“Better?”
“Yeah.”
“Dinner,” he says. “We should eat.”
Food feels like a dare. In my head I see a silver tray and a single cup that could have killed us. My stomach flips. “If Vitaly is here, won’t he try again? The food could be poisoned.”
“He tried that once and failed. Vitaly doesn’t try the same failed tactic twice.”
“Promise?”
“I promise. And I taste the food first. No arguments.”
The walk to the main lodge is short. Torches line the walkways. Somewhere a guitar strums peacefully. We sit at a corner table that reads as romantic and lets him see the door, the water, the boardwalk. He’s observant, my Roman.
Odd to think of him as mine, but he is my husband, so it counts.
Odd to think of myself as married too.
The server brings water in frosted bottle. Roman opens it himself. He drinks first. He makes a face that says it’s fine. I let out a breath. He keeps it simple. “Soup. Grilled fish. Rice. Fruit for dessert. Nothing that needs a sauce.” The server races away for our order.
“You picked some simple dishes.”
He nods. “Any idea why?”
It’s a test, so I think about my answer. “Because simple is fast, and fast is good, if we need to take off suddenly. And because it’s harder to hide poison in simple dishes.”
His proud smile hits somewhere low in my spine. “Precisely.”
True to his word, he tastes every dish before letting me eat. It feels ridiculous, especially because the restaurant is full enoughfor this to be awkward. But I’d rather be awkward and safe than normal and dead.
I’m curious about my husband. It’s weird to think of him as a stranger, but we practically are in most ways. “Tell me something about you. Something I don’t know.”
He turns the stem of his glass once and sets it in the sand-filled candle tray. “You deserve a gentle story. I do not have one for this.”
“Gentle stories never interested me, Roman. Not even when I was a kid. I always preferred the truth. History, mythology, that kind of thing. Try me.”
He folds his napkin in his lap and takes a deep breath, before knocking back more wine. “Very well. Do you know I was married before?”
“Vitaly’s mother?”
He nods. “Did he ever tell you about her?”
“He said he had more in common with her than you, and that’s why you didn’t want him to take over your role.”
His laugh is short and bitter. “He’s not far off. Bridgette was her name. My father’s favorite assassin had daughters. The assassin, who went by Caine, had been hired by my father’s rivals to take him out. He said I could save his life if I married Bridgette.”
“You married her to save his life?”
“He was my father. He was pakhan. I did what any good son in the Bratva would do.”
“That’s nuts.”
He smiles. “I married you to save four lives. Our sons, yours, and mine. Is it all that different?”
The realization makes me laugh. “I guess not. What was Bridgette like?”
“She was never asked what she wanted. I think that grated on her more than anything. She was raised by an assassin to be one herself. Powders. Tinctures. Timing. She was a sharpshooter, as well. And skilled with knives, both throwing and standard. Sitting next to her was like sitting in a tiger’s cage.”
