“Safest place?”
“I have enemies. Your two brothers, for instance, but others too. The best way to put a target on your back is to send you back to that shoebox alone.” Calmly, he sips his coffee, like it’s every day that he announces sweeping life changes for me that I don’t have a say in.
I’m sure everyone in his life follows his orders. All he has to do is snap his fingers, and they rush to do his bidding. But the thought of living with him sends me into a tailspin. I haven’t mentally prepared myself for sharing a space with him, day in and day out. Marrying him was bad enough. I could process giving up ballet, putting my life on hold, and obeying Misha to protect Svetlana because I had to.
But for some reason, it’s my apartment that breaks me.
“I don’t want to live with you,” I tell him.
“Doesn’t matter. You’re mine to protect now, and even if I were stupid enough to let you wander around the city alone, I’m bound by the marriage contract. We need to live together. It’s all spelled out.”
Shit.
I really should have finished reading that stupid contract. Or anticipated there would be some kind of clause about where I had to live. Misha thought of everything else. Of course he would have anticipated living arrangements.
I’m such an idiot.
Before I can say anything, Lorenzo’s phone goes off. He pulls it out and taps on the screen, scrolling through a text. “Looks like the movers are finishing up at your place. I’m having everything delivered by lunch. Do you want to go through the boxes yourself, or should I have my guys unpack them for you?”
It takes me a second to process what he’s just said.
He had my entire apartment packed up this morning without my consent. And he’s having everything delivered to wherever it is that he lives. I don’t even know where he lives.
“You just packed up my whole apartment without my permission?”
“It needed to be done.” He forks up a bite of egg.
I’m so furious with him that I can’t stop myself from reacting. I grab his plate and slide it across the marble island. It comes to a stop right on the edge.
“You can’t just move my things. How did you get into my apartment?”
“You can do anything with the right motivation,” he says calmly, setting his coffee cup down on the island. “Now, are you going to be a good wife and bring my breakfast back, or are we going to have a problem?”
Everything compounds. I don’t even know what I’m doing, just acting on instinct as I take his coffee cup and hurl it across the kitchen. It shatters into pieces, and the remnants of his coffee splatter all over the floor.
“Get your own fucking breakfast!” I yell. “And I want my things back where they belongin my apartment!”
Then I stomp out of the kitchen.
It’s only when I make it onto the front porch of the guesthouse that I realize I’m not wearing any shoes, I’ve left my phone behind on the island, I just walked through ceramic shards, and the only transportation in this place that I can drive is the golf cart in the garage.
With a cry of sheer frustration, I take off anyway.
My feet are usually protected at all costs. As a ballerina, I depend on them to be in top shape. But I’m so far gone that I don’t even care. I take off down the sidewalk in my bare, cut-up feet. I don’t know where I’m going. All I do know is that I need to get away from the man I married.
Scorpion
I giveher a head start until I realize there’s blood on the floor.
Her blood.
Katya stomped right through the fucking mug she smashed into bits.Cazzo. I don’t have the patience for this. I was trying to play the gentleman after playing the saint last night when we got to the guesthouse and I had to help her out of her wedding dress. And now look at where all that’s gotten me.
Clearly, she hasn’t learned who’s in charge here.
With a growl, I storm after her. She’s taking off down the driveway in her bare feet and a little black dress that clings to her ass and waist and shows off her long, toned ballerina legs. Where the hell does she think she’s going to go with no shoes, ID, or phone?
And while I’m not surprised my blushing bride is running, Iamsurprised it took her this long. Part of me expected her to bolt before she even walked down the aisle.
