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It pained me when the staff flung open the doors to greet us. I moved away from her, my demeanor going icy the way they expected, but was a shock to Reina. “Get her settled in the west suite,” I snapped, shoving her toward the wide, curving staircase.
She’d been blinking up at the crystal chandelier in the airy entrance hall, but now she blinked at me, confused by my sudden change. The hurt in her eyes pained me, but I pretended she didn’t exist once I gave my orders regarding where she was to stay, then marched to my office. I didn’t look back to make sure she was going up the stairs. I could count on my staff to see her to her suite. I had work to do, and it was safer if people assumed she was little more than a house guest, and one that wasn’t quite welcome at that.
I forgot my discomfort and the urge to race up the stairs after her when I saw my brothers waiting for me in my office. Not just Aleksei but Nicolai and Yuri as well. Things must have escalated in the three days I was gone. My fury grew as Aleksei filled me in on the newest encroachment on our territory, still intimidating the businesses that rented my many buildings.
“Don’t they understand you literally own those properties?” hotheaded Nicolai ranted. He proposed we storm the small hotel where the head of the Balakins operated, but Aleksei shot him down, still wanting us to somehow magically all work together peacefully. Yuri, who was a tax lawyer and only part of our business dealings because he shared our name, sighed and surprisingly agreed with Nicolai.
We all gaped at him. The youngest, he was the one who kept us off the government’s radar by cleaning up our records and making sure our taxes passed muster. He never got his hands dirty and normally came down more on the diplomacy side of things when we were divided. I was the deciding vote, always, and could toss all their opinions if I wanted.
“You want to gun down a bunch of old people at the Rosewell Hotel?” Aleksei asked, voice dripping with disdain.
I side eyed him. I would have wondered if he was really a Morozov if I hadn’t seen his ruthless side myself in the past. I couldn’t say he’d grown soft, far from it, but the last few years he’d been advocating more and more for peace. And we’d had a few very peaceful years, until the Balakins moved in and ruined it.
“What I want is to put a stop to this,” Yuri said. “They’re making messes we can’t clean up fast enough. We work hard to keep our business out of view, and that makes it easier to keep the right people in the right frame of mind.”
“What have you heard?” I asked. “Are we having trouble with our contacts in law enforcement? The city government?” If normal people knew how much low-down gangsters like me relied on local lawmakers they’d be shocked. If they knew how corrupt many people in their government really were, they’d cry themselves to sleep at night.
Yuri threw up his hands. “Not yet, but I can see them getting antsy if crimes keep getting connected to Russian families. No one will take the time to sort who is who, and since we’re the biggest, we’ll take the fall. Count on it.”
“We crush them, then,” Nicolai said.
Aleksei jumped in. “We’re not crushing anyone. Listen, Ivan. Trust me on this. I’ve made an appointment to meet Sergey Balakin, their leader. I think he’s as fed up as we are with his son making stupid calls. He’ll bring him to heel with the right incentives.”
I sat back and listened to them arguing amongst themselves until Aleksei clapped his hands loudly to get my attention. I cleared my throat and tried to pretend I hadn’t drifted away to my honeymoon.
“Get your head in the game, brother,” he said. “Is that woman going to be a problem?”
I stood up and grabbed his collar before he knew what was happening. I tightened my grip until he lowered his gaze. “My head is always in the game,” I told him coldly. “And that woman is now your sister-in-law, so keep a respectful tone when you speak of her.”
I dropped his shirt and he broke into a grin, turning to the others. “I told you,” he said triumphantly. “I knew you didn’t just go to Vegas for no reason.”
The three of them congratulated me heartily enough to make me blush at the brotherly affection. Then they grew serious, exchanging another look.
“But why the haste?” Nicolai asked. “You haven’t known her long.”
“You should have had me draw up a prenup,” Yuri said.
“She’s pregnant with my heir,” I said, putting a stop to their nonsense. “The baby will own everything one day, and we won’t be getting divorced, so there was no need for a prenup.”
As excited as they were to hear about the new addition to the family, I swore them to secrecy. They understood at once how vital it was to Reina’s safety that no one knew how important she was.
I told them we’d go ahead with the meeting with Sergey Balakin to see if he could get his son under control and hopefully avoid a war between our families. I had more at stake than I ever had before.
Since I’d been gone for several days, I had to check in with the club, so I ordered my best guard to keep an eye on Reina. She wasn’t to leave the house without me, and if she wanted to walk in the garden, he was to stay with her at all times. I decided not to go upstairs and explain it to her, wanting to avoid her ire. My queen was going to hate what she’d see as imprisonment, but it was for her own good. As much as I loved her spirit, too much bravery could get her in trouble and the thought of anything happening to her or the baby was untenable to me.
She would learn to deal with it, and I’d make it up to her that night in bed.
Chapter 9 - Reina
I sat on my private balcony, staring out at the waterway, keeping track of one of the boats that passed by for the umpteenth time in the three weeks since I’d been trapped there. I would have killed someone to be on that sailboat. Or out in the garden. Or at freaking Taco Bell, just to get out of the house for a while. I’d had a doctor visit me and give me a thorough exam. She announced everything was fine and gave me vitamins. I got delicious, nutritious meals whenever I was hungry and had two manicures and two pedicures, plus three full body massages and a haircut by a top stylist.
I was surrounded by books, new clothes, jewelry, shoes, and makeup palettes in my luxurious suite. Ivan’s goon Maksim, who seemed to hate his job of guarding me as much as I hated him having to do it, showed up every day with a new card or board game in an attempt to keep me from ripping my newly styled hair out. I had a computer but all social media and email was locked down on it, and I quickly grew tired of YouTube videos. I was only allowed an hour of phone time every day. I only got that because I assured Ivan that my friends, whose lives I still worried were in danger if I made an attempt to climb over the balcony and pull a runner, would tear Miami apart looking for me if I suddenly stopped communicating with them. And the phone call was monitored by either Maksim or my maid, Hetty, who was a sweetheart, but still no better than a jailer as far as I was concerned.
In short, I was kind of miserable. I couldn’t say unequivocally miserable because Ivan didn’t completely ignore me. He visited most nights, and no matter how hard I tried to resist him, he was simply irresistible. Not just in bed, which was over-the-top amazing and the only time I wasn’t ready to swing a leg over the side of the balcony, but he often ate dinner with me, sharing his day and then raptly listening to me mostly complain. He rubbed my feet, gave me head massages that rivaled the masterful way he had with his tongue.Oh boy, the things he could do with his tongue.
It didn’t make sense why he was so downright mean to me whenever anyone else was around. Even in front of Maksim and Hetty, he’d be brusque or completely ignore me. I didn’t understand it, and it hurt more than I wanted to admit to myself. Was he ashamed of me? Wish he’d knocked up someone else?
As I watched the boat on the waterway and contemplated the distance from the balcony to the patio below and my chances of making it across the vast back garden and over the high fence before Maksim tackled me, I tried not to think about the way Ivan had snapped at me the night before. The only people around were his regular goons and some of the house staff, and they’d all looked down, embarrassed for me to be treated like dirt by my husband. Sometimes I wasn't even convinced they knew we were married.
