Page 9 of His Disobedient Bride

“I didn’t see the man in the passenger seat,” I said. “But Boris was in the driver’s seat.” Boris was a distant cousin, and not generally given any important duties.

Andrei’s eyes flashed at me and he frowned. “Boris is not supposed to be the one there. What else did you see? Who else did you see there?” His fingers bit into my arm, his maniacal single-minded devotion to Cerise burning in his face.

I closed my eyes again. “Dmitri, getting into his own car.”

Andrei looked over at his father.

“Did you see Dmitri actually leaving?” Grigoriy asked.

“No,” I replied slowly. “Just as I turned back to the house I looked back at him. And he wasn’t in the car yet. He was facing the house.”

There was a light in Grigoriy’s eyes. “He might have taken Cerise,” he said. “That’s why she wasn’t in the SUV. She might have gone with him.”

“Cerise knew the drill,” Andrei said sharply. “She wouldn’t have just gone randomly with Dmitri and Gleb.”

“Maybe she didn’t just go with him,” Grigoriy said. “Maybe he took her. Dmitri might have realized unconsciously that something was wrong, even if he didn’t remember who was supposed to be in the SUV with the girls.”

“Well, where the fuck would they have gone?” Andrei said, his voice tight with worry.

“I don’t know,” said Grigoriy. “We will have to wait until he checks in. According to protocol he should have gone by a different entrance and met the women at the safe house to protect them. But if he was followed, he wouldn’t have gone there.”

Grigoriy gave an order to take the bodies to the morgue and we got in our SUV and headed back to the beach house. By this time the fighting was long over and the grounds had been reclaimed. They had hit the house with a mortar and parts of it were still smoking. One gate had been nearly destroyed. But those things were easily replaceable. The death of the women had been the cruelest blow.

My rage didn’t leave me.

7

CERISE

We flew away in the limousine, the car screaming down the road as Yaroslav floored it. I bit my lips anxiously. I knew that all the Bratva limos were somewhat bulletproof, but that didn’t mean they were invincible. We could still be run off the road.

“There’s still people behind us,” Gleb says. Dmitri frowns.

I crack the window again and aim back at the two cars.

“Fuck. Mostly bulletproof too,” Yaroslav says.

“Get me at least 30 seconds,” says Dmitri. “Then pull off the road and Gleb and I will try to stop them.”

“Why can’t we just go back to the beach house?” I argue. “I guarantee Andrei and the Pakhan are back by now.”

“We will follow protocol,” said Dmitri stolidly, motioning to Gleb and Yaroslav.

I roll my eyes. Where was all this concern for protocol when he snatched me from the SUV and put me in his own car?

Then, Yaroslav slams his foot on the gas, and I can’t look out the window because the scenery is going so fast it’s almost a blur, our limo clipping mailboxes as he spins round the corners.

“Hang on, Cerise,” Dmitri warns, and I do, wrapping my arms around the seat and closing my eyes, my face deep in the leather.

I try to let the smell relax me but it doesn’t do shit.

Suddenly the car slams to a halt, my head jerked sideways even though I’m holding on tight.

I hear the slam of the car doors, and then I peep my head up and see Dmitri and Gleb coming from around the back with what looks like some kind of enormous shoulder-held rocket launchers.

I opened my mouth but before I even got the “oh shit” out, my ears were ringing with the sounds of the explosions. I closed my eyes as the sound seemed to rattle around in my skull, holding my hands tight over my head.

I’ve been getting a lot bolder since moving to Russia but nothing in my career as a graduate student in Russian iconography prepared me for this.

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