Chapter 26 I Can’t Lose Her
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
I Can’t Lose Her
HENRY
“She’s more trouble than she’s worth!” Lucian growled. I rubbed my eyes before adjusting my glasses to glare at him.
“She can hear every word you’re saying,” I reminded him coldly, tilting my head in Ri’s direction where she sat, chin resting on her hands, expression sombre.
I never wanted her to look like this again, but it seemed that external factors weren’t working in our favour.
Cockerels Cap, as I’d begun to think of him, wasn’t just a guy at the bus stop.
He was a man with a purpose, and we couldn’t quite put our finger on what that was.
And that made my anxiety soar to new heights.
Lucian scowled, turned to meet Ri’s eyes, and enunciated, “You are more trouble than you’re worth.”
She managed a wan smile. “I’m just the right amount of trouble,” she argued, but there was none of her usual teasing tone in her words.
She looked tired. A melancholy yowl erupted under the dining table, and Ri leaned down, reappearing to settle a smug-looking Abernathy on her lap.
His rumbling purrs drowned out the tense silence.
“Regardless of your personal feelings on the matter,” I began, squeezing my knees surreptitiously under the table. “Your job is to provide security for myself and my family. Ri is family, and this is a security risk.”
Lucian rolled his eyes but straightened, running a hand through his blonde hair. “Alright, so, what do we know about Rumi? What’s her motivation to have you tailed?” He was asking Ri, but he refused to look in her direction.
Ri shrugged, scratching Abernathy’s head. “I honestly have no fucking clue why she’d be going to these lengths. She has threatened to report me to immigration, but I’m pretty sure she was bluffing to try and get me to marry her.”
Lucian’s eyebrows shot up. “You already had someone willing to marry you for this bloody visa, and you turned it down?” he blasted. “Was this before or after you got your claws into Henry?”
Ri narrowed her eyes at him. “Firstly, I did not get my claws into anyone! Secondly, if you knew Rumi like I do, you’d understand why I would run a mile rather than tie myself to her. She’s controlling, coercive, manipulative and cruel.”
Her eyes were fierce, her jaw tight as she said those words, and I wondered what she’d experienced in her twenty-two years to recognise these things in a partner.
“Would you have run back to Romania to escape her, though?” Lucian pressed. Ri’s jaw snapped shut, and she glanced away. “Didn’t think so,” he muttered.
“That’s enough!” I barked. “Ri is my wife, that isn’t changing. You will not shame her for avoiding an abusive relationship. You will not accuse her of trying to entrap me. That’s not what happened, so stop trying to push a narrative around it. Immediately.”
Lucian sighed, pressing his knuckles into his temples. “You’re right. I apologise, Irina. That was out of line. So … do we assume she’s aware of your marriage to Henry? Is she trying to prove that it’s a bogus union?”
Ri shrugged. “I honestly don’t know. If she knows about the wedding, she will also suspect that it happened after my visa expired, because I was … I was with her, sexually, the week after the date on our marriage certificate.”
Lucian blew out a long breath. “Is there any physical evidence of that encounter? Photos … video? I’m assuming it was just the one instance.”
“It was just that once. I ended things with her after that.” She shook her head, sighing. “And there’s no evidence unless she was secretly recording us, which I doubt. I think at that point she fully expected me to agree to her demands.”
“I think it’s more likely that she doesn’t have that sort of evidence,” I interjected. “Because if she did, she wouldn’t be throwing money at Cockerels Cap.”
Lucian grunted. “True. We need to give them nothing to work with. Ri, you can’t return to that apartment again.”
“But—”
“No buts!” Lucian snapped. “If you make a habit of going back there, Rumi is going to be able to build a case that you and Henry aren’t living together. Do you want to be deported?”
Ri glared at him, a defiant glint in her eyes.
“Oh, yes, thank you, Lucian, if you hadn’t reminded me, I might have completely forgotten the consequences!
But if you had bothered to let me finish, you would have realised that I was going to say, ‘But I have a close friend living there, wouldn’t it seem more suspicious if I suddenly stopped visiting her altogether? ’”
If this wasn’t so high stakes, if it wasn’t her safety at risk, I might have enjoyed watching the two of them butt heads. As it was, my stomach swirled with anxiety.
“Ri’s right, Lucian,” I countered. “If she suddenly stopped her visits to Kat, that might in itself be more suspicious than her visiting on occasion, and it may trigger the PI to go to more drastic measures to get whatever proof he’s looking for.”
Lucian grunted. “Alright, so until further notice, Irina is on twenty-four-seven surveillance,” Ri scrunched up her nose in distaste, stroking Abernathy’s chin vigorously while he gazed up at her with love-heart eyes. “I’ll have my team do some background on our rugby-league-loving friend.”
“I’m satisfied with this plan, for now,” I agreed. It was the best we could do until we knew more. “What about you, Catnip?”
Ri threw me a grateful smile that I tried to return and failed. The word deported kept bouncing around in my brain. I couldn’t let that happen.
I can’t lose her.