s wedding. It’s addressed specifically to me and accompanied by a handwritten note:
Family should celebrate together.
Emma reads it over my shoulder and slowly lifts her gaze.
“What?”
My smile widens.
Across from me, she suddenly understands exactly what this means. Andrei isn’t hiding anymore. He’s responding.
The game has officially begun.