Page 109 of Marrying the Savage

“Sofia.”

I reach the staircase and look down. The foyer is full of men. Not crowded, exactly, but active in a way that makes the house feel suddenly smaller. Mikhail is there, face tense, jacket torn at one shoulder. Nikolai stands near the door with blood on his sleeve. Lev speaks into a phone. Two guards carry a man I don’t recognize toward a side hall, his arm hanging at a bad angle.

And then I see Damir. He stands near the center of the foyer, removing his coat with stiff, impatient movements while Marina hovers nearby with towels. Blood marks his shirt near one arm. There’s a cut on his cheek, another smear near his jaw, and his bandaged hand is red again.

For a second, I forget how to breathe.

He looks up, and our eyes meet. There’s something in his face I have not seen before.

Not fear. Not weakness. But the controlled mask is cracked around the edges. His eyes are colder than usual, his mouth harder, his body held too still, as if whatever happened out there has followed him inside and is still standing behind him with a knife.

Shaken. Damir Volodin looks shaken.

The realization is so wrong that I start down the stairs before I decide to.

“Sofia,” the guard behind me says sharply.

Damir’s gaze cuts to him, and the guard shuts up immediately. That would be funny under different circumstances.

I reach the bottom step. “What happened?”

“No,” Damir says.

Not an answer. An order.

I stop in front of him. “No?”

“You will go upstairs.”

I stare at him.

He’s bleeding.

He’s standing in front of me, bleeding, after disappearing all day and coming home with half the house moving like something has gone terribly wrong, and he thinks I’m going upstairs because he uses his voice.

“No,” I say.

Mikhail appears at his side. “Sofia, this is not⁠—”

“I swear to God, if one more man tells me what is not my concern inside the house I was dragged into, I am going to start biting.”

Damir’s eyes drop to my mouth.

For one insane second, heat flickers through the fear. His expression changes too.

“You’re hurt,” I say to Damir.

“It’s nothing.”

I laugh. It comes out sharp and frightened. “Men only say that when something is bleeding.”

“It’s handled.”

“By whom? The towel committee?”

Marina, still holding the towels, looks like she wants to disappear into the floor.

Damir takes one step toward the side hall. “Mikhail.”