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Chapter Thirty-One
Marco pressed a kiss on my temple as he led me through the doors of the house we’d pulled up to. It was massive considering that we were in the middle of Manhattan. “I’m sorry that this is what we are doing,” he said. “It’s not what I’d planned for us to do tonight.”
I smiled at him. I didn’t want to spend my evening at a party with people who would have gladly killed me, and who had told me as much, but I knew that Marco didn’t have a choice.
He’d come home from work on edge, and I worried that one wrong thing would make him snap. I wasn’t worried what he would do to me, but I was realizing that when he was upset, he had a tendency to act without thinking.
“It’s fine,” I told him. “Luckily for you, Sasha made sure that I had a dress to wear.”
I smoothed a hand over the sparkling Ellie Saab couture gown that I wore. I worried that it was too much for the occasion, but Sasha had assured me it wasn’t. The dress was beautiful. An ice blue color with a square neckline that was patterned with 3-D flowers. Outside of my wedding dress, it was the loveliest thing that I owned.
Marco smiled. This time he pressed a kiss to the side of my neck. I shivered at the feeling of his lips on my pulse point. “You look beautiful,” he whispered. The sound of his voice in my ear made me shiver.
I tangled a hand in the back of his hair. “You look good in that tuxedo,” I told him. “You’ll have to let me take it off of you later.” I wiggled my eyebrows together suggestively.
He laughed as we walked into the door, and I snuggled into his side. “This place is massive.”
We’d been married for a little over a month, but I was starting to learn that Marco’s world was so wildly different from my own. “I’m sure that he wants us all to oooh and ahhh about how big this house is. It’s basically a phallic symbol.”
I snorted. “Some symbol. Maybe we should get a larger house?” It was a joke, but I could see Marco contemplating it and I groaned internally. If Marco thought that I wanted a new house, I had a feeling he would buy me one.
Waiters were walking around with large glasses of champagne, and I went to go and snag one. Marco put out his hand. “Hold off,” he ordered. “We need to keep our wits about us.”
I was slightly disappointed, but I understood it. After all, the reason that Marco and I were married was partially to protect me from any sort of retaliation from the Russians.
“Remind me again why we are walking into the lion's den?” I asked. By the time that Marco walked into the house, we’d had very little time to get things together.
Sasha walked over to us on Dom’s arm. She was wearing a beautiful cream gown that highlighted her baby bump. She looked like an ethereal goddess as she glided through the room like she owned it.
“I am so glad to see you.” She embraced me before I could say anything. “You look amazing.”
My cheeks heated at the compliment. Sasha was the most glamorous woman I knew. Even pregnant, she looked like she’d just come off a Parisienne runway.
“Are you okay?” I asked. Sasha and I had become close in the last month, and she had opened up about her family. I knew that being here was going to be hard for her. It made her relive her father’s death and her mother’s betrayal. Unfortunately, the way Marco framed it made it seem that we did not have much of a choice.
“I’m fine,” Sasha said. “I’ve paid my respects, and now, I’m going home.”
I looked at Marco in surprise. He had made it seem that we were all required to attend the dinner whether we wanted to or not. If staying home was an option, I would have gladly chosen that one.
Sasha looked apologetic as she spoke. “I’m not feeling well.” She pressed her hand to her stomach. I didn’t know if Sasha was telling the truth, but I did know that not a single one of us was going to say anything about it.
But as I looked at her, I could see that her skin was pale. I was surprised that Dom wasn’t as close to her as possible. My eyes scanned the room looking for my brother-in-law.
“He’s in a meeting with the Pakhan. It’s men only, so I wasn’t able to go and see him.” There was a little bit of desperation in her voice, and I knew that being here was causing her pain whether it was physical or emotional.
I looked at Marco feeling a bit of panic. “Can you go find your brother and let him know?”
He looked as though he wanted to argue with me. I knew that he was hesitant to leave me alone, but as I looked as Sasha, who was growing more visibly upset by the moment, I knew that we needed to handle this.
“Fine,” he muttered. “Neither of you move.”
Both Sasha and I nodded. The party was in full swing around us, and though I didn’t claim to know a great deal about the dynamics of this world, I knew that no one was going to murder us in the middle of cocktail hour.
Marco walked off. He looked as though he were getting ready to storm the castle. “He’ll let Dom know that you are going home.” I told Sasha.
She gave me a weak smile. “I’m sorry to be so dramatic, but I can’t stay here any longer.” Her voice was choked with emotion, and I knew immediately that her pain was internal more than physical.
It didn’t matter. Sasha had been good to me, and I was going to make sure that she was taken care of. It wasn’t the first time I’d had to champion someone. I looked around the room, sure that there had to be more members of the Blanchi family in attendance.
