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“Really? You’ve read Marcus Aurelius?”
“Don’t you mean ‘Really? A dumb meathead like you read a classic?’”
I flushed. “You’ve got me there.” He was the last person I expected to read the musings of a Roman emperor. “You just didn’t seem the type.”
“To read in the first place? Or to read philosophy?” He clearly enjoyed my discomfort.
“You’ve made your point,” I grumbled. “Just tell me why you’re here. Again.”
His tone turned serious. “I’m here to take you to your father.”
A prickle ran down my spine. “You and what army?”
Ilya shook his head. “You misunderstand me. I won’t ever take you there by force.”
I relaxed a bit. “As I told you before, I don’t want to see him.” I’d made my choice. And that choice didn’t include meeting a man whose reputation scared me, even though I would never admit that aloud.
“Because you choose to stay with Romanov,” Ilya guessed correctly.
I sat up straighter. “He’s my husband.”
Ilya gave me a once-over. “Stop pretending like you are a typical Vory wife.”
“TypicalVory wife?”
“Docile, eager to please her man, someone who is afraid of her husband’s shadow. You are none of those things.” He placed his forearms on the table and leaned forward. “I’ve heard the stories of the legendary Ekaterina Romanov. You orchestrated a hotel heist to help a friend, got kidnapped by Bulgarians, and almost ripped off your attacker’s dick. Most recently, you drove the car while you and your husband were under attack by Koreans.”
Each and every moment he mentioned had been terrifying. “It almost sounds like you want to recruit me into your Bratva,” I drawled. “Sorry, but I’m already taken, with a noncompete clause and everything.”
He leaned back. “Romanov doesn’t deserve your loyalty.”
I got up and started packing my bag. “We are done here.”
“What do you know about your mother’s death?”
I hissed. “You’re bringing my mother into this conversation?”
He grabbed my wrist and pulled me behind a stack of books.
“Let me the fuck go, or I’m going to grab this volume of the latest corporate tax handbook and smash in your head.”
He let go of me but boxed me into a corner. “Romanov has lied to you. Your mother’s death wasn’t the result of a car accident.”
I froze, rooted to the spot like a tree that had birthed all these books. The words that followed his statement, worse—the pictures he showed me—made my stomach churn and set my world on fire.
***
I don’t know how I made it back home. I had only flashes of memory as to how Yuri drove us there, because I was too distraught, emotionally and physically. He tried to talk to me on the way to the mansion, but I could barely speak a word. My mind was too occupied with the pictures of my mother’s crime scene. Some of them had been grainy, but a few of them quite explicit, like a sick canvas filled with images of blood and gore. I wished I could burn them from my retinas. I wished I could rewind the day and wake up back in bed with Kristoff. Why did this keep happening? Whenever I felt safe or hopeful, a sledgehammer slammed into my word, tilted it on its axis, and crushed my spirit.
I found Kristoff in the study. He was on the phone, pacing before the fireplace. Depending on how this conversation would go, I was possibly going to maim him with the iron poker.
He must have seen something in my face, or perhaps it was in the way I slammed the door behind me, because he ended the call.
“I had a visit from one of Aslanov’s men today.”
Kristoff raised a brow, as if telling me to keep going.
How I wished I could have a poker face like him. Fact was, I felt like a colander—all my feelings poured out of me as quickly as they came up.
