Page 63 of Bloody Lace

Because he’s not. Not one of them is. If anything, Gus just proved that by how quickly he took out two of those men, if that’s really who they belonged to. And I’ll find out soon enough. I fire off a text to Vik as I pace my office, gritting my teeth as I wait for Gus to get back with Evelyn.

If only she’d fucking listened to me.Why can’t she listen?

But the truth is, I don’t think I’d feel the way I do about her if she did. Her fire, her independence, even her infuriatingstubborn streak all contribute to the ways she drives me absolutely fucking insane—and make me wonder if I’m really going to be able to let her go when the time comes.

Of course I will.Thinking anything else is ridiculous. There’s never been a woman in the world that I haven’t been able to walk away from, and Evelyn Ashburn should be no different. Even if every muscle in my body is currently strung tight, thinking about the fact that something could have happened to her. That something almostdidhappen to her.

And he said that it had something to do with Nicci, at that goddamned lunch that I didn’t want Evelyn to go to in the first place. He said she got away, fleeing in a different car while Gus was focused on taking down the men that tried to grab Evelyn.

My jaw clenches even tighter, fury churning through me at the thought that the conniving bitch I almost married is somehow caught up in Valenti’s scheming. That she’s so unwilling to let me go that she’d let herself get wrapped up in this.And how? Did they approach her? I can’t imagine she had the balls to go to them.

I’ll find out soon enough. Vik and the men he trusts the most will find out who else was with the men Gus shot today, and they’ll bring at least one of them to me. And then, no matter how much blood I have to spill to do it, I’ll get answers.

I’ll find out why the hell they thought they could get away with coming after mywife.

Somewhere in the back of my mind, I’m aware that I’m furious about this for what should be all the wrong reasons. My anger has very little to do with the fact that the Yashkov authority in this territory is being threatened, and more to do with the fact thatEvelynis being threatened. She shouldn’t be my first priority, not when our marriage is nothing but a sham. But she is.

I know she is. And until the moment that I hear the front door open and Gus’s heavy boots in the foyer, she’s the only thing on my mind.

The moment I hear their voices, I stride out of my office, intent on making sure Evelyn is alright. I see her taking off her coat and boots, and my gaze instantly snags on the dried blood coating the back of one of her legs.

“What the fuck?” My voice carries, and they both instantly look over at me. “L’vitsa, are you hurt?”

Evelyn shakes her head. “It’s from the other guy.” There’s a clear attempt at humor in her voice, but I hear the way it shakes, just a little. I can see that her cheeks are paler than they should be, rather than rosy from being out in the cold. Her hands are trembling slightly when she sets her boots aside, and it’s the way all of that tugs at my chest that makes me react the way I do, as much as anything else.

I can’t afford the way this woman is starting to make me feel. Now, more than ever, I can’t afford to be weak. And that’s what love is. A weakness that gets you killed.

“Evelyn.” I stiffen my spine, taking a step backwards. “I want to talk to you upstairs.”

She narrows her eyes, but whether she’s too shaken up from what happened to argue, or just doesn’t want to argue in front of Gus, she nods.

I turn on my heel and stalk towards the stairs, my own hands balling into fists as I think of what nearly happened. Of how someone tried to take her from me.

When I hear the sound of her feet coming up the stairs, I have to resist the urge to go to her. To pull her against my chest, wrap her up in my arms, and tell her how it would have ripped my heart out to have lost her. How I would have cut a bloody swath across New York to get her back.

But that will help neither of us.

“I should have tied you to the bed when I had the chance earlier.” The words come out rougher than I intended, rasping from my lips. The thought sends an instant jolt of arousal through me, even as I try to quell it. This isn’t the time for that—but my cock twitches all the same, my body suddenly prickling with awareness of the fact that I told her to come talk to me in the bedroom.

“You could have tried.” Evelyn tips her chin up. “I’m going to change. We can argue about this when I’m done.”

A sharp laugh bursts from my lips, at the same moment that my cock jerks against my fly again at the thought of her naked. The casual way she tellsmewhen we’re going to talk about something, as if she hasn’t the slightest idea of who I am, is both infuriating and arousing all at once. As is the fact that Iknowshe knows she shouldn’t speak to me that way. That no one else speaks to me that way, and lives.

She just doesn’t care.

She walks past me, yanking open a dresser drawer and grabbing a pair of leggings and a t-shirt. And my stomach tightens, imagining her stripping off her clothes in the next room. A door between me and all of my wife’s bare, smooth skin. Skin that I feel like I’m dying to touch.

Before I can fully think about what I’m doing, I take a few quick steps backwards, flipping the lock on the bedroom door. Evelyn hears the click and her gaze shoots to it, her eyes narrowing.

“What are you doing?” she asks sharply, holding the clothes in her hands closer to her.

“We’re going to argue about this now,” I tell her firmly, closing the distance between us once again. “And if you want to take off your clothes, you can do it right in front of me.”

“We talked about this. We’re not?—”

“And I told you there were things we could do that won’t have consequences. Or are you regretting what happened up on the roof last night?” My chest tightens when I say it, because I don’t want to hear her sayyes. Something in me feels like it can’t take hearing her say she regrets anything that’s happened between us, and that’s a dangerous feeling to have.

It’s one I should be trying to get rid of, instead of feeding it like this.

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