Chapter 17
LEKS
Yuri is ignoring his radio. You trust someone to safeguard one of your most important assets, and then he doesn’t even respond outside of working hours.
Where the fuck is Natalia? She was supposed to be home one-hour and twenty-nine minutes ago. I probably shouldn’t care, but I’ve started looking forward to cooking for her every evening.
I shrug on my jacket and head to the break room to track her down. My stomach sinks as I find a crowd gathered.
There’s no fighting tonight. I don’t have to think too hard to know who’s at the center of the gathered men, who are so enraptured in whatever’s going on that they don’t even notice me arrive.
There’s not much to get excited about on the docks these days, with one exception. Who just so happens to be a Bratva princess with the face and body of an angel. I already hate this situation.
I shove my way to the front row, not caring who I’m pushing out of the way or how hard, to find Natalia and Yuri leaning forward over a chess-board.
So all these men are supposedly engrossed in watching a high-octane game of chess.
How riveting for them. Entertaining enough that they stayed late.
I don’t believe for one second that they’re watching the game — they’re watching Natalia, who’s wearing a dress so tight it’s like it’s glued to her body. In her seated position, leaning forward over the chess board, everyone has a perfect view of her cleavage.
I clench my jaw as Natalia takes Yuri’s knight with her queen. Every eye in the room follows the movement, including the sweet, satisfied smile she gives Yuri as she grabs his piece from the board.
Fucking hell.
Why couldn’t she dress like a librarian instead of a fucking supermodel? It would make this marriage so much easier. It would definitely stop my fingers from inching towards the trigger of the .45 in my back pocket.
From one glance at the board, Natalia is trouncing Yuri. He’s gone in the next five moves. She’s already won. Good. Glad he’s getting his ass handed to him on the regular by both halves of this marriage.
Sad to put a stop to it, but I don’t like a single thing about this situation.
Not the way these men are looking at her, or the fact that Natalia is oblivious to her effect on this roomful of people.
I especially hate the way they’ve all started referring to her as “darlin’”, the way that Yuri does.
“Enough.”
I knock over Natalia’s king and the crowd erupts in uproar. Idiots. Now they’re acting like they’re interested in the chess game instead of my wife’s tits.
“Fuck off Leks!”
“We’ve got money riding on this!”
“Your wife was winning, you bastard!“
I fire a shot in the air to shut them up. Then I turn to the whole room. Yuri. The other bastards who work for him.
“Let’s make this the last time you bet on something that belongs to me,” I growl.
“Natalia, good game.” Yuri goes in for a handshake.
Natalia pouts. “It would have been a good game, if we hadn’t been rudely interrupted.”
I shoot a look at Yuri. “Don’t worry, princess, Yuri’s gonna chalk this one up as a win to you.”
“Oh am I?” His teasing smile fades as he takes in the stony expression on my face.
“Yes, you are,” I tell him and he rolls his eyes.
Natalia puts her hands on her hips. “I don’t accept. Winning is no fun if he was blackmailed into it.”
“Hear that, Leks?” Who the fuck is this? I only vaguely recognize the guy. We are not on a nickname basis. Henrik, I believe.
Dead weight who’s been on a union contract for twenty years without ever proving why he should have a job. Sounds like he’s had a few drinks by the way he slurs my name.
He takes a step towards Natalia and every nerve ending in my body screams at me to take action. “She thinks you’re stopping her from having fun. Maybe your wife shou—”
“I really, really don’t think you want to finish that sentence.”
That’s Yuri. His nose is still busted from last night, so he’s well aware the kind of state that saying the wrong thing about Natalia will leave a guy in. He puts an arm out to block Henrik’s path towards Natalia, but the guy doesn’t seem to clock the danger he’s in.
He doesn’t listen.
He stumbles towards Natalia, practically drooling. Like a cartoon character with his eyes bugging out of his head in lust.
The tension’s so thick in the air it’s all I can feel, but from the look on this idiot’s face he thinks this is a great joke.
“You know, darlin’, if he’s not satisfying you…then you can always come and find me.”
For emphasis, he slaps her ass.
Natalia stands stock still, like a gazelle confronted by a lion. She’s frozen to the spot.
My grip tightens on the handle of my handgun.
The guy lets out the beginning of a smug chuckle. He doesn’t finish the first syllable of it before my bullet lodges itself in his temple.
Henrik or whatever-his-name-is crumples in a pile on the ground.
I feel nothing except irritation.
“Oh, my God.” The dazed look on Natalia’s face tells me this is the first time she’s seen a man die and she did not care for it. The blood drains from her face and for a second I wonder if she’s going to faint.
I rush to her side just in case, and the crowd parts to leave me a wide path.
She shakes off the hand I place on her shoulder, then walks back to the chessboard and takes her seat. “Another game?”
The crowd reforms around the chessboard.
Yuri raises his eyebrows at me. Motherfucker is encouraging this kind of behavior.
“Play time’s over,” I growl. As if me shooting one of these perverts didn’t send the message clearly enough.
Natalia’s mouth drops open, as if it’s outrageous that I would shoot a man for harassing her and then stop her from finishing her game against Yuri.
“We’re not done,” she protests.
Why is it that my men rarely question my orders but my fucking wife doesn’t listen to a single word I say?
Surrendering the game for her wasn’t enough. This time, I flip the corner of the board, sending the pieces into Yuri’s lap.
I grab Natalia’s wrist and pull her out the door. She shakes her hand from my grasp, clacking along ahead of me in those designer heels.
When we reach the top of the stairs, she whirls to face me, golden hair swirling over her shoulders and soaking me in that irresistible rose-and-sugar scent.
The left side of her dress is dark with Henrik’s blood. Her chest rises and falls with her rapid breaths. Her soft, warm voice hits me in the gut.
“I know you’re a violent man, but I don’t belong to you, Aleksandr. That was unnecessary and rude.”
“Rude?” God, she’s so cute sometimes. It melts away my anger and I can’t help but smirk. She doesn’t even have a curse for me? Maybe Yuri isn’t such a bad influence on those delicate sensibilities. “I just shot a man who was coming on to you and you’re accusing me of having bad manners?”
Natalia stares at me. “Obviously, it was more than that, too.” She pushes her shoulders back and straightens up. The main effect of this is to thrust her breasts further towards me which, I’ve gotta give it to her, is pretty fucking distracting.
Doesn’t make me any less heated. This is exactly why she can’t be hanging out with a roomful of port workers in her spare time. I’m strong enough to resist her. But only just, and only because she confirmed that she didn’t want me to touch her the other night.
If I had a flicker of hope — and one of those sweet fucking smiles is enough to make me start thinking that way — it would be over for her.
I pinch the bridge of my nose. “This isn’t working out. You working with the men. It’s wrong, on both sides of the equation.”
“That was an over-reaction. Even for a man of your reputation.”
I shrug.
Can’t deny that. I’ve acted on impulse before — it’s kinda my whole brand — but normally the impulse is selfish. Survival of the trigger-happy is how we roll in the Bratva.
This was different. The impulse which clouded my brain this time was all about her. Protecting her like she’s some kind of vase I have in my possession and simply cannot break.
I never accounted for the fact that my wife would occupy so much of my mental space in my plans. She’s a distraction from everything that I’m trying to do, if not an active impediment, given that I now have to think about her feelings as part of my plot to kill her father.
I just killed a man for slapping her ass.
Because even in her working clothes — heeled boots that go over her thighs and a tight dress, instead of the short floaty things she normally wears around the apartment — she’s fucking irresistible and I don’t trust those men around her.
Anyone who spends a moment with her is sure to feel exactly the same way that I find myself feeling.
Homicidal. Maniacal. Determined to have her so badly that I’ll blow up anyone who gets in my way.
Wordlessly, I pull Natalia inside the door of the loft and run my hands through that pretty golden hair. She takes a shaky breath and guilt twists in my chest. I’m the reason she’s scared.
She’s okay. She’s breathing, in my arms, if a little shaken by seeing a man die for the first time. Nothing happened — except the death of a lowlife which can easily be written off as a workplace accident by Yuri.
Not that I was thinking clearly enough to consider the consequences. That man could’ve been the fucking Pakhan of the Bratva and I would’ve acted in exactly the same way.
I stroke my thumb over her velvet-soft cheek, catching a tear before it falls. That’s when I realize how fucked I am. If Natalia’s hurt, I’m going to make her feel better.
“I still want to finish the game,” she protests.
“No.”
Her face crumples in disappointment. “I just wanted…”
Her voice trails off as I circle her wrist slowly and deliberately.
Fuck, I can feel her trembling with shock. I gently stroke the soft skin of her inner wrist before I lace my fingers through hers. Her clear green eyes widen as I drag her upstairs, towards her bedroom.