Page 119 of Silenced

Vindicated in the faith I have for him, I whisper, “He said that they were engaged.”

Niko utters another growl, sounding more feral than ever, but it’s Dmitri who chuckles. “I told Niko that you were fucking stupid, Pavlivshev, but this just confirms it. Put him down, Pakhan. He’ll be less trouble dead than alive.”

“You can’t just kill him,” I choke out, but it isn’t horror that makes my voice hoarse.

“Why can’t he?”

Nikolai and Dmitri both skewer me with their focus, a silent question hovering between us.

My mouth works as I try to put together a reasonwhyNiko can’t kill this man, then I come up with nothing other than, “Politics?”

Niko grunts, but it’s Dmitri who explains, “You were dishonored. Nikolai has claimed you as his own, Cassiopeia. Politics dictate that he returns honor to you.”

“What is this? A Regency romance?” I sputter, then I glower at the man in question who must be as nuts as Nikolai because he’s only gasping at the chokehold he’s in, not pleading for his life. “Sure, he was…rude,but you can’t kill people because they’re rude to me, Niko!”

That’s when the overly loud crick of a neck being snapped echoes around the garden.

As the man falls to the ground, a limp tangle of limbs, Niko manages to grind out, “Who says that I can’t?”

Which is when I know how deeply I’ve fallen into his web.

Because he holds out his arms for me, beckoning me toward him to take comfort in him, and I don’t runfromhim.

I runtohim.

Stockholm syndrome or not, his arms, I recognize, are the only place where I truly do feel safe.

Even with, or maybebecause of, the corpse lying at his feet.

29

NIKOLAI

A WEEK LATER

Cassiopeia struggleson my lap until I slide an arm around her waist and draw her deeper into me. The struggles change, then they shift. She glowers though she has to know it won’t work.

“We’re in a restaurant,” she bites off.

Amused by her orneriness, I ignore her and settle her onto my thigh again when she tries to stand.

Upon the server’s arrival, I can see her mortification, but the waitress knows better than to look anywhere other than me.

“Are you ready to order, sir?” she says, tone oozing politesse.

Locking my eyes with Cassiopeia’s, I sign our drinks order and point to our selections from the menu.

Once she’s faded away, Cassiopeia turns to me with a frown. “Do you own this place?”

My lips quirk; I’m impressed she picked up on the veiled fear in the server’s politeness.

She takes that for the confirmation it is. “Do you own everything in Miami?”

“Eighty percent of Miami Beach, forty percent of the outer city,” I inform her, mostly because I’m curious about her reaction.

“No way.” When I arch a brow at her certainty, confusion puddles into her expression. “But…”

“But?”

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