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It wasn’t until she started toward him that he realized it was Kira.
Then, it took him a moment to name the unfamiliar emotion that rolled within him.
Relief. He was happy to see her.
It didn’t make sense. They hardly spoke to each other, hardly knew each other. She hadn’t done a thing to make their union comfortable, and he could say the same about himself.
She paused to look at the raging fire, then turned her attention to the crowd, scanning until her eyes landed on him. There was a moment of recognition, something that struck a distant chord of memory in his chest.
She started toward him and he returned his attention to the fire, wondering why he felt more off balance now than he had when he’d first seen the building burning.
“Kira’s here,” Alek said. “Did you call her?”
Lyon shook his head. “She must have heard through the grapevine.”
Which meant word was out. News of the fire together with the fact of Lyon’s altercation with Musa would set tongues in the bratva wagging.
He turned toward her as she approached, wondering if she felt anything at all when she saw the fire.
It was always hard to tell with Kira. He’d thought he had a poker face until he met her. She was so good he should probably take her to Vegas.
“Do they know what happened?” she asked, coming to stand next to him.
“Arson, unofficially,” Lyon said. “What are you doing here?”
She looked up at him and he wished she wasn’t wearing sunglasses, wished he could see her eyes. “I’m your wife. It’s where I belong.” She placed a hand on his arm, and a current of electricity shot through his body like a lightning strike. “I’m sorry.”
He suddenly understood why he was relieved to see her, recognized the emotion that had moved through him when she’d spotted him through the crowd: it was the first time since he’d been a boy that it had felt like he had someone on his side.
The first time he hadn’t felt alone in as long as he could remember.
The realization should have comforted him. Instead a deep unease settled into his bones. He couldn’t afford to consider Kira — or anyone — a partner. He’d learned the hard way that there was no safety in numbers, only in oneself.
He couldn’t forget that, even for his beautiful wife.
