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After some silence, Elia finally looked at me again. This time, she held her gaze slightly longer. “You’re thinking about something, aren’t you?”
“I am,” I admitted. “I think that our marriage is being used in another matter.”
“Like what?”
As a way for me to be distracted by you. As a way for my uncle to get me conveniently out of the way. As a way for me to fall so deeply for you that I might even consider abandoning all of this.
But I couldn’t very well say any of those things. Not to her.
And just then, the same haunting refrain sounded again.Let’s fly away together, Aleks. Just you and me.
“I don’t know,” I finally said. “I don’t know what our marriage is being used for, but it’s being used for something.”
She looked up, and this time she did not look away. “Do you know when a threat is no longer a threat, Aleksey?”
I shook my head.
“When the threat no longer has teeth.” She drew in a breath. “That is what I think. I’m the sole Tarallo heir. By bringing us together, there is no more threat to the futures of our families from each other. Together, we might face off against a greater threat. One that threatens all of us equally.”
She wasn’t wrong. If we were fighting each other, then it would be easy for some third party to start worming their way into one side or another. My father was dead. Her brother was dead. To the outsiders looking in, both sides looked unstable at best.
“Like who?” I asked. “Your friend in the DA’s office?”
“No,” she replied. “Someone else. Someone worse.”
“Who could be worse than the law for people in our world?” I asked.
Elia stood up suddenly and walked to the bank of windows, looking out over the busy city below.
“Maybe someone who plans tousethe law to achieve their ends,” she said.
I joined her, reaching out and pulling her against my body, surprised to feel her tremble in my arms. “You’re trembling.”
She took a shuddering breath. “I think there’s something far greater at play here. Something that is about far more than just the rivalry between our two families. Whatever it is, it’ll require both of us.”
“Have any ideas?” I asked, resting my chin on top of her head. I agreed with everything she was saying.
Elia gasped. “Oh God.”
I turned her in my arms and saw the panic on her face. “What is it?” I asked more urgently. I didn’t like the look on her face.
“Your uncle,” she swallowed, as if the words were hard to say. “He must intend to use me to make an heir…One that might stand to inherit both families’ legacies. One that he could control. He married me to you and brought you back here because…because then he’d be close tome.”
Realization struck me like a bolt of lightning, and suddenly I was glad that I was holding tightly to Elia.He wouldn’t…I thought bitterly.He wouldn’t dare do something like this.
“That must be it,” Elia continued. “Why else would he undermine you like this? Why else would he seek to make you look incapable of controlling your own Bratva? He’s planned this all down to the smallest detail. And once you’re gone…he’ll…he’ll…”
I held her close as rage simmered under my skin. Of all the things that I thought Uncle Misha might do, this was the lowest of the low. He reallydidthink that he could put his hands on what was mine. First it was the Bratva, and nowmy wife.
If you dare touch her, Uncle, I will tear you apart with my own hands. If you so much as evenlookat her wrong, I will end you.
“He wouldn’t dare.”
“What else could it be?” she whispered, looking away. “He practically has everything he needs. Soon, he won’t need you. And without you to protect me…” Her voice broke. “I’ll be at his mercy.”
I swore as I pulled her tightly against me, my mind whirling with possibilities, each one worse than the last. But what Elia said made sense. It made perfect sense.
Uncle Misha had already sunk his claws into my mother, but she couldn’t give him the heir that he needed. What shedidgive him was the air of legitimacy. Everyone still knew Raissa as Fyodor’s wife, the dowager queen of the Bratva. Uncle Misha’s ring on Mother’s finger meant that he would be associated with her. But my mother was never his goal. She could never give him an heir.
