Chapter 33
Peighton
The car’s trunk smells like metal and old carpet, and honestly, I should be panicking. I should be clawing at the lid, fighting the ropes around my wrists, doing anything other than staring into the dark and thinking about my unhinged husband who apparently decided to block me.
Kidnapping training is supposed to sharpen my instincts, but mine feel blunted by worry. By him.
The car stops. The trunk unlatches. Cold air rushes in.
Brutus’s handsome face appears, framed by the gray sky, a grin tugging at his beard.
“You did not try to escape,” he says, shaking his head. His accent is light, warm. “Peighton, I have spent a week teaching you these ropes, and you are getting worse.”
He reaches in and lifts me as if I weigh nothing. My feet touch the gravel and he begins untying my wrists. “You should have kicked the trunk, undid your ropes, picked the lock. Anything.”
I shrug. “I was thinking.”
“About what?” he asks, amused.
I don’t answer. Because what I was thinking about has shoulders shaped like sin, eyes the color of a winter storm, and a mind full of darkness I don’t understand.
Instead, I push lightly at Brutus’ shoulder, playful and flustered. His muscle shifts beneath my palm, solid, warm, and familiar. Too familiar.
My breath catches.
Gustav. His sculpted arms. Those scars on his back, smooth, twisted, and strangely beautiful. The weight and heat of him over me. His black hair falling forward, shadowing his intense eyes. His devastating kiss. And God, his thick length buried deep as his muscled hips roll against mine.
I pull my hand back so fast I nearly spin. Too late. Brutus raises a brow.
“Where did you go?” he asks, snickering.
I stammer.
Ahead, my eyes squint.
Keira stands in the distance holding her phone. At first glance she’s texting. But the angle is wrong. Her stillness is wrong. She is either taking a photo or thinking very hard about taking one.
Heat rushes to my face. She looks up casually, offers a sunny smile, and pockets her phone as if nothing happened.
Suspicious. Very freaking suspicious. I haven’t had a smile from her in weeks, either.
I add space between me and Brutus.
That evening, Tyra shows up with her suitcases and her dramatic flair, and a piece of me unravels.
“Holy shit!” I exclaim, overjoyed.
Thank God.
She barrels into me with a hug, smelling like vanilla lotion and normalcy. Real normalcy. California normalcy. I didn’t know how badly I missed it.
“This place is amazing!” she gushes. “It’s like a fancy prep school for mobsters.”
I laugh. “Mobsters and their wives.”
Then I catch her up, including the maybe-photo Keira took.
Tyra presses two fingers to her temple. “Girl. Watch that woman like she’s trying to steal your Social Security number.”
“I am—”
“She is two-faced,” Tyra cuts in. “Beautiful women are either angels or villains. There is no in-between.”
Fair enough.
Then my phone buzzes. Dad. FaceTime.
I almost don’t answer, but Tyra pats my back. “Do it. He’s probably worried. He always talks about you when I visit. I am dating one of his enforcers.” She blushes, smitten.
So I accept the call.
Dad’s face fills the screen stern, tired, and wearing the look of a man juggling twenty things at once. He softens a little when he sees me.
“There’s my lil one. How is Russia treating you?”
Before I can answer, someone off-screen speaks to him. Dad glances upward, distracted, then says casually, “Hold on. A guest just arrived.” His eyes flicker. His expression freezes. “It’s… your husband.”
My heart jumps into my throat. Tyra grabs my arm.
“Why the hell?”
It takes two seconds to piece it together. Two seconds for cold dread to hit: My husband is angry. Gustav is there. At my father’s house. No doubt with a gun… or hatchet.
I hear the metallic click through the phone even before the camera tilts and shows me the tip of a weapon aimed at my father.
“Gustav!” I scream, my crisis instincts kick on. I just have to get through to the man that blocked me. He isn’t like any man I’ve known...
Come on, Peighton, think.
The answer slams down, almost like divine intervention.
I yell:
“Gustav! Turn the phone so I can watch you kill my dad!”
Tyra’s mouth drops open. Dad stares at me like I sprouted horns.
Gustav steps closer.
“What is wrong with you, boy?” Dad growls. “You threaten a fellow boss in his home? You have no honor. You—”
“Honor?” I laugh before Gustav can respond, sharp and wild, leaning into the phone like a lunatic because that is what Gustav understands. “Dad, you handed me over without a fight. Gustav protected me. He killed a rival for me. That is true honor.”
Dad blanches. “So the rumors are true. He broke our code…”
Gustav snarls, “Shut up.”
His hand is steady, but the tension around his eyes is wrong. Conflicted. He’s mad at me. Punishment isn’t supposed to feel like obedience. Killing my father because I ask him to would break one of those unwritten rules in Gustav’s head. His moral compass may be deranged, but it is precise.
It’s my only chance, though. The only way to save my father.
“Do it,” I urge. “I want you to.”
Gustav’s jaw clenches. He lowers the gun.
Good. I reached him. Sorta. Crazy talks to crazy. A dark reverse psychology.
Dad sputters, “Are you out of your mind, boy? You—”
“Dad! No retaliation against my husband,” I snap. “If you want grandchildren someday, you will behave.”
Dad freezes. Gustav looks stunned for a second, as if the concept of future children sliced straight through whatever dark fog he lives in.
I can’t let him think too long.
“Tyra,” I whisper, “knock on my door.”
She hesitates, then knocks loudly out of the frame.
I raise my voice so Gustav hears.
“Hold on, Boris!”
Silence on the other end. A long, dangerous silence.
He grabs the phone and glares into the screen. For a heartbeat, I’m frozen. His face. I miss it. I miss him. I want to plead with those beautiful gray eyes to come to me. To let me hold him.
But I snap out of my fairytale and remember I married a mad king, not a prince charming.
Impressing even myself, I slip into my new persona and fret with my hair.
“Gotta go! I need to check my makeup. I have a visitor. Boris. You know… the one,” I say sweetly, and before either of them can respond, I hang up.
Tyra stares at me as if I’ve just performed an exorcism.
“What in the holy balls was that?”
“Told you. My husband is nuts,” I say, breath shaking.
“So you made him jealous on purpose? That’s bold. I hope you know what you’re doing.”
I nod slowly, clutching the phone to my chest. “He’s different. He will burn the world down despite himself. And I think I’m the only one who can reach him in a strange way.”
“You better hope your plan works.”
I swallow hard.
“So do I,” I whisper, because the truth is, not only do I love him, I know he must be suffering. He’s in a full spiral.