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Chapter 25VasileIt had been a week since I’d left her bedside, but it felt like a fucking lifetime. Now I sat in my father’s study, as he paced around, talking business. But I was only halfway listening.
My mind was on Valeria—worrying about her, thinking about her, hoping to hell that she was getting stronger and stronger every day. Since the second I’d left her, my mind had been with her. Always was; always would be.
Our family doctor I’d paid to attend them all kept me up to date, letting me know that she was doing much better. Knowing that wasn’t enough. I couldn’t love her from afar. And I wasn’t afraid to take her again, if I had to. But for the time being, she needed to have the time to heal without me. I wouldn’t let my own selfish needs threaten her recovery.
“Christ almighty, son,” my father said, crossing his arms heavily as he stared at me. “She’s alright. You know that. And if she’s not, we’ll be the first to know it. In the meantime, we have business to attend to. Are you with me or aren’t you?”
I ran my hand down my jaw and leaned back in the chair in front of the fire. “Alright, alright. Sorry,” I muttered.
But it was a halfhearted bullshit apology and we both knew it. I might be sorry for pissing him off, but I’d never apologize for loving her. Never.
Still though, he kept on pacing and talking, walking me through the details now that I was officially and totally taking charge. In the years since I’d been gone, my dad had already begun to move out of the worst parts of our business and made it clear he was behind me in making sure we continued to move in that direction. I let my eyes drift over the stacks of papers scattered over the floor. Petre’s signature caught my eye on a few of the documents. Even his goddamned signature was sinister—so neat and small that it looked dishonest.
But as for Petre himself, he was no longer much of a threat. After his arrest for attempted murder that day at the cathedral, he’d been locked up in jail, an experience so fucking awful that even he was rattled by it.
Exactly what he fucking deserved—to have the tables flipped on his cowardly, vicious ass for once. But I did make him a deal—we would provide him with our family’s best legal counsel, or if he chose to not cooperate with us, we’d leave him to rot. But he had to disclose everything.
Who in the staff had reported back to him, who was addicted, under his thumb, everything. The bastard spilled it all, including the asshole he’d had poison Valeria, and we were able to get her the antidote before any serious damage was done.
His attorney managed to secure bail on the condition that he was confined to his quarter of the estate, heavily guarded by my men, not his berserker fuckwit hired hounds. The few that were left. I’d dealt with those motherfuckers too, sending them off to Siberia never to be seen again. If the cold didn’t kill them, the wolves probably would.
As for the would-be assassin with the poison pin, his corpse was discovered dangling from a tree in the forest.
I tried to force my attention back on what my father was saying.
Contracts, deeds, negotiations.
Accounts, agreements, business plans.
All of it was clear to me, but I knew that part of the process of his handing things over to me was to explain them in his own way.
I stood up, helping myself to another cup of coffee from the sideboard, and stood at the window, looking at the wide swaths of frosty fields that ran into the forests beyond.
Natasha stood outside, shaking out one of my mother’s down duvets; we’d taken her in when my brother was sitting in jail, and she’d become something of a companion to my mom.
Natasha was still a fucking mess, bone thin and wild-eyed, but she had a good heart and my mom enjoyed having her nearby. I wasn’t sure I completely trusted her not to steal all our goddamned silver, but she was getting better. Day by day.
Mostly thanks to Daniel. From the time I had him return her here to the estate and got her under the care of our doctor, he’d barely left her side. I recognized the look in his eye, it was the same look I had when I looked at Valeria…
Glancing down, I double-checked that I still had the only thing that had any value at all to me anymore: the ring I’d given Valeria. I still had it, hanging from my neck, underneath my shirt, on a ribbon that she’d left behind that she’d used to tie her braid the night I’d kidnapped her.
