Page 40 of His Disobedient Bride

I can hear her yowl in dismay, trying to twist away from him.

But Andrei carries her down the hall anyway, and I can hear her shrieks until they are muffled by the safe room.

“I’ll go down with you to the beach,” I tell Mary.

We head down, the sky blue, the water sparkling. I take off my shirt, feeling lighter than I can ever remember feeling, Mary by my side and the wind in my hair. My brother has built a little cabana on the beach to relax in right near the water, and I check my phone as Mary wanders by the shore collecting seashells.

I can see her nipples hardening in her bikini top as she walks toward me, her arms full of shells.

I turn reluctantly aside to see that Grigoriy is calling me.

“There were two spies,” he said. “Two men in our organization that the Ivanovich Bratva were paying to give them information. Boris was driving the SUV and he was killed to cover it up. Oleg is the other. He should be out on sentry duty. Go find him and bring him in front of the house.”

“I will,” I say, hanging up and putting the phone in my pocket.

Holy shit. How much money had the Ivanovich Bratva been paying to have two spies in our organization? Oleg has been with us for several years now, and all the security checks came up clear.

I started to tell Mary to wait on the beach for me when I realized I didn’t have to find Oleg.

The fucker was standing in the cabana.

Right between Mary and I.

“What can I do for you, Oleg?” I ask.

I’m amazed how calm my voice is. Decades of teaching has trained me well, keeps my voice neutral.

Oleg is in his 20s, big and hulking with a shaved head.

“That was the Pakhan, wasn’t it?” he said. “I think I’m going to need you to put your hands up and sit down over there with your wife. I’ll need to bargain with your lives so they’ll let me leave.”

He pulls out a big knife. My hands are up in supplication, trying to defuse the situation, trying to calm it down, like I always am. But I look at my hands suddenly and wonder what the fuck I am doing. These hands, these arms, are still strong. Oleg points the knife toward Mary and suddenly I see red. Threaten my wife?

Mary’s green eyes are wide and distressed, and I can see how she’s trembling.

What the fuck good does gentleness and kindness do without something brutal to back them up? Oleg has come out here to us because he thinks I’m a soft old man.

I meet Mary’s eyes and flick mine in one direction. This will only work if she does exactly what I instruct her to. She widens her eyes but she knows what I want her to do. I flick my hand, and she drops to the ground, flat on her belly.

I haven’t done it in so long, but my skill comes back to me like it was yesterday.

The knife in my pocket is in my hand and, in that second Oleg is startled off his balance, I whip out my arm and cut him shallowly in the throat.

He is a big man, and it wasn’t my best aim. He claps a hand to his throat, blood beginning to ooze out from between his fingers.

He slashes at me, and I move backwards, stumbling over the chairs in the cabana.

Shit.

He stabs me and catches my arm with the knife, dragging the weapon down my flesh.

I hear Mary scream and I look down at my arm.

The scarlet red blood has a strangely clarifying effect on me instead of frightening me. I see the silvery hairs on my arm, but I also see the lean muscle there, too. I come from blood and darkness, and it is still there in me.

I know I shouldn’t kill Oleg. Andrei will want to question him. But I can’t stop myself. As he comes at me again, I spin in the other direction, turn, and embed my knife deep in his chest.

He staggers back and drops to his knees. And I know he’s a dead man.

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