“Sir?” the guard steps into the living room carrying a bag of food. “Where can I put this?”
Katerina stirs awake, “Oh, good, it’s here. You can put it in the kitchen for me, please. I’ll come and sort it out. Thank you, Roger.”
She wiggles free of me. “Stay where you are, I’ll bring it through,” she tells me.
Then hurries after the security guard to the kitchen.
I sit quietly on my own, rereading my brother’s message.
When Kat comes in carrying our food on a tray, I startle and quickly set my phone down. “What’s that?” she asks, scowling at the phone. “You look really worried.”
“It’s nothing, just a message from Niko,” I smile tightly.
“Yulian, I know you well enough to know it isn’t nothing.”
I clench my jaw, sighing loudly.
She gives me a moment while she sets a tray in front of me and puts the salt and my drink within reach, then gets comfortable next to me with her own food on the little coffee table in front of her.
Katerina turns to me with her brows raised. “You don’t have to keep things from me, you know. I’m your wife. We should work things out together.”
She’s right. And this involves her more than most things.
Closing my eyes for a moment, I resign myself to the fact that I never wanted to keep secrets from her, anyway. And if I don’t tell her what’s going on, she’ll come to her own conclusions and end up putting a divide between us.
“Niko ran the plates of one of the vehicles that attacked us today. It looks like it might be linked to your brother,” I say carefully, watching her face.
“And you were thinking of not telling me this?” she asks calmly.
“I didn’t want to burden you with it. I don’t want you caught in the middle of it,” I sigh.
Kat shakes her head and reaches out to touch my face, gently tracing her fingers over my jaw. “Yulian, you can’t keep secrets like this from me. I need to know things so that I can make decisions for myself, too. You should know by now that I’m with you no matter what. I mean, I let go of the fact that you faked a kidnapping so you could kidnap me.” She laughs.
“You’re right, kitten. I’m sorry, I won’t keep things from you. But you’re wrong about me staging that kidnapping that I rescued you from. Have you really thought, all this time, that it was me?” I say, leaning into her touch, but my brows are knitted.
She scrunches her nose. “If it wasn’t you…who was it?” She asks, confused.
“I haven’t been able to find out, but my men are still looking into it. Whoever it was, I won’t let them get a second chance.” A smirk spreads over my face. “I can’t believe you thought it was me all this time, and you were somehow ok with it,” I laugh.
“I just…I accept it. I decided that sometimes bad things lead to amazing things,” she shrugs, her eyes glittering.
Kat smiles, lifting herself high enough to plant a sweet little kiss on my lips. “Thank you,” she mutters, “For…just for everything,” then settles down again to enjoy her dinner.
And just like that, the conversation is over. No fighting, no arguing, just good communication. How did I get so lucky to find a girl like her? She’s one in a million, and she’s mine.
I’m grinning as I cut into my steak. My heart is happy, even though my body is hurting. But now that she mentioned it, I do need to follow up again with my men. I do what to know who was behind the attack on her. I’ll get in touch with them tomorrow.
***
A few days after the attack, I can hardly feel any pain at all. Luckily, it went through completely, and Kat did a brilliant job taking care of me. But while I’m healing nicely, Artur is determined to make my life as difficult as possible.
I got a message from him this morning.
Artur: Do not test my patience, Yulian. I will declare war on the Andreevs if you continue to brainwash my sister. Let Katerina go, or suffer the consequences.
I decide that no response is required. But the message weighs on my mind, bothering me. Making me wonder if Kat is in any danger. This time it’s not the still unknown attacker I’m worried about, but her, rather her own brother.
Chapter 22 - Katerina
