Page 96 of The Brutal Arrangement

“Yeah, like Beatrice.” Years after my brothers and I were saved because of an anonymous tip that someone called in, we learned that Father had faced multiple accounts of rumors like that, suggestions of Beatrice being unloyal.

“It’s not going to change anything,” John predicted. “Because we know Lucy is loyal. She’s not a liar or a spy.”

I nodded. “Of course. Of course, she isn’t.” I wasn’t stating that because I loved her but because it was a fact. She’d proven it. I had no grounds to doubt her. “Maxim knows that too.”

“And the men at the building do too. We all do.”

I nodded, but something bothered me about Anton going so far to lie about this situation. Perhaps John was hitting the nail on the head. There was a very good chance that Anton was just trying to stir up trouble, maybe as belated retaliation for his niece to have thwarted his plans.

“I don’t like this,” I admitted.

“Then go home.” John dipped his chin. He wasn’t ordering me. He would never. But he saw how bothered and distracted I was. “I can handle this if you’d like. Or I can stand by until Maxim and Saul can come after they’re done with the others.”

“That’s not a bad idea.” The only good idea I could latch on to was going to Lucy and seeing with my own eyes that she was all right. If news of this call reached her, the last thing she needed was the stress about anyone potentially revisiting the worries of her being a spy or enemy.

She couldn’t be the enemy. She was my wife. The mother of my child.

“Does Maxim know about this?” John asked.

I shook my head. “No. I just got the call and it sounded like he was instructed to inform me straightaway. Hell, maybe that was the standing order.” Lucy was supposed to be mine to control and question. But she turned out to be the one for me to protect and love instead.

“Go ahead,” he suggested again. “I’ve got this.”

“I will. Thank you.” I patted him once on the back as I walked away, backpedaling to give him one last wave. “Contact me if you need to.”

“Don’t worry about it. Go. Go check on her.”

I sighed, nodding to myself as a couple of men gave me questioning looks. They flanked me on the way back to the car, and the driver didn’t challenge me about the order to get home as soon as possible.

The moment we pulled up to the building, I ran out, anxious just to see Lucy. This was how a woman could be a fatal distraction. With too much of my concern concentrated on her, I could be diverted from something else going on. If an enemy saw how much Lucy mattered to me, they could use that against me. Against the family.

As soon as I entered the building and saw my father snarling and pacing, livid, I worried that something else was going on here.

That the danger wouldn’t present from outside the family.

But from within.

He turned, spotting me. His chest heaved as he breathed through his anger. Stalking up close to me, he lifted his hand as if to strike out at me.

I’d never hit my father. He was myfather. Before the poisoning changed him, he was my boss. The one I’d always respect and obey.

But this wasn’t the same man. He closed in on me, and the second I saw his eyes, so unfocused and wild, I knew he wasn’t even in control of himself. Painful aches hit me that he might not be aware of who he was anymore. Whatever was bothering him wasn’t something we could change. This was a disease of the mind, similar to what Lucy probably had to witness with her mother. And it was fucking heartbreaking.

“Grigory. No!”

A guard rushed up, panicked that my father was about to hit me hard.

I held my hand out to stop him from interfering, catching my father by the forearm and turning him into a simple lock. He wasweaker from being poisoned, then in a coma and sedated. While he wasn’t a small man, I was bigger and fitter.

“Stop,” I said as calmly as I could.

He didn’t listen, fighting me and struggling to break free.

“You go and kill that whore!” he shouted. Spittle flew from his mouth as he repeated it three more times, louder each round.

“I order you to go and kill that fucking spying bitch!”

I held him, tense at his choice of words. If I hadn’t just heard Anton’s voice in a message saying something about Lucy being a spy and referencing her with that crude label, I wouldn’t have wanted to snap.

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