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Andrei’s expression shifts to cold, hard killer in an instant. “Anyone else who touches you, though, will die a slow and painful death.”
Liam’s face comes to mind, and I wince. He doesn’t deserve a death like that just because my fiancé is the jealous type.
Maybe I can find a way to warn him. Get him to move across the country or something.
“Can I have my phone back?” I slide off the edge of the bed and into Andrei’s closet. I’m not ready to wash the scent of him from my skin, but a shirt would be nice. “I’d like to invite my grandma to the wedding.”
Andrei’s shadow crosses over me as he blocks the doorway. “She’s not allowed in, Valentina.”
I purse my lips as I pull a white turtleneck from a hanger. “She’s my grandmother, Andrei. My last living relative. I’d like for her to be there.” The shirt is warm, which is exactly what I wanted. My boobs fill the middle well enough, but the arms fall past my fingertips. I can hear Andrei exhale harshly behind me.
“If she attends, she’s not allowed to be alone with you.” His voice hits heavy as hammer against steel. “Ezra or Mikhail will be with you the entire time.”
A sliver of fear runs down my spine. I look at Andrei over my shoulder. “You won’t let them kill her, will you?”
He sighs again and runs a hand down his face, looking more disheveled than he did five minutes ago. My heart aches for stressing him out, but it’s not my fault that my boyfriends have a murderous hard-on for the woman.
“I want to ask for her blessing,” I admit softly, clutching a pair of cotton briefs in my hands. “I know it’s silly, but...it means a lot to me. My mom—” My voice cracks. “She isn’t here to give me hers. My grandmother is all I have left.”
Andrei comes up behind me and wraps me in his arms. Kissing my neck, he sighs. “I won’t let them kill Katya. I’ll see if we can find her for the invite.” His embrace tightens. “For you, zhena, I will do this.”
I turn around in his arms and press my lips to his. “Thank you.”
We both finish dressing, and he checks his phone for the first time since last night. His jaw tics and he types a quick message to whoever sent him something unpleasant. Likely one of the boys.
“Is everything okay?”
Andrei smooths his expression before meeting my eyes. “It will be. I have to go. Don’t leave the house today, even if Mikhail or Ezra tries to drag you somewhere.”
An ominous feeling weighs in my stomach like a river rock settling on the sediment. “Okay.”
He kisses me goodbye and flows out of the room like water, graceful and elegant as he adjusts his shirt cuffs and steps back into the role of pakhan.
His absence makes the room feel massive, and I crave company immediately. Ezra’s brooding eyes or Mikhail’s malicious smile. I run to the bathroom to check my reflection and find that, dear God, I’m more of a mess than I thought.
Andrei wasn’t lying when he said they’d scent sex all over me. I look like sex incarnate, the bruises on my body mapping every place Andrei claimed me last night.
A shiver runs down my spine as I imagine the brand he’s left on my heart, the initials A.L. spun in a pretty script.
That mark may be invisible to the naked eye, but with every squeeze of my heart as it pumps blood through my veins, I’ll know that I’m his.
Forever, irrevocably, his.
Chapter 23
Andrei
“When did these arrive?” I dump the contents of the manila envelope on my desk, the scrawled Russian lettering on the front making my skin crawl. Moya zhena. The same words that covered the backs of the photographs in Liam West’s apartment.
Someone is sending us another message.
Photographs spill from the package and scatter across my desk, a handful of them falling off the edge to the floor. As Ezra grumbles and picks them up, I brush my hand over the stack on top of my desk, laying them flat.
Annoyance ripples under my skin as I examine each and every picture.
Valentina’s face looks up at me, or around me, as she unknowingly glances past a camera lens. The images capture her past week in near chronological order, meaning that someone has been watching her since she first arrived.
Ezra murmurs a curse under his breath, while Mikhail’s eyes glimmer with murderous intent.
