Page 103 of The Brutal Arrangement

“Then you are arranged to marry a bride who swapped at the last minute,” he teased, elbowing me. “And now you’re wondering if Nik is getting stupid to pursue a woman while he is held hostage?” He shook his head, chuckling again. “Don’t look at me. I like my life the way it is.”

“Famous last words, Brother,” Maxim said as my phone rang.

I took it out of my pocket, furrowing my brow at the screen showing Lucy calling. I really hadn’t taken that long in the basement…

“Lucy?” I answered.

“Hurry! Please come up here. She’s spotting and dizzy and—Hurry! We need to get Sloane to the doctor!”

We ran up the stairs. The moment for jokes with my brothers was over.

Once more, I was on edge and tense as danger loomed too close for comfort again.

39

LUCY

Chaos ensued.

As if the hellish experience of Grigory being delusional and ordering me to be killed wasn’t enough for one day, Sloane freaked me out in the apartment.

It was all my fault. In hindsight, now that I could relax with Damon in bed a couple of hours later, I realized that.

“It’s all my fault,” I told him, covering my face with my hands.

He chuckled, pulling me against him. “Trust me, it’s not.”

“It’s my fault Maxim’s making her marry him now!”

Shaking his hand, he held me closer to entice me to calm down and sleep with him. Sleep was the furthest thing from my mind after the day I’d had. I wasn’t keyed up and full of too much energy because of the fear from my father-in-law accusing me of being a spy.

It was the commotion that came from spending time with Sloane.

I didn’t need to think too hard about why Damon told me that he had something to take care of after he got me out of the dungeon in the basement. That kind guard down there, the one who’d put me in a cell and told me not to worry while he shoved the other two guards in another cell, hinted at retribution coming for those who’d obeyed Grigory in the state he was in.

My husband, my protector, intended to punish those two guards who hadn’t listened to me beg in the elevator. That pair of Ivanov men had signed their death sentence when they listened to a crazed man order me to be taken away.

I knew, without having to dwell on it, that when Damon told me he had business to take care of that he was going down there to kill those two men. Maxim and Saul had gone with them. I glanced over my shoulder to see the brothers head off as a team, but Sloane tried to distract me, keeping me company in the apartment.

“Does it ever…” I winced, unsure how to even ask her this.

“Does it bother me that they kill others?” She nodded. “At first, it did. I’m like you, Luce.”

I loved how she shortened my name. It was a true sign of her seeing me as a friend—as if her standing up for me to Anastasia wasn’t proof enough.

“I wasn’t born into this Mafia stuff. I was just a nobody. A stripper. Just an ordinary woman trying to survive.”

That was how I saw myself, too. Pulled into this violent world but lacking the inherent understanding of it all.

“But when I realized that Maxim only killed to protect me, it changed my perspective.” She sighed, squeezing me closer to herside. “It’s a work in progress. That’s the most I can say about living in this family. You take it day by day and just…” She shrugged.

“I know.” And deep down, I wasn’t burdened with guilt that those two men were being killed right now. I hadn’t done anything to ensure they’d die by my husband’s hands. They’d chosen to deny me help. They decided not to call Maxim or Damon and see if they should follow Grigory’s orders. They were facing the consequences oftheiractions, not mine.

Sloane was perceptive, though, and as I let her into my apartment, she was quick to realize how it did weigh on me. She was chatty and funny, distracting me, but at no time did she mock me or humor me.

We started by walking around with me showing her the renovations I envisioned for a nursery room, and she gave me her pointers and ideas too. Like two pregnant women brainstorming, we’d passed the time with a companionship I’d never dared to think I could find.

After we moved to the couch and sat back to relax, waiting for Damon and Maxim to come up to us, she decided to make some popcorn. I didn’t have much of an appetite, but I told her to help herself.

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