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I reach the front door and kick it open. Keva is hurrying across the foyer toward us, but I barrel straight to the stairway. “Bring me something hot,” I yell. “Tea or cocoa. Now!”
When I get inside our bedroom, I place Sienna on the recliner by the balcony and wrap the blanket off the bed around her, then crouch at her feet and start removing her four-inch heels. They have little flowers on the toe part—a perfect choice for traipsing around the wet lawn and mud.
“Moya blesava mila.” Shaking my head, I rub her cold feet with my palms.
A few moments later the door behind me opens, and Jelena sets a tray with a big mug of tea and some cookies on the side table.
“Thank you. Now, leave,” I say without looking at her. My gaze is focused on Sienna’s face, which is absolutely expressionless. The only time I’ve seen her like this was at the club just before we met.
“Sienna?”
She blinks, pulls her feet out of my hands, and places them on the edge of the seat, wrapping her arms around her legs.
“I had a dog, you know?”
“Had?”
“Yes. His name was Bonbon.”
I can’t understand the actual words, but I do hear the tone of her voice. It’s strangely flat.
“What happened?”
“He died because of me.” She leans forward and sets her chin on her bent knees, looking somewhere over my shoulder. “He had kidney failure, but I was too distracted with my sister being missing to notice the signs. When I did, it was too late.”
I knew that Arturo’s sister disappeared a couple of years back, because he was inaccessible during that time, searching for her. That was when the whole shitshow with Pisano happened. I’m not aware of the specifics about what happened to the girl, aside from that she was missing for months and then ended up marrying a guy from the Bratva’s inner circle. But, I can well imagine the hell both Sienna and her brother must have gone through not knowing if their sister was alive.
“But your sister is okay?” I ask as the old wound in my heart reopens and aches.
Sienna’s eyes move to meet mine. “Yes. Asya almost died because of me, but she’s okay now.”
“What do you mean?”
“It doesn’t matter.” She quickly looks away. “What are their names? The dogs?”
I adjust the blanket around her shoulders and, not being able to resist the urge to soothe her somehow, brush the back of my palm down her cheek. “The big one is Zeus. The one with tan legs is Jupiter. And the third is Perun.”
“Named after the gods,” she says, surprising me. Zeus and Jupiter are more or less common knowledge, but not many know of the old Slavic god Perun. “I think I’ll go to sleep now if that’s okay with you.”
“Drink your tea first.”
Sienna takes the mug I hand her, and after she’s done with the tea, she disappears into the bathroom. Fifteen minutes later, she climbs into bed, clutches the pillow to her chest, and pulls the covers all the way up to her chin.
I take a seat on the recliner and watch as she lies there, unmoving, while contemplating what I just witnessed. It appears my wife is neither maniacally happy nor shallow like she pretends to be. But I’m sure that once she awakes, she’ll act as if nothing happened and continue with her carefree charade.
Sienna turns on her side, keeping a pillow tightly squeezed to her chest, as she usually does. I thought it was a habit, but now that I think about it, I realize that she only does that when I leave the bed in the morning.
I berate myself and shake my head. No woman could be so blasé about being torn away from her normal life and made to live in a house with people she doesn’t know. Married to a man who’s a complete stranger. Especially someone as young as Sienna, who has already experienced heartache in her life. Her parents were killed when she was just a little girl, and I know what kind of trauma that leaves. Then, her sister was kidnapped. And now this.
Drago, you idiot.I let her carefree act fool me. And on top of it, I tried to keep her at arm’s length because I knew she was spying on me for Ajello. God only knows what’s going on in her head and what’s hidden behind those smiles that reach her eyes only on rare occasions.
After getting up from the recliner, I strip my clothes and approach the bed. Gently, I pull away the pillow my wife is clinging to, then climb under the covers and wrap my arms around Sienna, pressing her to my body. Immediately, she buries her face in the crook of my neck. Something in her hair scratches my chin. I lean back a bit and look down to see a big yellow butterfly-shaped hairpin at the top of her head. Sighing, I carefully remove the pin from her hair and toss it onto the nightstand. She stirs, grumbling something.
“You can’t sleep with that crap in your hair, Sienna,” I say and pull her closer to me.
Chapter 10
“I’m taking you to a wedding this weekend,” Drago’s voice comes from somewhere in the bedroom.
