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I hate the way I all but run back into the bedroom. Fear keeps me in the doorway.
“Yes?”
“Where’s my coffee?” An eyebrow goes up.
Twisting my fingers together, I shrug. “I can pack a bag to go with Milos—”
The bastard shakes his head, the grin is so very, very wicked. “How many times, my dear wife, do I have to say I’ll never let you go? Come here.”
I’m across the room to the bed. A strong hand catches mine and tugs me down onto him. “My beautiful wife, Milos will never take you from me. If he tries, I will kill him.”
A shiver runs through me at the placid way he says it. It’s the lack of emotion that screams he means it. “You would kill your brother if he…”
“Yes, which is why he would never. You are my woman. The same way I would never take his woman from him, he would not attempt it. He is overprotective, that’s all. Even then, he knew enough not to touch you.”
Lost in the shock of it all, I miss Aleksander saying my name until I hear him repeat it at least twice. “Huh?”
“I asked you if you were okay.”
“Not really. You’re acting like it’s not a big deal you would kill your brother because of me. I don’t even like your brother, but it’s messed up.” My eyes wander over his chest, at last seeing what I somehow missed before. “What is that?”
The wickedness is gone from his grin. “What does it look like?” He answers my question with another.
“It looks like you have a tattoo of a phoenix on your chest.” I can’t believe what I’m seeing.
His nod is slow. “All of my brothers have a variation of a phoenix somewhere on them. For Milos it’s on his left bicep. When Milos went to my father and told him we needed to get out of trafficking and our father accepted his decision, it clicked for him that soon he would run everything. We all would run our kingdom as a whole. The time had come for us to burn down the old ways. In times between harvest and new planting, farmers burn their fields in an efficient method of clearing the old for the new. It’s why we went with the phoenix as a testament to our commitment to do things differently than our father before us.”
“When did you get this?” I whisper as I trace the edge of the tattoo with a finger.
“This year it’s been fifteen years. None of us wanted to be involved in trafficking. Deep down, we knew it was wrong. Yet we were raised with the belief we were simply continuing on with how things have always been done. Like there are some families known for banking, there are others known for having the best drugs, we were known for our ability to get women and guns anywhere they were wanted. It wasn’t until Milos handled a shipment, just one, and he shut it all down. He told our father the shipment was lost but we all knew it was Milos who lost the shipment on purpose. Our father was careful never to let us see the trafficking. He knew if we did we wouldn’t be able to keep doing it.”
Hearing him talk of the trafficking sends my eyelids down. His father, oh god, he said his family owed me. The tears fall without me being aware of it. “Your family, your father. He sold me, didn’t he? When my sperm donor of a father sold me to him, it was your father who handled it. Didn’t he?”
He doesn’t say anything for so long I give up and open my eyes. Those golden eyes are soft as they trace over me. When our eyes meet he nods just once.
I lay my head down on Aleksander’s chest and let the tears fall.
“I’m sorry,malyshka. So very sorry.”
CHAPTER19
Aleksander
I thought she knew. Fucking hell, I really thought she knew. All of her anger was because of Ray. It clinches my decision. “I can’t tell her. She’s not ready. She might never be ready.”
Nikita prowls around the room, Damien has his shoulder against the wall next to my bed, and Maxim is leaning against the glass wall of the bedroom. Milos sighs as stares at me from beside my bed. “She could find out another way. Have you considered the downside of her finding out without you telling her?”
“Of course. If there comes a time when I think she can handle it, I will.”
“Lie to her, but lying to yourself is going to get you shot again,” Nikita growls at me before turning on Milos. “I cannot believe you’re going to let her stay married to him.”
Milos chuckles. “Funny you tell him not to lie to himself. Yet, you also speak of your upcoming wedding with annoyance we all are aware you don’t feel.”
“Speaking of weddings, she wants to marry before we go back to New York. Ivan has muttered dumb shit like she might not need to marry me after all. She’s scared he’ll try and take her from me. She and Mother are out shopping for a dress now.”
“Was that youaskingfor permission ortellingus you’re going to marry the girl?” I wonder aloud as I study Nikita.
His shrug says it all. “She’s young but she’s not a girl. She’s my woman. I might not even take a mistress for a few years.”
