Wicked Mafia Prince (A Dangerous Royals Romance, #2)(28)

“It’s what they said.”

“They wouldn’t want to worry me. Did you tell them I want to talk to them? That I’m trying?”

Mira casts a glance at me, the ogre. “I told them that you wanted badly to talk to them and that you would, soon.”

“Thank you.”

I shove an orehi into my mouth. One small kindness. I couldn’t have shown this one small kindness to the woman I love?

I close my eyes, and I’m back at the edge of Dariali Gorge with her clinging onto me, the vast space below.

Predatel! I call her. Reminding myself why I must kill her. She betrayed the Bratva. A traitor.

She calls out to me as I shove her. Even as she falls, she reaches for me, terror and disbelief in her eyes. Her face is burned into my mind, into my dreams.

The talk rumbles on, but perhaps I’ve had too much to drink, because I feel only like weeping. The hatred for myself is so close to the surface, the hatred for what I did.

I should be happy that the beautiful brightness of her is back in the world, but it’s not enough for me, no. I watch the light waver on the thick red tablecloth.

“So delicious,” Tanechka says.

I look up to see her staring at her empty plate. Her gaze lights on the plate with the rest of the orehi. “Delicious.”

“Would you like more?

She looks down. She looks like she wants more. My heart pounds. Finally she waves her hand. “Gluttony,” she says softly.





Chapter Nine




Viktor


I let Tanechka have our bedroom—alone. I sleep in a guest bedroom, or at least I try to.

She comes down in the morning neat as a pin, still in her nun’s dress and head scarf. I leave her to herself, giving her space. She requests again to search for a Russian Orthodox church in town.

“No, Tanechka. There’s a limit to the ways I’ll indulge you.”

She regards me with her burning blue gaze. Only a matter of time until she tries to get out—I see this now.

I decide we’ll go on a picnic. We used to picnic in a park near a lake, and she liked it. Lake Michigan is larger and windier, but I think she’ll enjoy it.

Before I head out for supplies, I talk to Sander, one of our new guys, who’s stationed outside the door. We have plenty of money to hire new muscle like Sander. If they prove their loyalty, they’ll have a hand in the business our father built—once we take it back from Bloody Lazarus.

“Don’t let that nun costume fool you,” I tell Sander. “She’s every inch a killer under there.”

He nods. He understands, or at least he thinks he does. Nobody truly understands Tanechka.

I start off down the sidewalk. This is the old part of town, lined with brownstones. The trees blaze with yellow leaves. A block away, I turn back.

“Four men around this perimeter still?” I say to Sander. He nods. “Find another and make it five. She’s going to try to leave, and I don’t want her hurt.”

I instruct Mischa and Yuri to tell the Americans how good she is at escapes. Mischa insists they have it under control. “Tell them,” I say. “They need to hear it from you.”

I don’t like leaving, but I need to choose these supplies. To look at things through Tanechka’s eyes.

When I return, I find none of the men out there. I burst into the house, and there they are, all in the living room. Tanechka’s sitting on the floor, cuffed to a radiator pipe.

“She’s okay,” Mischa says, standing.

I kneel next to her. “You’re okay?”

“Aside from needing to leave?” She yanks on her cuff.

I step outside with Mischa, who fills me in. It seems she tried to get out as soon as I was around the block. The group of them grabbed her. “Very gently,” he assures me. Ona nasha dorogaya podruga, he calls her—“the one we love the most.”

I thank him and send them back out, then I unlock Tanechka. “If you have to pee, go now. We’re leaving for a picnic.”

She rubs her wrist, glaring at me.

An hour later we’re parking on the lakefront. It’s a sunny, brilliant fall day, the sky a bright, almost electric blue—candy sky, she used to call it. I’ve brought her a sweater, but she doesn’t wish to put it on. Nuns back home are famously ascetic.

No matter. I get out, grab the picnic basket and blanket, and go around to her door.

She looks up at me warily.

It is all I can do to stop myself from taking her cheeks and kissing her. I love her so much I can’t think.

She doesn’t wish to get out.

“You want me to carry you?”

This gets her out. I give her the sweater and lead her across the pale, cool sand toward the dark water, rough with whitecaps. The beach is deserted today. People aren’t so interested in the beach in autumn. Always everything needs to be perfect for the Americans.

She gives me one of her challenging Tanechka looks. Just this look fills my heart with love. She addresses me in Russian. “Aren’t you worried I’ll try to run off?”

“Maybe I’d like it. Maybe I’d enjoy catching you.”

Quickly she looks away. Sander and his men tailed us, just in case she decides to run and I can’t catch her for whatever reason. You never want to underestimate Tanechka.