It takes me two sweeps to see him.
Maksim is leaning against a smaller building beside the garage, smoking. He’s motionless, the only movement the smoke unfurling from the end of his lit cigarette. He stares, saying nothing.
Lev heads for the house. I follow him, stealing occasional sips of water.
I glance back once before going inside, and Maksim is gone.
THE DEAL
Iprefer to exercise around sunrise because the gym is normally silent. There’s commotion during fights. I like my workouts quiet.
Today, there are a dozen men in the gym, even though we’re here earlier than we were yesterday since Carina’s conditioning has improved. I’ve added small increments of distance, but we mainly run the same route.
I attempt to hide my irritation as we walk toward the ring, nodding at those we pass. I could tell them all to leave, but that would defeat the partial purpose of this—getting the men used to Carina and Carina used to them. I introduce her to the guards on shift every time we pass them for our run. It’s been over a week, so we’ve covered all the rotations, although they stopped acting surprised a while ago. They all gossip. Everyone has heard I married the woman Igor had wanted to trade and that I am training her, and now they’re starting to show up to witness it in person.
“Everyone wakes up at the crack of dawn here?” Carina grumbles as she pulls a pair of gloves on.
The stitches in her left palm came out a couple of days ago, the cut now a straight pink line. It’s fucked up that I like looking at it. That it reminds me we’re married, the same way her ring does, but as a permanent mark she can never remove. It’s also a symbol of her strength. She let me slice her hand open, then took my name while it was still bleeding.
“They’re here to watch you.”
She pauses with the right glove only half on. “What? Why?”
“They’re curious about you. Ignore them.”
“Easy for you to say,” she says, fixing the glove.
I don’t say what I’m thinking—I’m more distracted by the eyes on us than she is.
Carina bought a lot of athletic pants that mold to her thighs and ass during our shopping trip. No other man would dare touch her, but I’m bothered they’re looking. Even more annoyed by how much I care. I’ve always avoiding thinking about where, with who, she spent our many nights apart. I forced a certain level of detachment between us, for her safety and my sanity, that lasted for twelve years. I wasn’t expecting some paperwork to be what blew those boundaries to smithereens.
Plenty of people marry and lead separate lives. My parents, for one. Aleksandr and Victoria are another obvious example. I knew we’d be different from them, but I didn’t think we’d be … this.
“You’re not wearing gloves?” Carina asks, mimicking the way I climbed through the ropes.
More heads swivel this way, and I try harder to ignore the attention.
“It’s going to hurt you more than me,” I tell her. “Even with the gloves.”
I’m two hundred forty pounds of solid muscle. My body is its own weapon. Being faster and stronger than my opponent has saved my life more than once. This is going to be a frustratingprocess for Carina, but I’m not being arrogant when I say that training against me will improve her odds against anyone else.
Once we’re both in the ring, I move behind her, gripping her hips so I can adjust her stance. Her breath catches as I deliberately graze a thumb along the thin strip of skin between her shirt and pants, and I reconsider asking everyone else to leave. The novelty of fucking Carina Sokolov hasn’t worn off.
I adjust her position so she’s in a fighting stance—feet shoulder width apart with hands raised. We’ll practice footwork once she has the basics of punching down.
“Igor wants to see you.”
I glance left, at Maksim, who’s appeared beside the ring. He’s not looking at me. His gaze is fixed on Carina.
I haven’t spoken to my father since I returned a married man. He’s ignored my existence for the past week, and the rest of my family has followed suit. Summoning me now means one of two things: he’s decided how to respond to my betrayal, or he needs me to handle something. I’d bet on the latter.
“I’ll stop by his office later.”
Maksim scowls, probably at the prospect of delivering that message. “He won’t like being kept waiting.”
Twenty-nine years of being at my father’s beck and call, of funneling more money and consolidating more power, and all it took for Igor to turn his back on me was my marrying a woman without consulting him. No matter what he wants, he’ll have to wait. Or have one of his other sons handle it. If this is related to an assignment, he asked Maksim to fetch me rather than having my brother deal with it directly.
“He can add it to my list of disappointments,” I reply, knowing that’s a short one.
