Page 74 of The Marriage

The man who had accompanied her to the door was close enough to her grab her before she fell to the ground.

“Who would do that to him?” he heard her cry.

He knew who.

Wanted so badly to make them pay for it, too.

He just had other things to handle first.

“Take her inside. Someone call the boss,” Roman barked, turning away from his friend’s body.

The faint siren in the distance might not have been a cruiser coming for them, but it reminded him instantly that the police presence would be thick on their property soon.

This was going to be bad. Really bad.

*

By the time Demyan returned to the Avdonin home, the cops were already littering the property, their cruisers, and forensic vans filling the driveway. His father wasn’t pleased, and had his wife not been home, likely wouldn’t have returned to the property but sent lawyers in his absence.

No crime boss wanted this mess.

Not that Demyan had to worry. The moment a pig walked across their threshold, nobody had anything to say. That was the law of the land for people like them. As much as it killed Roman, his statement was the same as everyone else’s when the police and detectives cornered him earlier.

He didn’t know Marky.

Didn’t see what happened.

Didn’t have anything to say.

They’d have to prove differently.

“Where is she?” Demyan growled at one of his men who stood at the front of the house with Roman.

The bull gestured at the house, directing him inside to Claire. There was already a clear line drawn between the police doing their job and the rest of the men—the ones that had to stay, anyway. A few had already taken off to avoid the police presence. The second the detectives that showed up started talking about taking people to the station, lawyers were called.

Roman stood back, watching while his friend’s body was bagged up and lifted onto a stretcher heading for the coroner’s van. He met the gaze of the plain-clothed detective standing next to the van for a second before turning away.

There was nothing he could do about it. Nothing anybody could do about the situation. Marky was gone, and Roman didn’t have a chance to say goodbye. He didn’t even have the chance to thank him like he intended to, just those few passing words.

His friend deserved more.

Leaving Demyan’s men to deal with the cops, Roman went back into the house. His mind still wasn’t out of the dark cloud he’d sunk into. None of it seemed real.

In the foyer of the house, his mother’s cries echoed from one of the rooms deeper in the house. Demyan’s encouraging whispers accompanied her sobs.

He went to them, finding his mother a mess in her sitting room. Sobbing into her hands where she sat on a chaise in the corner.

“I think we’ve let Dima go on for long enough, don’t you?” he asked his father. “Has he done enough yet—is here where I should really be now, Papa?”

His parents looked over at him—Demyan from his kneeled position in front of his wife. Claire, through her fingers, wet with her tears.

“No, Roman, please. Demyan, you can’t let him just get himself killed. He can’t be the next body thrown in the driveway!”

Roman refused to look at his mother because he wouldn’t be swayed. Her pain was justified, as were her fears, but that didn’t change what would happen after today.

Dima would pay for what he did to Marky.

If they didn’t act now, or soon, they were essentially giving him the go-ahead to do it again. Who would be next—Karine, maybe?