Page 91 of Sinful Promise

“That’s fine. I have to go. I’ll see you soon, Katsia,” Dasha replies.

I hang up.

“What is going on?” she asks. The concern over the conflicting information is written on her face, and her green eyes turn a shade lighter.

“I’m not sure. Katsia is your friend. Is she fucking Albert?”

“Not that I’m aware of. I think she would have told me if she were seeing him when I was still home. She’s not one to hang out with thugs. She likes a good time in the clubs, and she might have a boyfriend here or there, but most of them go to university with her.”

“I’m not sure we can trust his information.”

“But we need to know where their guards are going to be,” Dasha frets.

“We have time. They don’t know where we’re meeting yet.”

“Right. I don’t understand…”

I drop a kiss on her ruby lips. “Don’t worry. Let’s join the others. You need to eat.”

We walk into the formal dining room. The centerpiece of the room is a wine refrigerator, but it’s not a traditional appliance by any means. The wall is cooled behind the glass doors, and each bottle of decadent wine is cradled horizontally to prevent the corks from drying out. Additionally, I can see labels on the wine.

“That’s an amazing…wine bottle…” Dasha stutters a little over her words, and it’s plain that she’s never seen something so elaborate for wine storage.

The others fill their plates from a buffet before moving to the circular marble dining room table. A woman dressed in a stiff white shirt and black pants fills cups with coffee.

Before we make it to the buffet Dmitry enters.

We hug each other and Nikolay joins us.

“I didn’t know if you would make it,” I say.

“We are stronger together. We all want that man dead,” he replies.

“Good, we’re together. We need to show strength and that no one fucks with the Volkovs,” Nikolay adds stating, “Dad would be proud.”

“He would,” I agree.”

Nikolay and Dmitry talk as we walk to the buffet. “I’m sure you’re hungry Dmitry,” I say as I hand Dasha a plate. She’s suddenly shy when we take our seats. She’s around new people, and my brothers are handsome.

“Starving, I think I’m gaining weight with my wife, it’s early in her pregnancy but she craves pickles.”

Nikolay chuckles. “I can’t believe you’re going to be a dad. She’s safely tucked away in New York City, I presume.”

“Yes, we have many resources. I’m confident she’s safe or I would have never left her. It doesn’t hurt that her father is still the Don.”

Dmitry is being groomed to take over for the Don ever since he married his daughter, which is a long and bizarre story I’ll have to tell Dasha one day.

Dasha drops her napkin in her lap and eats tiny bites of food as she cautiously observes my brothers. We’ve started a war, but it’s not her fault. I’m not sure she’ll see it that way. Her family was complicit in killing our father.

Nikolay glances across the expansive table at us. “So, Dasha, how did you like the yacht?”

“It was incredible.” She meets his eyes, then looks back down at her plate.

“She must take to it. She didn’t get sick,” I say.

“That’s good. You either love it or you hate it,” he replies, trying to make her comfortable.

“I’ve never been out of my country, so it was surreal to me,” she murmurs.

---