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A feminine screech came from the house Viking had sped into. I was putting two and two together and didn’t like the answer.
I put the car in gear and drove us home. The air between us was filled with a stony silence I didn’t care to break. I didn’t know what I would do if she confirmed my suspicion. I might return to that house on Nob Hill and burn down the entire street.
Neither of us broke the silence, not even when I drove into the garage, or when we went inside the house. Apparently, this led to the false belief that she could just saunter off to her room.
I followed her into her bedroom and closed the door behind me. She spun around, her eyes wide.
“Care to explain what you were doing at that house? Without your bodyguard?” Where the hell was Yuri, who was supposed to be keeping an eye on her?
“Yuri thinks I’m spending the night at a friend’s,” she said, as if reading my mind.
It figured that she’d immediately come to his defense. I let it go. There was plenty of time to take a piece of his hide later.
“You still haven’t answered my question.”
She raised her chin. “I was on a date.”
Something sharp and dangerous twisted inside my stomach. I didn’t want her to see another man. Just the mere thought made me want to shred whoever it was to pieces. I needed to get a grip, I was getting close to the edge. Only a few more feet and she’d push me over. My attachment to her was a weakness. One I couldn’t afford.
“Really?” I crowded her space, making her back into the wall. Her eyes widened. Finally, she realized that it wasn’t smart to provoke my beast. “And who were you on this date with?”
“A guy from college,” she mumbled. “He turned out to be an asshole who refused to give me back my car keys, so I had to call someone to pick me up.”
I played with a strand of her hair. “Someone?” She’d picked Elena for a reason and we both knew it.
“I didn’t want to bother any of the guys,” she said, holding her ground. “I know how…difficult some of you can be when it concerns me on a date.”
“Some of us?”
Her eyes hardened. “You,” she said, with a bite in her tone. “Mostly you, Kristoff. You have sabotaged every attempt at a date. I figured this time would be no different.”
She had guessed correctly, though pigs would fly before I admitted it. “What happened on this date, Ekaterina?”
My thumb stroked over her bruised cheek. I marveled at my control. Every nerve ending in my body told me to gut the fucker who had lain a finger on her but my feet were encased in cement. Maybe it was the fact that for the first time in a long while, we were alone again. In her room. Filthy images flooded my mind and I turned hard as stone.
“As I said, he was an asshole.” She tried to back away, but I grabbed her chin between my fingers.
“What kind of asshole?”
A shrug. “He was just being a douche.”
“How so?” I needed her to admit to what had happened. I could guess from what I’d observed. The abusive asshole’s fate was sealed. He would lose the hand he’d hit her with. Katya’s words wouldn’t change anything, but I needed her to speak them. Needed her to trust me enough to tell me. I needed her to soothe my demon who demanded blood and carnage.
“I’m tired and want to go to bed, I don’t want to discuss this anymore. You have no say about my private life when it comes to dating. You can’t discard me and then not expect me to have a life of my own. Do you think I don’t know that my days here are numbered?” She uttered a pained laugh. “Both Svetlana and Anastacia have told me so every chance they’ve gotten.”
I didn’t see what either woman had to do with this. “Don’t change the subject.”
“I’m not,” she said. “Someday, and I’m guessing someday not too far away, you’re going to put a ring on a Bratva bride. And my time in this house will be over. Can’t you see? I have to build a life of my own. I can’t start all over again, just like I did when my mom died.”
A chill went down my spine. As much as I tried to push back the day Katya had arrived here, her timewascoming to an end. In a few months, she was turning twenty-two and consequently, the day Sokolov would come for her. Unless I took care of that. The wheels for that had already been set into motion.
“I see.” There was nothing else I could offer her. No words of solace. I was a selfish bastard. The thought of her being with another man, of someone else putting his hands all over her, made me see red. I should let her go. I should step away from her right the fuck now, but I wouldn’t. I couldn’t.
Her stance relaxed. I smiled and her relief turned wary, as it should.
I pulled her toward the bed. Her breath hitched.
In one swift move, I dropped onto the edge of the bed and draped her over my lap.
