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“That’s good to know, Gladys,” I interrupted Gladys in full flow. “I’m sure you’re doing a fine job. Can we see Mara?”
She looked thrown for a moment before recovering.“Of course, you can. I’ll show you to her room.”
Gladys bustled off, and Mallory turned to me with an urgent look. That look made something simmer in my chest that I couldn’t look at too closely.
“Let’s go,” I said dismissively, struggling not to meet her probing look.
Mallory caught my wrist and used both hands to tug me to a stop. “Did you move my mother into the nicest nursing home in the state and bring my favorite nurse to look after her?” Her voice cut through the cold in my chest and made me feel things I didn’t know how to deal with.
“Don’t flatter yourself. I didn’t do it for you,” I said curtly.
She narrowed her eyes and shrugged. “Why then?”
“Because Rafael Navarro from the Blue Rabbit called to tell me a woman named Gladys was desperate to get through to you. Because no matter if you’re giving me the silent treatment, Mara Madison didn’t do anything wrong. She’s the only innocent in all this.”
“Since when do you care about innocence? Why are you lying?” she demanded.
I glowered at her, wishing I’d never brought her. “Even monsters have a code, Mallory. If you want to see her, you’ll move your ass, or we’ll leave, and you won’t be back to visit – ever.”
Mallory bit down her words with an effort. I could practically see them piling up behind her lips. She shook her head as if trying to get a grip. Dropping my hand, she turned on her heel and stalked off through the lobby after Gladys.
I followed slowly in her footsteps. The place where her hand had touched mine seemed to burn.
* * *
I leftMallory sitting beside her mother. She had tears in her eyes, making them shine like jade. She should have looked ridiculous, like a dime store prom queen, in a diaphanous dress with an enormous hoodie on top, but she didn’t. She looked so beautiful that keeping my eyes off her was challenging.
I answered a call as I headed out of the building after warning Mallory I’d be back in half an hour. I bit back a sigh when I saw my brother’s name on the display.“What is it?”
“Privet,motherfucker, to you too,” Nikolai said.
“What do you want?”
“Can’t a brother call another to chat,”
“A brother can. A brother like you? No.”
Niko chuckled. “You’re such a misery, Kirill. I don’t know how your little captive puts up with it.”
Ice slid down my spine. “Are you writing bad fanfiction about my life again?”
“I wish I was. I’d make something more exciting happen. I suppose the plot needs time to thicken.”
I ground my teeth so hard they ached. “Don’t threaten me, Nikolai. It won’t end well for you.”
“Does Sofia know you’re holding some poor innocent woman in your penthouse? I wonder what her father would think, considering everyone knows you two are getting married.”
Fuck.This again. I still hadn’t found a way to extricate myself from the arranged match with Sofia De Sanctis—a match neither of us wanted. I’d die before I married her, something my brother might be happy to make a reality.
“You’re bitter about this. If you want Sofia so badly, why don’t you take her? Force her father’s hand. I’m sure he’d take any Chernov over none.”
“Kirill, if I didn’t know better, I’d think you were trying to get me into trouble with Viktor and Antonio De Sanctis. He’s not someone I want on my bad side,” Nikolai said.
I should have guessed Niko wouldn’t be easily manipulated. Even though he had some kind of fixation with Sofia, he wasn’t about to blow his chances of becoming boss for her.
“Speaking about Viktor, he wants an update,” Niko continued. “He’s decided you need closer watching. Tomorrow, at the warehouses.”
I bit down a curse at the thought of seeing Niko and my father tomorrow. It was my duty to keep up the façade that I didn’t want to kill the men who were my personal demons.
