My smile morphs into something genuine, because he soundstoodefensive. He’s shown his hand—his festering insecurity given a name, an outsider confirming his suspicions.
“Not that it’s any of your business, but we’re getting married.”
I laugh out loud, a sharp, high thing, and hope it doesn’t sound forced. “Oh, Niko.”
Samuel is shooting me nervous glances in the rearview mirror, and I glare at him before looking back at the target of my needling. “Is that what she told you? Get your guys to stage a coup and you’d be in charge with her, your doting wife? You’d even have a rich backer behind you?”
Nikolai’s eyes widen andwowI really didn’t think that would be as spot on as it appears to be. Makes sense, though. Elise is the mastermind behind all of this; she’s a sore loser about Maxim not marrying her, and decided to take matters into her own hands?
“Tenneson is her father,” Maxim says, but his voice is strained.
“What?” Nikolai and I say in unison.
“I just put it together. Her mother and Tenneson divorced when she was young. Her mom became one of my father’s girlfriends, it’s how she and Sasha knew each other. He put their moms up in the same apartment building.”
Nikolai stews on this news in the front seat, eyes not even on me where the gun is still pointed. I take the opportunity to go after Samuel.
“And what the fuck is all this about, Samuel?” I ask. “Elise promise you an empire too?”
His shoulders slump as we roll through a yellow light.
“They swore they would leave you out of it,” he says. “They have my son.”
I sigh. Absolutely classic move, holding-a-loved-one-captive to sway loyalties. Nothing quite so effective for a soft-hearted man than attacking his family. I’m one to talk, though. It would probably work just as well on me.
“I’m very sorry, Mary.”
“Mrs. Orlov,” I correct, though the words are as sour as the broken trust between us. “Your apologies mean nothing to me.”
I feign annoyed dismissive glances out the window, eyes searching for familiar black vehicles. It’s dark outside, almost too dark to see the cars next to us with the tinted window, but I spy Elise in the passenger seat looking at me through the window. I lower mine enough to see my face and flip her off.
Normally I would love an evil woman going after what she wants. Unfortunately in this instance, that thing is the lives of me and my husband, so I cannot abide.
“Hey, close that,” Nikolai snaps and I do as he says, but not before slipping a remaining shred of my sleeve over the glass, pinching it between the car door and window so it’ll flap against the car. It won’t do much, but if someone in my family can find our convoy maybe they’ll see it and know not to try their luck on the bulletproof glass.
“You know, you could be nicer to people who could kill you at any time,” Nikolai snips and I force another smug smile.
“Niko, did you think I was nice?”
It’s his turn to roll his eyes in annoyance, but before I can quip anything else, an unmistakable crunch sounds outside to our right and everyone recoils, turning to look at where the car of one of the goons is swerving between lanes, having just been rear ended.
“What the hell is—” Nikolai is cut off as Samuel swerves the car sharply left to avoid another black SUV slamming the brakes in front of us.
It’s Leo’s car.
Thank God.
I breathe my first exhale, and grip Maxim’s thigh while Samuel rights the car and steps on the gas.
“What was that?” Nikolai asks, his voice shrill. Both his eyes and the gun are no longer pointed at me and I jump on the chance, unbuckling my seatbelt and lunging forward to grab the weapon from his grip. He’s too distracted to put up a fight, and I get the gun easily before training it on his head. When he tries to grab it back from me, his seatbelt auto stops him from getting too far.
I take the opportunity to shoot him in the arm, and at the sound, Samuel swerves the car, narrowly missing the one next to us which honks.
“Keep driving,” I shout.
“You shot me!” Nikolai sounds incredulous. I almost laugh at the audacity he has to feel betrayed by this.
I would’ve killed him, but I am attempting not to be so hasty in murdering people before they can help give us information. Think first, kill later, instead of my usual.
