Page 107 of His Stolen Bride

“Tell him what you want,” she says. “He respects clarity.”

She turns toward the door.

I stop her with my voice. “Thank you.”

She pauses but doesn’t look back. “You don’t thank family,” she says. Then she leaves anyway.

The door clicks shut.

I sit there, staring at the spot where she stood, trying to understand what she just did.

By afternoon, my body is less stubborn, and I take that as an indicator that I can stand up. When I do, it’s like I’ve got a hundred pins being poked into the soles of my feet, but I walk anyway. Sofia is loitering in the corridor just outside my bedroom, pretending she’s just “hanging out”, which is a lie so bad it almost makes me smile. “You don’t have to guard my door,” I tell her.

Sofia keeps her eyes on the corridor. “I’m not guarding. I’m existing aggressively.”

“That’s not a thing.”

“It is for me,” she says.

I walk slowly, bare feet on wood, and peek down the stairs. Men move in the lower hall. These are the guards Mikhail uses when he wants something done and he doesn’t want it traced.

Enzo is in the foyer, talking to someone on the phone. His voice is suppressed. His face is blank. He sees me on the stairs and his eyes narrow slightly.

Then he points at the phone like, one second.

I don’t go down further. I know what’s happening.

29

ALINA

The city will hear about Vladimir fast. Maybe not in headlines, but in the way people avoid certain streets, certain accounts freeze, and how certain men stop showing up. Mikhail will make it clean. He always does.

Sofia appears at my elbow like she can teleport. “You shouldn’t be doing stairs yet,” she says.

“I’m fine.”

She snorts. “You’re not fine. You’re stubborn.”

“That too.”

She glances down the hall. “He’s in his office.”

My stomach tightens again.

Sofia reads it. “Do you want me to come with you?”

“No,” I say immediately.

“Good,” she replies. “Because he’d glare at me until I burst into flames.”

I look at her. “Do you think he’s angry?”

Sofia’s mouth twists. “He’s Mikhail. He’s always angry. The question is who he’s angry at.”

“And?”

“And he’s not angry at you,” she says, and this time, her voice is sure. “He was terrified. He just hides it behind murder and paperwork.”