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“Rae’s,” Dad, Wyn, and Rose answered at the same time.
I laughed, a smile lingering on my face even when it faded. “In that case, we’ll never know what it is.”
“We could just ask her,” Vasya suggested, slyly taking a spoonful of my dessert and plopping it in her mouth with glimmering eyes that encouraged me to make her pay for that later.
“Askher?” Dad demanded, his black eyes wide. “No chance.”
“What are we talking about?” Rae asked, dropping into her chair breathlessly, her eyes bright and gold hair rumpled.
“The topiary,” Vasya replied, missing the warning looks we shot her. “I’ve never seen that animal before,” she added, a blend of sweetness, naivety, and sadness in her voice that wrenched on my heart strings. “What creature is it? There’s a lot I need to learn after my upbringing.”
I blinked. The ache in my heart transformed into utter glee. My clever, sneaky wife. I squeezed her knee under the table and trailed my touch higher.
“It’s a beaver,” Rae answered, reaching across to pat Vasilisa’s arm. “They’re a symbol of love. They mate for life, like we Marshalls do.”
Abeaver? Isquinted.Sure.
Elowyn choked on her chocolate dessert. “Beaver.”
“You shut up.” Rae gave her a death-glare. “As long as you like it, Vasya.”
“I do,” my wife assured her with a smile. No one else saw the mischief in it. “It’s really sweet.”
The string quartet playing sweet, mellow versions of pop songs drifted out and the singer returned to the stage to rapturous applause. Impressive since there were only twenty-five people here. I’d kept most of them away from Vasya, not wanting to overwhelm her, but every single person here was someone I trusted and someone who had power and influence. Now they’d seen her face, they’d know she was mine and anyone who lifted a hand against her would die brutally. But not quickly. Oh, no, I’d make it last fucking months. I already regretted killing Mark and Boris so quickly. I should have brought them back to my workroom instead of leaving them as a message to Finch.
I stroked my thumb over my wife’s thigh through the glimmering black fabric of her outfit, turning my face so I could brush my lips across her cheek. I skipped the hard outline of her gun and glided closer to my goal. She jolted like she realised my plan, turning her face to give me a warning look that was heady as fuck. My cock throbbed.
I stole a kiss, thrilled at how receptive she was, how eager she was for my taste even in a room full of people with eyes on her. I drew back to tell her how much I loved her, but the groundrocked, noise swallowed every other sound, killing the music, and everything went hazy.
No. Fuck, not hazy. Smoky.
Someone had blown out the back of the room, taking the band and the singer who’d likely cost Dad a fucking fortune with them. I didn’t think; I reacted. My ears were fuzzy, my hearing not much help, but I ripped myself out of my chair and pulled Vasya with me, scanning the room before I fixed my attention on the hole blasted through the wall.
Vasilisa’s hand pressed to my back, shaking so hard it killed me.
“Stay behind me,” I ordered, sinking rapidly into a lethal calm. I drew my gun, training it on the figures that swarmed into the room like ants. Fuck, there were twenty of them. No, shit, thirty. Fifty. More.
Rage escaped me in a growl I barely heard as I began firing. Bodies fell but others swarmed over them and into the room. I exchanged a swift look with Dad—and found Vincent, Stefan, Jonathan, and Eli all crowding in. Jonathan grabbed our table and flipped it, sending bowls and glasses flying, and pushed Rae and Wyn behind it.
Gunshots filled the room, so furious I heard them even over my ears’ ringing. I threw a hand back, keeping Vasilisa safely behind me, and measured every shot I made, moving onto the next target before the first one dropped. I’d come here tonight decorated in weapons, so when my bullets ran out, I discarded the gun for anyone who might have replacement ammunition and grabbed my second, firing into the throat of a hooded bastard who thought he could ruin my fucking reception.
“Rose,” I said to Jonathan. Or yelled at him; it was hard to tell. Where the fuck had she gone? I’d lost sight of her, and that made me almost as cold as the thought of Vasilisa being shot.
It was Eli who snapped his head around, the whites of his eyes showing as he scanned the table we sheltered behind and the room beyond us. I opened my mouth to say something, fuck knows what, but he leapt out from behind the shelter of the table and vanished into the smoke. If I’d had any presence of mind left, I might have worried what would happen when he found Rose, given their shared trauma, but we were being shot at and Vasilisa was trembling behind me.
I wanted to turn to check in with her but I didn’t dare look away, picking off threat after threat. These were obviously professionals; unless they were fatally shot, they kept firing at us. I stopped trying to slow them and switched to headshots, taking out five in quick succession, discarding my gun for another, and taking out six more. I nodded at Jonathan when he passed me a semi automatic like the one I used to kill everyone in Ivanov Manor, and I pinned my attention on the threats pouring into the room, taking out the bulk of them with Stefan, Cameo, and a group of guests at the table beside ours while Vincent, Jonathan, and Dad handled the few who managed to sprint closer.
Minutes passed in a furore of noise and violence. I was barely aware of fire ripping through my arm; I switched the gun to my other hand and kept firing. Bodies piled up near the explosion site, but others fell around the room too, and my heart screamed to check if any of them were my sisters, brothers, or friends. Dad was still beside me, but everyone else had scattered in the past minutes. Hours. Vasilisa was safe behind me, and the shot had skimmed my arm; she was unhurt. That was the only thing that kept me steady.
I shot a tall, masked figure in the head, swung to the next one—and paused when I realised they were all neutralised. I exhaled a long breath, blood raging in my ears, and jumped when Dad grabbed my shoulder.
My ears were still fuzzy from all the gunshots, my adrenaline high, so it took me a moment to realise what he said, to put it together with his panic-wide eyes.
“Where’s Vasilisa?”
The world swayed dangerously.
I spun, my heart roaring, slamming so fast I felt it in my ribs. She was right behind me. She was right fucking behind me! But she wasn’t. She wasn’t there. Wasn’t safe.
