Dmitri pats my shoulder. “I’m sorry. I should have stood up to him sooner. If I had, none of this would have happened. It was wrong, what he’s done to both of you.”
“This was meant to be,” Svetlana says. “Misha has always been troubled, from the time I first met him when he was a boy. I pray he will find peace now.”
In the end, it was Misha’s greed that led to his death.
Dmitri ditched the drugs and cash halfway down, racing to the bottom of the stairs with me on his back. We emerged unscathed along with the skeletal staff that had been inside. And then Misha arrived. He and Dmitri argued, and they both had gone back inside. Thank God Dmitri escaped out the back into the shelter of the alley before the bomb detonated.
As I’ve come to learn, the drugs and cash were from the deal that went south the night of my wedding. The one Misha claimed was a double-cross by the Andriani crew. Dmitri filled in the gaps for Enzo and me, putting the final pieces of the puzzle intoplace. Everything had been an elaborate setup. Misha had been desperate to take over Andriani territory, and he’d finally settled on me as a way to start chipping away at their empire. I was a convenient pawn.
Until I’d refused to be one.
Enzo and I haven’t had that conversation yet—the one where I tell him Misha asked me to poison him. I’m still shaken from everything that’s gone down and dreading how to broach the subject.
Dmitri and I talk to Svetlana for a few minutes more before she tells us she’s getting carsick and she’ll catch up with us soon. We tell her we love her and then end the call.
“You’re sure you’re happy here?” my brother asks me quietly.
Enzo is in the room he utilizes as his office with the door closed, trying to give us some family privacy.
I don’t hesitate. “I am. All this craziness made me realize how much I love him and can’t live without him. I know it’s messed up. I was forced into this marriage, and it was the last thing I wanted, but now…” I let my words trail off, thinking of Enzo running to me through the crowd earlier, desperation etched on his handsome face. “Now, I know there’s nowhere else I belong more than at his side.”
“He seems to worship the ground you walk on,” Dmitri says reluctantly. “Which he fucking should, of course. If he doesn’t, he’ll answer to me.”
“Thank you.” I reach for him, giving him an awkward hug.
I hope this is the beginning of a new relationship between us. That some good can come from the evil Misha wrought.
He hugs me back and then straightens to his full height. “I should go. But before I do, I just wanted to say I’m sorry for, well, everything.”
“He was Pakhan. You didn’t have any choice but to do what he asked of you.” I may not agree with it, but I understand.
“Take care, Katya,” Dmitri says before he leaves, quietly slipping into the elevator.
I hear it carrying him away at the same time Enzo’s office door opens and he emerges.
His eyes find mine, searing, searching. “Is your brother gone?”
I know he’s talking about Dmitri, but the shock of Misha’s death is still fresh. I nod, too choked up to speak.
“Cara mia,” Enzo croons, coming to me and sinking into the couch at my side. He takes me in his arms and holds me, careful not to jostle my ankle. “Let it out, baby. I’m here. I’ve got you now.”
He’s being so sweet and gentle, so unlike himself, and the guilt inside me over what I have to confess is eating me alive. I blubber into his neck, breathing in his distinctive cologne, so familiar and beloved, clinging to him like I’m afraid I’ll drown if he lets me go.
“Don’t disappear on me again like you did today,” he murmurs, his hands coasting up and down my spine in a reassuring caress. “When I couldn’t reach you, it fucking killed me.”
“I’m sorry,” I whisper. “I didn’t want to involve you in this. I wasn’t sure what to do.”
“So you thought you’d run from me?” He pulls back to study me, his expression stern but tender. “That’s never the way,cara. You’re my wife. I told you before, you’re mine to protect. But you have to let me do it.”
I sniffle against a fresh rush of tears. It’s like all the emotions are hitting me at one time, and I’m having a difficult time coping.
“There’s something I have to tell you.”
He cups my cheek with one hand. “What is it,amore mio?”
I take a deep breath. “When I met with Misha, it was because he sent me that picture of Svetlana you saw. The one you asked me about. He wanted me to know he was having her watched and followed, that he could do anything he wanted to her at any moment. It’s also how he got me to agree to marry you. He knew I’d do anything to protect her.”
“I suspected.” His face hardens. “If he hadn’t died in that fucking club today, I’d kill him with my own bare hands now for what he did to you.”
