Page 36 of His Disobedient Bride

I can see my husband’s face and it’s paralyzed with horror. I feel my heart sinking into my shoes. Frederik is not an angry man, but he is going to be furious with me.

For one tense second, it feels like mass violence and death hang in the air like a thick smog.

Then I see Cerise move.

She reaches me quickly, grabbing Vadim’s greasy hair and slamming his head down onto a nearby desk. She’s so fast he doesn’t even have a chance to react, and, despite the fact that he is much taller and bigger than her, she strikes again, slamming his head down on the desk a second time. I hear her rip the chunks of hair from his head.

Andrei is already moving, halfway to us now, but Vadim’s knife clatters uselessly away under the desk as he slumps to the ground.

Cerise whirls on me then before anyone else can reach us, backhanding me sharply across the face as she shouts at me in Russian.

I stagger back, my cheek smarting, but she doesn’t even let me fall. She grabs me by the hair and holds me there.

Goddamn, you wouldn’t think she’d be this strong.

Then she’s throwing up her other arm and talking in an exasperated tone to Pyotr. She points at me, throwing her arm up and shaking her head.

I see Pyotr watching her closely. Cerise shakes me by the hair then, so hard I feel my teeth rattling in my skull. I reach my hands up to protest and she slaps me again, another sharp, cruel burst of pain against my cheek.

She gestures to Dmitri, and I see him open a box next to Pyotr. I don’t get a very good view of it, but it looks like another egg, this one navy blue with what looks like some sort of Imperial symbols or markings on it.

Andrei says nothing, his eyes flicking rapidly between Cerise and Pyotr. Vadim does not rise, only crawling away, with his hand on his head.

Pyotr Zharkov doesn’t look happy, but his voice sounds reluctantly in some kind of agreement. He is obviously quite taken by the other Faberge egg, caressing the box it is in, and looking at it again. Then he snaps his fingers at one of his assistants, and they bear the box tenderly away.

Cerise points at what I destroyed and says something to Grigoriy. The Pakhan come over then, bending over the egg too and, even though I don’t understand the Russian, he sounds in agreement.

Andrei just stands there with his arms crossed, watching Cerise now with narrowed eyes.

Grigoriy and Cerise bend over the broken egg, discussing it with each other, pointing at it. It dawns on me that they are explaining how it could be fixed. Their voices are annoyed but gradually rise to be light-hearted.

I sit there with my cheeks smarting, Cerise’s hand still tightly fisting my hair.

Finally, Pyotr walks over too, and even I can tell that he’s reluctantly getting charmed by Grigoriy and Cerise. Grigoriy and Cerise both have wide, appealing smiles and their voices are light, although exasperated. Grigoriy has such an appealing face, tanned, big beard, with crinkles around his eyes. You wouldn’t think he was one of the deadliest Pakhans in all of Russia.

Frederik puts in a word or two as well, his frame tall and straight and I can tell that Pyotr respects whatever he says. He doesn’t look at me.

Andrei and Dmitri are intelligently staying silent.

They’re not the best sweet-talkers.

The entire thing is clinched when a willowy, regal-looking blonde woman comes out. She has a huge diamond on her finger, and she puts her arm, rich with draped sparkly bracelets, around Pyotr’s.

Cerise reaches into her purse and pulls out a packet of American cigarettes. The woman is rapturous, grabbing eagerly at them, her face wreathed in smiles. She hugs Cerise and kisses her on both cheeks. Cerise drops my hair and embraces the other woman laughingly.

Pyotr’s wife is already so excited that Cerise pulling out another packet makes her squeal even louder and Pyotr can’t resist anymore.

He puts out his hand to shake Grigoriy’s, then Frederik’s, and finally Andrei and Dmitri’s.

Frederik picks up the broken egg carefully with sure, efficient motions, and puts it into a box. His hands are clasped in front of him in apology.

But Pyotr’s wife has hugged Cerise around the neck and is talking excitedly to her. I don’t think Pyotr will be allowed to get out of this alliance now.

Pyotr shakes hands with Grigoriy again, the big bearlike man’s hand dwarfing the smaller one of Pyotr, and then we all move toward the entrance.

Cerise grabs me by the hair, dragging me along beside her, and she gives me another clout across the head for good measure, boxing my ears so hard that they’re ringing.

We head toward the limousine, Pyotr and his wife and his men all agreeably accompanying us.

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