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It’s ironic that I have her now, and I still need this outlet.
If anything, I need it more than ever.
“So, what the fuck happened?” Ruslan asks as we enjoy two cold beers under the overhang afterward. We’ve mostly avoided hitting each other in the face, but below the neck, he’s going to be hurting and so am I. However, the heavy pressure in my chest is gone for the moment, replaced by a cleansing post-battle high.
“None of your fucking business,” I say, pressing the cold bottle to my sweat-drenched face. I have no intention of confiding in him about my troubles with my wife. He’d only say he told me so.
He doesn’t leave it alone. “Is it Alina?” he prods, and I grit my teeth as the tension I’ve gotten rid of creeps back in, bunching my shoulders. “Did she do something? Say something?”
Fuck this. I tip back the bottle and down the remainder of my beer before setting it on the table with a clank. “Thanks for the workout.”
If I don’t go right now, we’re going to have another one, and it won’t end in cold beers.
The shower is running when I get back to the cabin after a quick rinse and a clothing change in my office. Alina is still in the bathroom after—I frown, glancing at my phone—nearly an hour. What the fuck is she doing in there? I’m tempted to knock and demand that she open the bathroom door, but then I recall her quiet tears.
Fuck.
I scrub my hand down my face, wishing I could erase the memory from my brain. Not of the sex—I’m banking those images forever—but of the aftermath. Of the dull, illogical thrumming of guilt deep in my chest. And there’s something else, a peculiar unease that I can’t pinpoint—one that, now that I’m thinking about it, doesn’t seem directly related to Alina’s tears.
It’s like something is plucking at a string in the corner of my mind, making it vibrate out of tune. I get that feeling sometimes when there’s danger. Is that what this is? Is there something I overlooked when I took Alina from Nikolai’s compound? Could I have left behind some clue that will lead her brothers to us?
Dammit.
Leaving Alina to her mega-long shower, I turn on my heel and head back to my office.
I’m not afraid of the Molotovs. Even if Alina and I were in Moscow, parading out in the open, they wouldn’t be able to take her from me. But there would be bloodshed. Lots of bloodshed, and that’s not what I want when my marriage is so fresh and new. It’s bad enough I had to resort to violence to get my bride to honor our betrothal agreement. What Alina and I need now is time to ourselves, a long, leisurely honeymoon where we can get to know each other without the interference of her family, especially since she wouldn’t look kindly upon me if I were to kill some of said family. That’s why I settled on this yacht as a place to hide out for a while—but the plan only works if her brothers can’t find us.
Unlike in Moscow or some other stronghold of ours, I don’t have the resources here to fight off the army they’d bring.
I log on to my computer and fire off a message to our security team in Moscow. They’re keeping tabs on the Molotovs, so if Alina’s brothers are making any moves, I should know soon enough. I also tell our hackers to double-check that there’s no paper or online trail that would link this boat to us or betray its location. Then I drum my fingers on my desk, going over every recollection I have of my attack on Nikolai’s compound, trying to think of anything that could be generating this unsettled feeling.
Nobody got close enough to stick a tracker on me. Alina doesn’t have any on her either; I visually checked every inch of her skin while she was under and ran a scanner over her body to make sure. I also got rid of her clothes and anything else that could be hiding a GPS locator.
So what is it then? Why do I feel like there’s a sniper’s laser on my forehead?
Sitting back, I blow out a frustrated breath.
What the fuck am I missing?
Nothing comes to mind, so I push to my feet and go back to the bedroom cabin, where my wife is hopefully done with her shower.
Chapter 19
Alina
I’m still huddled on the tile floor of the shower, knees drawn up against my chest, when the water changes from scalding hot to moderately warm and then barely lukewarm. The sensation is unpleasant, so I get up and turn off the water before it runs fully cold.
I guess I’ve pushed the water heater on this yacht past its limits.
