Page 13 of His Disobedient Bride

I waited, my heart starting to hammer now. I waited for what felt like a long time and then I heard the sound of a car coming in our direction. Except for Mary’s gentle snores, it sounded like the only noise for miles. There was a gentle but extremely firm twang sound, and then a terrific screeching of brakes and the sound of a car rolling over an embankment, turning on its side and smashing every tree on the way down a steep hill.

I heard the sound of glass shattering and then silence.

Dmitri got back in the car.

I was pretty sure this meant that no one was following us anymore, but I didn’t ask and Dmitri didn’t explain.

The next morning, we arrived at the farthest safe house. It was a luxurious three-story cabin up against the Taiga, Russia’s huge snow forest. I looked out the window to see endless bright evergreen trees and brilliant blue rivers. It felt like a part of Russia that everyone else had forgotten about. Of course, even a safe house that hadn’t been used in years had to be the absolute height of luxury and power for the Petrovics. This was no unused and dusty shack, and it was obviously regularly maintained by Grigoriy in case it was needed.

Dmitri and the men did a check of the house while Mary and I stayed in the car, but it was safe, clean, and fully stocked. I was happy to stretch my legs once he let us get out. There was a huge yard that swept up to the house and the forest right to the back of the cabin, with a terraced garden that separated the wide flat front lawn from the back lawn that went steeply up to the forest.

Then Dmitri went to send a message to the Pakhan that we were all right, and Mary and I went inside. We’d be here at least a night or two.

I was relieved to be able to finally take a shower, and then Mary and I dug around the kitchen to see what we could cook. I wasn’t the best cook in the world, but Mary took stock of the kitchen and then said practically, “potato soup.”

Damn. I liked her practicality. No complaining about what couldn’t be helped. This had to be a weird and unnerving experience for her, getting thrown into a limousine and taken across half the country into the Taiga.

And here she was, starting to peel potatoes and get blocks of cheese from the fridge.

Although she was still nervous, dropping a few potatoes on the ground, she was able to focus on the task at hand.

The more I talked to Mary, the more I liked her. She dressed like she wanted to hide her body, in extremely baggy, unpleasantly-colored skirts and tops. But she was tall and willowy, with that lovely thick auburn hair and green eyes of an unusual, vivid color. Her skin was creamy and glowing and, unlike me, she had long, elegant arms and legs and a flat stomach. Under her nerves and fears she was a kind, sweet person, too.

I briefly considered her for Dmitri. But he was such a stoic, taciturn kind of person. He would be more likely to frighten her than anything else.

She was just the sort of woman Frederik needed. Someone who wasn’t after his money, someone creative, someone who would be cool and practical about the fact that Frederik benefited from a brutal, vicious Bratva organization.

If only he wasn’t so pigheaded about getting married.

10

ANDREI

Where the fuck could Dmitri be? I wonder, torturing myself over and over with the same fears about Cerise, letting the terror scrape up and down my skin like I’m being flayed open with a whip.

I have barely eaten in days. Ever since the day of the attack. I can’t eat, I can’t sleep.

I don’t know where Cerise is.

No matter how many times my father assures me that Dmitri must have taken her with him, it is torturing me not knowing where she is.

Dmitri and his men are the only senior members of the Bratva who are unaccounted for. The procedure is for him to check in when it is safe, using code. The fact that he hasn’t checked in yet means that either it hasn’t been safe or he is dead.

And Dmitri better fucking not be dead if he’s the only one there to protect Cerise.

The idea that she might be somewhere, hurt or taken or dead, is unendurable to me. The fear claws at my brain, digs into my skull.

I am in the weapons room compulsively cleaning my knives and guns. There is an ongoing investigation into the security breach, but I can’t focus on anything except finding Cerise. It’s clear that Boris was killed to ensure his silence, but I am sure there is one more, perhaps still in our organization, who betrayed us for money. We may have to go through every single person even remotely connected to the Bratva to find out who it is.

Suddenly I hear the intercom in the corner crackle, and my father’s voice comes through it.

“There’s a call in code coming in,” he says, and I’m immediately out of my chair and heading down to his office.

When I arrive my father is starting to translate the code, the taps and clicks on the other end of the line loud in his office. He knows the code by heart, doesn’t even need a key to know what’s being said, but he copies out the code carefully. The person on the other end repeats each word twice, to make sure he’s gotten it.

It’s fucking got to be Dmitri on the other end of the line. No one else could be so infuriatingly slow and deliberate.

And if Cerise is unhurt, it will be because Dmitri saved her. Not me.

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