Page 14 of His Disobedient Bride

I hate that I wasn’t there to protect her.

I wait in a fever of impatience, and I see my father let out a breath.

“What?” I bite out.

“It’s Dmitri,” he says.

“Does he have Cerise?” I growl. “Where is my wife?”

“Let him get through the protocol,” says my father.

I wait, my hands twisted around the arms of another chair.

After what feels like a fucking eternity of the taps and clicks echoing through the office, my father says, looking down at notes, “He says he was followed. The car is a wreck from having to do so much evasive driving. He had to bypass the first few safe houses to throw them off his tail, and he had to take a circuitous route to get there, but he thinks he’s killed everyone who was following them. He is now at the Taiga safe house.”

I don’t care how fucked-up the car is. I want to know about Cerise.

“My wife?” I growl.

The Pakhan spells out the code names for Dmitri and his two men.

“No one else?” I cry, what remains of my cold heart plummeting to the ground. For a moment the axis of the world turns, and an abyss like I’ve never imagined opens before me, dark, pitch-black, endless suffering.

The taps and clicks feel like they’re burrowing into my skull. Endless staccato bolts of pain.

Then my father looks up, and I see the lines on his face relax. “Yes,” he says. “He’s got Cerise with him. She’s safe.”

And the arms of the chair crack as they break under me, but I’m already out the door, down the hall, headed for my motorcycle.

11

CERISE

The day after we arrive makes me even more sure that Mary belongs in our family. She is so sweet and wonderful that I can’t help feeling a protective urge toward her.

I introduce this idea to Dmitri as Mary takes a nap in her room.

“Isn’t she lovely?” I ask. “I think we need someone around who is soft and sweet for a change. Because God knows the rest of you people are hard as nails and about as cozy as a bunch of rocks.”

Dmitri ignored this, because he has no interest in sweetness or coziness.

“What is Andrei going to think about Mary?” he asked instead.

I hesitated. “I had to save her,” I said. “I couldn’t let her just get taken by human traffickers, could I? And isn’t she wonderful, too?”

“She’s delightful,” he replied. “But your husband doesn’t trust outsiders. And after the security breach he is going to be on alert.”

“I don’t suppose you’d want to marry her,” I said, but without much hope. That would be one way to keep her safe.

“No,” said Dmitri, his eyes on me. “I don’t suppose I would.”

I sigh. I know Dmitri is. . .waiting. I don’t want to think about what he’s waiting for. And he’s even more pigheaded than his father.

“She would be an asset to the Bratva,” I try again, swirling the tea leaves around in my cup.

I feel a sinking sensation in my stomach. I only meant to save Mary from the men who were harassing her, but I am starting to worry I have trapped her for life with our brutal Russian Bratva, and she may not be able to leave.

Not what I had intended, even though I’d love for her to stay.

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