Nikolai lifts his hands in mock surrender, but he doesn’t step back. “Relax, Sienna. I’m not here to make you uncomfortable.”
“Then stop showing up uninvited.”
“I’m family,” he says, as if that’s an excuse.
“I didn’t marry your brother, so no, you’re not.”
“Want to be?” My face skews before he tacks on, “I’m single.”
“Absolutely not.”
Something sharp flickers across his expression. “You’ve got a mouth on you. I can see why he liked you.”
“Seriously, what do you want?”
“I told you. To help.”
“With what?”
“Packing. You still had things at Benedikt’s house.”
“I’ll handle it.”
“It’s no trouble.” He smiles faintly. “I can send a few of our men. They’ll be discreet.”
“I said I’ll handle it.”
He studies me, his eyes dark and too steady. “You don’t trust me.”
“Do you expect me to?”
He laughs, and it makes my skin crawl because something is terribly off about him. “Smart girl.”
He takes another step forward, close enough that I catch the faint scent of expensive cologne, something cold, metallic, and nothing like Benedikt’s warm dominance.
“You should be careful,” he murmurs. “Benedikt had… a way of holding onto things. People. I wouldn’t want his ghost haunting you.”
My jaw tightens. “Benedikt’s not dead.”
He tilts his head. “No. But you don’t think he’ll let this go, do you?”
I swallow hard.
Nikolai watches me, and I hate that he can see it because I know he can. The flicker of fear I try to bury.
“He’ll come back,” he confirms, and a wave of anxiety crashes over me because I can imagine what he’d do to me.
I’ve thought about it a hundred times already.
He’ll force me to marry him.
He’ll lock me in a cold basement so I can’t speak to anyone or escape.
He’ll never speak to me again, or always be so cold about it.
Or he’ll kill me.
“And if he does,” Nikolai continues through the havoc spinning in my brain, “I’ll have to decide what to do about it.”
