Chapter 8
LYDIA
At first, I want to ask him to give me a minute to prepare myself for seeing Vera. My hair is a mess, I’m wearing no makeup, my clothes are torn, and I wouldn’t be surprised if there were smudge marks on my face or body from the fire.
I feel a little guilty about that. I wanted to take what I thought would be the one chance I had to get away, so I acted as quickly as I could.
Nikko marches over to me, tall and muscled and covered in tattoos.
Phew. Nice job, little sis. His eyes burn into mine with an intensity that seems to run in this family.
My heart thumps in my chest when I remind myself that I’m with Viktor, and he’s already made it abundantly clear no one touches me but him.
“Lydia’s safety is paramount, but she needs to understand the gravity of her situation.”
“Oh, I understand the fucking gravity,” I say, glaring at my new brother-in-law. “I was ripped from safety, drugged, held captive—”
“Nikko? Is that true?” I hear Vera’s voice loud and clear on the line.
Nikko holds his phone up and shows me Vera’s picture. It’s dark where she is and hard to see her.
“Why would I make that up?” I snap.
“Here. Have a seat,” Nikko says, gesturing to a bench in the small garden outside.
I sit and reach for the phone.
“Vera. What the hell is going on here?” Tears spring to my eyes. I blink them away. “I was marrying Timur. He got all weird at dinner, and this guy—” I stab my finger at Viktor— “says Timur was planning on killing me and has manipulated the entire situation to make it look like a rescue.”
Vera, her large brown eyes magnified behind her round glasses, stares at me. “Do you have any reason to believe he’s lying to you?”
Always pragmatic, my scientist sister. I blow out a breath.
“Do I have any reason to believe he’s telling the truth?”
Vera nods eagerly. “Yes, of course. Because the Romanov family is much more reputable than the Yudins. Timur has a long history of fairly reprehensible behavior, Lydia.”
I cross my arms over my chest. Whose side is she on?
“If that were so, why would Father sign off on my engagement then?”
Vera’s gaze softens. “Because it benefitted him, Lydia. Because Timur may have protected you well financially, and you definitely would’ve been untouchable from any rivals as his wife. But the man has only served time once, and his record shows it was for a vicious assault on an innocent woman.”
I feel like the man who I knew and the man who they are talking about are two different people. But I saw that video. I saw how he treated Mom…
“Nikko, how did he react when he found out she wasn’t going to marry him?” Vera asks.
Nikko blows out a breath. “He took her out to dinner, and we have video evidence of him taking items that made it clear he planned on at least hurting and abducting her.”
“Oh God,” Vera says, her eyes wide.
“We have no way to prove that’s what he planned,” I snap.
“Lydia, these guys aren’t going to hurt you.”
I throw my hands up in the air. “They kidnapped me! Drugged me! Tied me!”
Vera bites her lip and looks over her shoulder. “Nikko?”
“It was essential to move quickly so we could save her,” Viktor interrupts. “Lev thought it expedient to get her cooperation in a way that made sense to him.”
I turn on him. “Is this how you gaslight all your captives? Hmm?”
“No, Lydia,” he says in a low voice. “You have the honor of being the first.”
That shouldn’t tickle me in any way, shape, or form, but I’m not above a certain level of depravity…
“Listen, Lydia,” Vera says. “I just want you—” The connection goes all gritty, and I can’t hear for a moment.
“Vera?”
“Shit,” Nikko mutters when the screen goes black. “We lost the connection. This is the last fucking time she goes to one of these things.”
He shakes his head, shuts off the phone, and turns to me.
“Does that appease you at all?”
I look away. I still don’t like how any of this went down, but it seems like I don’t have much of a choice. What else will I do? Who knows where Timur is now and even if a fraction of what they said about him is true… God.
I don’t want to go back to him.
But I don’t want to be manipulated, either.
Maybe they put Vera up to this. Maybe they didn’t.
The front door opens with a bang, and the tall man with tanned skin marches out straight toward us. Mikhail? I think they called him Mikhail.
Viktor bristles beside me.
“Are you going to deal with her?” he snaps, his attention on Viktor. “Or will I?”
Viktor stands, a low growl purring in his chest, and rises to his full height, which is impressively huge. He folds his arms across his chest.
“Lydia, meet my brother, Mikhail.”
I glare at him and grit my teeth. “How nice to meet you,” I snap, my voice dripping with sarcasm.
Mikhail ignores me and stares at Viktor. He’s so close to us now I can see his flared nostrils. A vein throbs in his temple. “Don’t push it, brother.”
Viktor opens his mouth to retort when Nikko steps between Mikhail and Viktor.
I can feel the tension radiating off Viktor’s body. Heat emanates from him in waves.
“Push what? My duty to protect the woman who I’m going to marry?”
My heart does a little twist in my chest. There’s something about the way he says it that unnerves me.
Mikhail steps closer, Nikko a wall between them. I swear one of them is going to break a blood vessel.
“Alright, alright, settle down,” I say, shoving my way in between the wall of alpha man chest. “No need to fight, boys. Geez.”
Nikko’s lips twitch, and his brows rise. “You look nothing like Vera, but there are definitely some similarities.”
I shrug. “Yes, and suffice it to say, I could say the same exact thing about your brothers.” I quirk a brow at him. “You all look nothing alike but seem to subsist on shots of testosterone and self-assurance.”
I blow out a breath and roll my eyes. “Honestly. It’s a shame Vera and I haven’t chatted at length more recently.” I turn to Viktor. “Can we go inside now?” I look at Mikhail. “So he can ‘deal with me’?” I suffuse as much mockery as I possibly can in my tone.
Viktor hasn’t hurt me, and I’m starting to believe he wouldn’t.
“Guys.” The younger one, the asshole who drugged me, stands on the steps outside. “Just got a call. We’ve got the captain of the Ledyanoye Bratstvo hostage.”
“Where?”
“The Ironworks.”
I feel Viktor’s hand clamp on my arm. “You’re getting dressed, then you’re coming with me. I want you to see this. Every fucking second.”
They spring into action while I stare up at Viktor. Mikhail’s ordering things in Russian and obviously pissed, Nikko is busy on his phone, and the other guy is gone, probably because he doesn’t have a death wish, and Viktor might murder him if he breathes the same air as I do.
I’d be lying if I didn’t admit that it pleases me a little.
“I need clothes,” I say to him, swallowing. Now that we’re alone, I’m starting to get nervous about the whole “dealing with me” thing.
He looks down at me, at my tattered clothes, and his perpetual scowl deepens.
He looks from me to the house and back again.
“There’s Harper, Aleksandr’s wife. Aria is Mikhail’s. Then there’s Polina, my sister. We could borrow something.”
I look down at myself. “Are they tall, curvy girls like me?”
The way his gaze glides down my body makes me swallow hard. His eyes smolder, and he licks his lips. We don’t exchange a word, but the palpable thrum of erotic attraction is very evident.
Shit.
He licks his lips. “No one’s like you, Lydia.”
I ignore the way my heart thumps. “They’re smaller?”
He shrugs.
Great. I’m marrying into a house full of supermodels. I cringe.
Viktor reaches his hand to my hair. A strand has crossed in front of my face, blurring my vision. He tucks it behind my ear. “Let them wait.”
“Who?”
His gaze burns into mine. “All of them.”
I stare, unblinking. “Your brothers?”
“The hostages. My brothers. We don’t need to take all day, but we can go get what you need while they wait.” He reaches for my hand almost casually. When our hands touch, a pulse of electricity skates between us. “I’ll go with you.”
“I can’t go into a store like this.” I shake my head. My mama raised me better.
“Then I’ll take you home. Your mother’s home is thirty minutes from here.”
I look away, strangely emotional. My mother is nice enough, but she and I haven’t been close in years. My father was the one who took me under his wing, for all the good that did. I suppose he fancied me the son he never had.
“I don’t have anything of mine there anymore.” I haven’t in a long time.
He looks down at me, stroking his chin. “I could ask Polina… she’s the closest and would be quickest at picking something out. Let me try her.” He pulls out his phone and sends a text.
A minute later, he shakes his head. “That’s not gonna work. She’s out and won’t be home for another hour.”
I look down at myself. I only have to look the fool in the first place we go. After that, it should be easy enough for me to find something to pull on.
“Wear my jacket,” he says at the very same time I say, “I could wear something of yours.”
My cheeks flush, and he nods. “It’s decided, then. Here.” Shrugging out of his leather jacket with one fluid motion, he removes it and holds it out to me. He doesn’t just hand me the jacket but holds it the way a gentleman would for a woman. He lifts it up so I can slide my arms in the sleeves.
It’s warm and smells like leather, snow-capped mountains, and the smoky, woodsy scent of fire. I turn away so he doesn’t see me inhale.
It feels so wrong to allow myself to be attracted to him at all, but I’m not a robot.
And he’ll be… my husband. I haven’t allowed myself to focus on what that will mean.
I walk side by side with him to the car. Wordlessly, he opens the door for me.
So many questions are teeming in my mind I barely know how to begin. Though Viktor scares me, and I have a feeling I haven’t even seen the half of it yet, I’m starting to feel a bit more at ease with him than the others.