Tempted & Taken (Men of Haven #4)(103)
“Oh my God!” Darya struggled harder beneath him. “Gia, help me. Knox is bleeding.”
Quick footsteps sounded on the thick carpet and Gia crouched beside them. “Hold still, let me look.”
“I’m fine,” he managed. Whatever had hit him hurt like hell, but he could move his arm and his lungs were both working, so it couldn’t be too bad. He pushed up on one forearm just as Beckett, Axel and Zeke stormed toward him, helped him off Darya and up to his feet.
In all of five seconds, Zeke ripped Knox’s T at the neck and down the bloodied sleeve, peeling back the ruined sides for better inspection.
Darya all but linebacked Beckett out of the way for a better look. “Is he okay?”
“Shoulder wound. Probably ricocheted off the elevator, but nothing we can’t handle at Sanctuary.”
Sergei turned from issuing a command to his men and met Knox’s gaze across the housekeeping cart still lodged between them.
“Tell me that fucker isn’t breathing,” Knox said.
With the coldness of a long-jaded man, Sergei shoved the cart aside.
On the floor, Ruslan lay sprawled on the floor, sightless eyes aimed at the ceiling and a puddle of blood building beside a gruesome hole where his temple had been.
Darya gasped and turned away, but Knox hugged her against his chest with his good arm and cradled the back of her head. Finally, she was safe. No more running or living with fear dogging her step. And while it hadn’t been his bullet that had done the deed, she was breathing. In the end, it was the only thing that mattered. “He can’t hurt you anymore. No one can.”
Epilogue
Six months Knox had waited for this day. Twenty-one long weeks of dealing with the fallout from a dead Russian pakhan and another four spent in Russia letting the once missing Darya Volkova resurface while she resumed her volunteering at the nursing home, started on her new career and happily made her wedding plans. Needless to say, Ninette and Sylvie had been alongside her every step of the way for the latter, filling the motherly gap she’d grown up with twenty times over.
Across the huge reception hall, his wife stood resplendent in a soft white gown that made her look every inch a winter princess. As styles and fabrics went, he was clueless, but there wasn’t a royal alive or dead who’d ever outshined her. Flanked by Gia, who’d not only become Darya’s closest friend but had served as maid of honor, on one side, and Ninette on the other, Yefim urged her from one guest to the next and boasted of her great American adventures.
No one could take her from Knox now.
Darya Volkova Torren.
Actually, if he was honest, he hadn’t waited six months. He’d waited his whole life. And every minute had been worth it.
Seated beside Knox at the heavily adorned head table, Axel stretched his legs out, draped his arm along the top of the gold gilt chair beside him and scanned the ornate reception hall. Unlike the rest of the groomsmen, he’d paired his tux coat with a kilt—a tactic Knox was still convinced Axel had taken to one-up Sergei in the style department. The look might have been completely unconventional among the rest of the crowd, but somehow Axel pulled it off and looked slick as shit doing it.
“You gotta say one thing about Russian weddings,” Axel said. “They do not fuck around.”
“No, they do not,” Beckett said from beside Knox. “Hell, it wasn’t even me getting shackled and I feel married.”
He wasn’t wrong. Planning aside, the affair had taken two full days. Day one had started with him retrieving his bride-to-be from Yefim’s home and paying a ransom, or vykup nevesty. Considering Knox had already siphoned all but ten million of Ruslan’s money to the elderly man for further distribution as the other families saw fit, he’d shown with a custom-made stuffed wolf, a diamond pendant he’d had fashioned in the brotherhood’s symbol and chocolates for Darya instead of customary cash.
Well, she’d still gotten cash. Namely ten million setting in a bank account with only her name on it, even if she didn’t know about that yet. But he’d tell her when the time was right. No way in hell was his woman ever not having something to fall back on again.
Strangely, after the ransom, they’d had to attend a civil service that officially registered them as husband and wife. Something about churches being more about symbolism than legally binding, and he’d be go to hell before he left Russia without being very bound to his woman.
Day two was the real kicker, starting with a traditional ceremony in a church Yefim had undoubtedly pulled strings to get them into. The thing had lasted well over an hour, incorporated crowns and a ton of pageantry that made no sense since they were spoken in Russian, but Darya had smiled so big through the whole thing, he’d have done four more in a row if it made her happy.
Their only time alone had been a quiet limousine tour through St. Petersburg after the ceremony, a solemn time where they’d paused at an older cemetery and left flowers on her parents’ graves.
Now they were here. Surrounded by an indoor, man-made winter wonderland of soft blue and white lights and only hours away from boarding one of Trevor’s Gulfstreams.
Alone.
With his wife.
Finally.
Danny shifted in his seat enough to check out the dance floor and the wealth of beautiful women enjoying the music. He might have balked at the idea of a tux when Darya had first brought it up, but once he’d figured out the attention it drew from the ladies, he’d dropped all his complaints. “Man, I am not looking forward to the flight back to Dallas, but I have to say I wouldn’t pass up the experience.”