Page 202 of Silenced

“We’ve started reserving a hotel room.”

I frown at Savannah. “Who has? You and Aidan?”

I’m not sure I even want to know. Savannah is the queen of oversharing. Doesn’t matter that our friendship has been on hiatus for a decade, she dove right back in as if we’d been BFFs for years.

“No. My sisters-in-law and I. We get together in the hotel room and that keeps the men from worrying and we have some non-penis time.”

My lips twitch. “Sounds like an idea. Nikolai’s really worried about me.”

Consistently.

Constantly.

Ceaselessly.

It’d be suffocating if I didn’t understandwhy.

After what I saw on that Moscow airfield, I get it.

“Well, they have a reason to worry about us, don’t they?” she asks, but it’s rhetorical.

I guess if anyone understands, it’s her. Aidan’s the head of the Irish Mob and Nikolai’s the head of the Russians.

We’re their weaknesses.

Comfortingly, like she knows where my mind tripped, she curves her arm around my shoulders. “Come on, let’s go buy you crazy expensive office furniture then we can head to my favorite shoe store and I’ll show you some heels that’ll drive Niko wild. He deserves it for getting rid of Rundel and for sorting that bitch out for calling you fat. What a cunt.”

My smile morphs into a grin. “Sounds like a plan.”

55

NIKOLAI

“It’sa pleasure to meet you, O’Donnelly.”

Aidan flicks a look between Cassiopeia and me and then his wife. Slowly, he holds out his hand for me to shake. When his fingers tighten around mine, I don’t let the pissing contest bother me or my fractured fingers.

Especially when we’re in his home—an apartment in one of the largest skyscrapers in the city, one from their billion-dollar front Acuig Corp.

Surprisingly, it’s not the penthouse, but the space is cavernous for all that.

“You hurt her, I’ll hurt you.”

The warning doesn’t set my teeth on edge because he means it, and my Cassiopeia deserves nothing less.

“Aidan,” Savannah hisses, nudging him in the side as she clutches at his hand. She disarms me by not chiding him for his incendiary words but, instead, by leaning onto tiptoe and kissing his cheek. “I’ll thank you for that later.”

Cassiopeia snorts at my bewildered stare. “You get used to their PDAs. I barely spent any time here and knew to approach any room, closed door or otherwise, with caution.”

Savannah, still curled into her husband’s side, beams at me. “Aidan’s only saying what I’m thinking. He’ll go the mob route, but I’ll just figure out how to send anthrax to you.”

“I’d trust her on that score. She’s more than capable of procuring it,” O’Donnelly demurs, finally relinquishing his hold on my hand.

Knowing that I’m expected to speak, as always, I’m cautious with my words. “I appreciate the protection you offer her. As unnecessary as it might be.”

O’Donnelly grunts. “Never thought I’d be hosting a Bratva Pakhan in my home after the last one canceled our dinner party.”

“You have Cassie to thank for that,” Savannah muses, eying her. “Didn’t know she had it in her.”

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