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“Is that your diplomatic way of saying I’m making the wrong choice?”
“Has her father revealed anything else?” asks Dmitri. “About the money.”
I get up and go to the bar, pouring a scotch for myself and one for Dmitri. “He hasn’t.”
“Not even to his daughters?”
“Neither have spoken with him since we brought him here,” I reply. “And she doesn’t seem to know about the money. She’s still focused on her mother’s killer, and now she’s talking about her mother’s rapists that had never been mentioned before.” I sigh. “Do you think you have another way to get information out of Gerald?”
“Have Viktor sneak the youngest daughter into Gerald’s room. And then listen at the door.”
I nod, uncomfortable with the deceit, but the man is ill and doesn’t have much time. Maybe hedidsay something to Paige at the hospital. But he refuses to talk to me and my men. Perhaps this idea of Dmitri’s might just work.
My mind turns to Paige’s new desire to go after her mother’s rapists. Where had that information come from? She’d never told me anything about that.
Something else must have happened while Talia held her. The rescue was too easy. And whatever Talia had planned, I followed it as if she had given me orders.
“Andrei Vasilyevich?” Dmitri takes his drink out of my hand. “It was the original plan. No matter how you may feel now, they’re here for a reason. And if you accomplish what you set out to do, you will cripple the others. No one will question your dominance.”
“They question me now,” I reply, emptying the glass. “Even my own men.”
“They don’t understand your attachment to your civilian wife.”
“When you say they, does that include you?”
Dmitri doesn’t answer and is saved by a quick knock on the door. He opens it, and Paige stands in the doorway dressed in a blue knit dress that complements the diamonds on her wrist and neck. She lifts her chin and enters, and Dmitri nods in respect. She doesn’t acknowledge him as she walks over to the bar and stands beside me.
She looks like a pakhan’s wife—one who keeps her secrets close to heart—and it gives me a chill. What did Talia do to my wife?
Dmitri shoots me a parting glance and shuts the door.
“What can I do for the lovely woman who stands beside me?” I ask in a charming tone.
She smiles tightly. “Have you done what I asked?”
“Dmitri is on the job,” I reply stiffly. “He will follow my orders.”
Paige places a hand on my shoulder. She hasn’t been affectionate since her return, except in bed, when her true nature takes over. When she’s too tired to conceal what she truly wants from me.
“How will I know that he’s done it?” she asks sweetly.
“Because he will tell me.” The tension between us grows, and a suffocating dread closes my throat. I’ve only felt this way with one other person.
“You misunderstand me,” she says. “I want proof. I want to see it myself.”
The words slam into me. Not that I haven’t heard them before. It was my father’s way of making sure that a job was done and done right. But I never thought Paige would ask for this.
I stare into her eyes, hoping it’s a bluff. “You don’t want that, Paige.”
“You can’t tell me what I want and what I don’t want. “Her mouth trembles as she steps away from me. “My mother didn’t deserve what happened to her. I want these people to know they can’t touch my family. That there are consequences.”
I step closer, crowding her body, forcing her to look at me. “Paige, you don’t have to go this far. I will take care of it.”
She shakes her head, sending tears down her cheeks. “I thought my mother was a whore. She would bring men home, not caring that my father was there and using their bedroom. Emma was too young to understand, and I kept her hidden in our room. But I could still hear them. My father could hear them. I watched him sitting in the kitchen with a bottle, drinking and doing nothing. For ten years, I thought she was screaming in pleasure, but now I know better.”
I hold Paige as she breaks down. Her face buried against my chest, her hands grabbing my lapels as she cries. Loud sobs overtake her, and I know that she’s been holding onto this pain for days. Maybe longer. I feel ashamed. I never wanted to see Paige like this, and I’m the one that caused it.
“And I want justice for her.” She trembles in my arms. “Justice that onlyyoucan give.”
