Page 44 of Deceitful Promises

Aiden stands so that he’s at my side. “She’s decided. Unless you’ve hidden weapons someplace, or you’re willing to get into a fistfight over this, we’re leaving.”

“Nobody’s fighting,” I snap.

“Ania.” Dimitri stands, looking at me seriously. “Everybody misses you back home. If you want to reconnect with Molly, that’s fine. We can make that work, but not like this.”

“But …” This takes a lot for me. I’m so used to listening to Dimitri about everything. “Isn’t that my choice to make?”

“Yes, but?—”

The windows shatter, and bottles explode behind the bar. A loudboomblares, and my ears buzz like something is stuck in them. I drop to the floor, screaming, my hands over my face. What the hell just happened? Are we under attack?

CHAPTER 19

AIDEN

After liaising with my security team, I return to the bar to find it flooded with men, both mine and the Sokolov brothers. Everybody is tooled up now. Ania sits on one of the stools, her hands trembling as she brings a glass of water to her lips.

“Car bomb,” I grunt. “We all need to leave—now.”

“Car bomb?” Dimitri growls. “What the fuck sort of game is this?”

“This wasn’t me,” I snap, looking at the big man.

I’ve been around a lot of fake tough guys in my life. Dimitri and Mikhail are the real deal. I knew that the second I walked in here and saw their cold, ready stares.

“It wasn’t us,” Mikhail snaps. “Like we’d risk hurting our sister.”

“Yeah, and like I’d risk hurting …” I pause. Whatisshe to me? The woman I kissed? The woman I want to keep kissing? “Anna.”

Ania looks up when I use the English version of her name. It seems to mean a lot to her, piercing the shock coating her entire body.

“We need to be fast,” I go on. “My men will spin a story for the cops, but we can’t be seen together.”

“The Sokolovs aren’t good enough for your daddy’s business, eh?” Mikhail snaps.

I don’t rise to it. Instead, I walk over to Ania. Mikhail walks into my path. “You seriously think I’m going to let her go with you now?”

Ania slides from the stool and walks right up to me, almost into my arms. “I want to. Please.”

“Fuck,” Dimitri snaps when he hears sirens. “We’re not leaving this city until this is sorted,” he sighs, “but we have to leave, Mikhail. Just for now.”

“Leave him withher?”

“He won’t hurt me,” Ania says in a distant voice. “He’s a good person.”

She really is in serious shock.

“Fuck.”

Mikhail kicks the bar, then walks up to me, shoulders square, with a wild, capable look in his eyes. I know right away that he’s competent in serious violence. “If you even think about hurting her, it won’t be slow, Aiden. It won’t be easy. We’ll make it last a long, long time. Do you understand?”

I offer him my hand. “I’d expect nothing less.”

In a messed-up way, this is the best thing he could’ve said to me. I want Ania to have a supportive family. If I’m not here to protect her one day … One day? I’veknownher for one day!

Mikhail seems surprised, and then Dimitri steps forward and shakes my hand. “It’ll last weeks,” he says. “Months, maybe.”

“Good,” I tell him.

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