Page 69 of The Enemy's Defector
“I understand what you mean,” Saul told Maxim. “It does feel like before, when you guys were taken.”
It had always stood out to me that he wasn’t taken with us. Only three of us—not all four brothers—had been captured then and almost executed.
“And it’s too bad we can’t rely on a tip like before,” he said.
Someone had come to tip off Father about our being killed, and that was how he’d diverted his efforts to find us, just in time.
In this situation, though, I had to suffer some regret and guilt. If a tip could have popped up to point us in the right direction, it would’ve come from me. It would’ve been something I could overhear and share from being among the enemies.
But that hadn’t lasted.
“That was why I stayed away,” I told them all. “I stayed captured so I could listen and pick up a clue like this, to learn the identity of who ordered my capture. I’d only been able to learn that there was a connection between the men who escaped the night our father was poisoned and the men who moved me around. That was enough to tell me that whoever hired the men for the poisoning had to be the same person who’d ordered me to be captured.”
Maxim smirked. “Are you trying to say that you regret being saved?”
I shot him a sarcastic glare. While he seemed to be teasing me, I took it as a sign he might be warming up to Katerina and becoming more open to her being part of our family.
“No,” I replied dryly. “I don’t regret anything where Katerina is involved.”
Actually, that was a lie. I regretted staying away from her after our fight.
It wouldn’t be long before I could head home and reconcile with her. And when I did, I would make sure that she understood I loved her way too much to ever stay mad at her for long. Our marriage hadn’t started without its hiccups, but so long as she would always meet me in the middle, we would last forever.
29
KATERINA
Joann’s presence helped a lot. Just having her here as a mediator calmed me, and Lucy seemed more open to listening to me and not being so defensive. While Joann was calling herself a guest, she didn’t seem interested in settling in. As far as I was concerned, she was just the newest member of the household who was going to make it her mission, alongside Sloane, to help me and Lucy figure out a truce.
We were sisters now, but we were slow to get there and act like it.
Lunch didn’t end up being as tense as I feared it would. We all talked. And joked. The humor might have seemed dark at times, but with all that we had to face and deal with, it helped to laugh whenever we could.
Lucy told me and Joann more about how she came here and adjusted to being Damon’s wife. She painted the picture of a woman who learned to love and trust, and it was clear she was a happily married and pregnant woman now. Her bashful smiles proved how she truly felt about being Mrs. Ivanov—one of them, at least.
With what I knew of Damon the Demon, it surprised me that such a sweet, quiet, and almost docile woman like my former maid could make him happy. He was always so dark and foreboding, too tense and serious. I supposed that was what they meant when they said opposites attract.
“You were astripper?” Joann asked when it was Sloane’s turn to introduce herself more and let Joann know where she’d come from.
While Joann was an older woman and certainly more old-fashioned, she wasn’t a prude.
Sloane nodded. “Don’t tell me that you can’t tell already!” She exaggerated a look over herself, smiling at her visible baby bump. I could tell that she was proud of her body, so slender and athletic yet curvy where men liked women to be.
Or maybe that’s the pregnancy too.
At her adorable smile at her stomach, I wondered when I would start showing. I couldn’t help but smile too, excited at the idea of having a bump and showing the world I was about to be a mother. Without any siblings and never having a mother, then also losing my father, I felt starved for a family. Becoming a mother mattered a great deal to me. It was one thing to feel pregnant, but I bet it’d be something else entirely when I wouldlookpregnant.
“I worked way too hard to lose my body this fast,” Sloane joked.
“Oh, you’re still hot,” Lucy said. “And not even puking anymore.” She grimaced.
“Is the morning sickness that bad?” I asked her.
It seemed like a tentative connection I could lean on to build these fragile friendships. All three of us were newlyweds and all three of us were pregnant.
Lucy nodded, seeming miserable about it. “Isn’t it for you?”
I shook my head. “Not yet.”
