Page 89 of Reign of Psychos

“That was uncalled for,” he coughed, looking ill.

“I hate that name,” she snapped. “It triggers me.” We shared a look, both of us recalling the awful night where my father’s enforcer met with a sticky end in a creepy barn. Not that either of us regretted what happened. At least I didn’t.

Kyril placed food in front of me and I sat down, shoveling it into my mouth while Eden filled me on all the gossip from her life. She and Michael were still together. Kind of. They seemed to have an on-off relationship, which I’d long since given up offering her advice on. I had the feeling they enjoyed the makeup sex that followed an argument, which was fair. I sometimes picked arguments with Dar for that same reason.

After she’d run out of gossip, Eden disappeared to take a shower, leaving me alone with the guys.

Just as I finished my breakfast, Kyril’s phone rang. He listened for a few moments before talking in Russian. I caught him smiling, which made me curious. Kyril mostly scowled when he got phone calls since they usually related to problems.

Whoever this person was, they were apparently imparting good news.

“Everything OK?” I asked when he finished the call.

“Better than OK.” He pulled my chair out and lifted me like I weighed nothing before placing me on his lap. “That was Andrej Lev.”

“Who’s he?” I didn’t recall hearing that name before.

“The Lev brothers are associates of mine.Independent contractors, you might call them.”

“He means hit men,” Milo said while scrolling through his phone. Landon and Cassian didn’t seem surprised. Maybe they knew who the Lev brothers were.

“OK, so why did this Lev guy call you?”

Kyril dropped a kiss on my cheek before grinning smugly.

“I gave them the contract to eliminate Marku. It’s taken longer than we anticipated, but the Romanian and his allies are all out of the picture.”

“Dead as opposed to in prison?” Where my father languished. Last I’d heard, he wasn’t having a good time. Kyril told me several of his guys had transferred into the prison and were currently making my father’s life a misery. Not that I cared. He was dead to me.

“Yes. Dead. A bomb took Marku out while he was entertaining guests on his yacht moored off the coast of Constan?a.”

“Were any innocents killed?” Marku deserved to end up fish food, but I didn’t like to think the crew, or worse, any women he’d dragged on board to entertain him and his ‘guests’, had died too.

“No,kotenok. Andrej arranged for the food and drink to be drugged. He and his guys pulled the crew and girls off before setting explosives. Nobody innocent died.”

I sighed with relief. “Thank you.” Knowing Marku was still out there, searching for me, had led to a few sleepless nights. Now I could finally relax.

44

Thea

The bed was empty when I woke up. I rubbed my eyes and lay there for a moment, wondering why at least one of my boyfriends and fiancées hadn’t stuck around. So selfish. They knew how horny being pregnant made me.

Grumbling about asshole men, I shuffled into the bathroom and showered. Just as I was drying off, the door flew open and Eden stood there, grinning like a loon.

“Happy wedding day!”

I stared at her, wondering if this was a lucid dream. Did she say wedding? Surely not.

“Wedding?”

“Yes. Wedding. Now get your ass back in the bedroom. We need to sort that…” She waved a hand in the general direction of my face and hair, grimacing. “Mess out.”

“Excuse me?” Giorgio, hair stylist to the celebs, had chopped and sliced my hair yesterday. He assured me it would be easy to maintain ‘the look’, even with zero effort. Which was good because zero effort was all I had time for.

“Mùirneach, you know I love you dearly, yes?”

“No.”