Page 8 of Of Murder and Matrimony

Her bathroom held more items she must have ordered online because I was positive the local grocery store didn’t carry high-end night creams and expensive shampoo and conditioner. I chuckled. Olesya wasn’t so different. She just hid her true self from those in her new world.

No more.

She’d never have to hide again because she would be at my side where the whole Chicago underworld could see what happened when you tried to cross the Neretti family.

I headed back downstairs, locking the door and planting myself at the edge of the couch closest to the entry. The storm outside cast me in shadow, but I’d be able to see Olesya when she came home. Soon enough, tires crunched the gravel on the drive as a car pulled up, and a car door slammed. I patted my pocket, feeling for the trinket safely tucked away.

I focused as the key turned in the lock, and I saw my fiancée for the first time since she was eighteen. Olesya didn’t notice me at first, but I took her in. Long, honey-blonde hair, her figure still slender and graceful but a touch more rounded out than she had been. Her blue eyes looked dark in the dim lighting, but the soft sigh she let out was all Olesya. The same contented sigh I’d heard a thousand times when she sat next to me.

“Did you think you could hide forever, piccola fantasma?”

She froze at my words, her face going ghostly pale as her eyes darted to where I sat, rising from my feet to my face and widening in recognition. Her mouth opened and closed again, but instead of speaking, Olesya dropped her bag and darted back through the front door.

Shit.

Chasing a panicked woman through the forest hadn’t been part of my plan. I launched off the couch as she disappeared through the doorway, following her muddy footprints to the edge of the woods. She’d forgotten any training she may have once had about evading threats as she crashed through the underbrush, her breath ragged as she ran. Her perfume lingered where she’d been, making her easy to track, even when the forest fell silent, save for the rain and the occasional rumble of thunder.

I grinned when I caught a flash of her white coat ahead. It had been a while since I’d had fun. She would be a challenge, and I liked challenges.

“Olesya,” I called melodically. “Why are you hiding, piccola fantasma? Come out, come out wherever you are.”

A pale blur flickered through the trees as she took flight again, the white coat lighting up like the moon as lightning flashed above. I shouldn’t let her run for long in the middle of a summer storm. She was probably already soaked through since I was pretty drenched. While lightning was unlikely to strike us, there was a shadow of a possibility. It was more likely that Olesya would fall and hurt herself on the muddy forest floor.

As if I’d manifested it, I heard a faint thud followed by a soft cry and curse. I shook my head, hoping she wasn’t severely injured.

“Give up, Olesya!” I shouted through the trees. Rain poured down my face, pelting me in time with my pounding heart as I pushed onward, her scent faint now. “You won’t escape me again!”

It was her whimper that gave her away. I softened my steps, stalking silently through the forest and circling the bush she’d hidden under. I gathered a few twigs and rocks, tossing them in the direction Olesya watched, keeping her eyes away from where I approached. It took an effort to steady my breathing with the adrenaline coursing through my veins. The animalistic part of my brain fought to overtake reason.

Pounce. Subdue. Claim.

I leaned down, my face inches from hers. “Boo.”

Olesya screamed in terror as I grabbed her around the waist and hauled her to her feet, thrashing and swearing as I threw her over my shoulder and began the trek back to her house. When she bucked, flinging mud from her shoes and nearly kicking me in the face, I swatted her ass hard.

“Knock it off, princess,” I hissed in warning. “I don’t think you want me to remove my tie and bind you.”

“Fuck off, Dante!” Olesya kicked again, and I dropped her on her ass in the mud. She screeched in protest, distracted while I yanked my tie off and too weak to fight me as I pulled her wrists behind her back and tied them there. She tried to escape, but her balance was off without her arms.

I caught her before she fell face-first into a tree stump. “Careful now. Wouldn’t want to mar that pretty face before the wedding.”

“My wedding isn’t for another year!” Olesya yelled, her voice cut off as I tossed her over my shoulder, knocking the breath from her lungs. She struggled to suck in air.

“Not the sham wedding to the good Doctor,” I said, seeing the house ahead. “Our wedding.”

“There is no our wedding,” she growled adorably as I carried her through the front door. She was covered in mud, and my shoes would probably need to be tossed out along with her clothing.

“You seem to be suffering from memory loss, Doctor Smith.” My words dripped with sarcasm as I sat on the couch and pulled her into my lap, grabbing her jaw and forcing her to look at me. “Our marriage contract was signed years ago, and there’s no escape clause. You are my betrothed.”

“I’m marrying Jason,” she insisted stubbornly.

I narrowed my eyes and reached behind her back, mindlessly unwinding the silk tie and taking her left hand, prying the ring from her finger and tossing it onto the coffee table. “If you think I’m allowing that, you’re making a deadly mistake.”

“Fuck off and crawl back into the gutter you came from,” she spat in my face. “He’ll be here any minute, and—”

“Either you break it off with the doctor, or I will kill him,” I said firmly, cutting off whatever empty threat she thought about spewing. I’d already looked into Dr. Jason Miller. He wasn’t the type of man who would give his life for Olesya. He might have been a star athlete, but he didn’t possess the protective nature necessary to defend her.

Her jaw dropped. “You wouldn’t.”

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