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27
All he could think about was her. Kira. Behind him. Dependent on him for her safety in the face of the animal staring Lyon down from the destroyed remains of his living room.
He didn’t dare take his eyes off the man lounging on his sofa — not even to focus on the four men with weapons who surrounded him — but Lyon had registered the damage in the split second before he’d realized Musa was in the room.
All the furniture had been slashed, everything but the sofa overturned. The table lamps had been thrown to the floor, and one of them cast eerie light on the wall. Books and vases were strewn about the room, artwork punctured and ruined. Even the photographs that had lined the mantel were gone.
All except for one: the photo of Lyon’s parents on their wedding day.
That one sat in the center of the mantel, obviously left there on purpose.
“Get out of my house,” Lyon growled.
Musa laughed. “I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but you’re not exactly in a position to make demands. Not with all these guns in the room. Not with your whore hiding behind you.”
He looked older in the strange light. His nose was bulbous and red, the nose of an alcoholic, and his leather jacket couldn’t hide the fact that he was five years away from carrying a tire around his belly.
Kira stepped out from the shelter of Lyon’s body before he could stop her. “I’m not hiding. And I’m not a whore.”
Musa lifted his eyebrows suggestively. “She’s a feisty one, eh? I’ll bet she’s loads of fun between the sheets.”
Fury rose like a rogue wave in Lyon’s body. “You should stop talking now. In case you haven’t noticed, you’re not the only one with a gun.”
Musa’s smile was cold. “Ah, yes. But you’re a bit outnumbered.” He seemed to consider something. “You could probably kill me before the first bullet hit you, but then what would happen to your little kitten?”
Musa was right. They were fucked.
Lyon turned his mind loose on the problem, weighing all the pieces, calculating his odds of getting Kira out alive. He couldn’t even think about the fact that her safety was all he cared about while he stared down four semiautomatic weapons.
“Say what you came to say and leave,” he finally said.
“What makes you think I came tosayanything?” Musa asked, rising to his feet.
“If you’d wanted me dead, we wouldn’t be standing here talking.” It pained Lyon to admit it, but it was true. Musa had gained entry to his house, had been lying in wait. There would be time later to analyze the how of it, to punish himself for the mistake of allowing it to happen. Right now all that mattered was that it was true.
Musa paced closer to him. One of the gunmen followed, his weapon still pointed at Lyon.
“Maybe I just want to play with your kitten while you watch,” Musa said.
“Touch her and I’ll kill you. Let’s see how much fun you have with mywifethen.” The word coursed through him.
Wife. Kira was his wife. It was more than paper now. More than a legality.
He’d marked her as his when he’d slid inside her, when he’d felt her body come alive under his, when he’d watched her come.
Kira stood straight next to him. “I’m a Baranov. Lay a hand on me and my father will see you dead — if I don’t kill you first.”
Musa’s face froze in a mask of fury. He walked closer, looming over her, making her look impossibly small next to his fleshy physique.
Lyon’s finger itched to pull the trigger, to put a bullet in the head of this man who dared to threaten his wife, but Kira didn’t move an inch.
“Someone needs to teach you a lesson, whore.” He stared her down. “That’s all you are, Baranov or no: a whore who sold her body in exchange for a place next to the man you think will be king.”
Lyon stepped between them and a flurry of movement rippled through the men as they followed him with their weapons. “This is going to get out of hand,” Lyon said. “I don’t think you want that.”
Musa had come to deliver a message. Anything else would have been done by now.
Musa sighed and paced away from Lyon and Kira. “I hate to admit it, but you’re right. Exile isn’t the same as a hit, as you know. I have to be careful, show the Spies that I will play by the rules while you break them.”
