Not yet.
Too soon. Too extreme. But damn if it didn't feel close.
What else could drive me to act so recklessly? To kill another man with no planning, no strategy, just a primal need to protectthis slip of a girl who'd somehow gotten under my skin? Not only did I not get rid of the body, I'd rushed across town with blood literally on my hands because I got the message she wanted to talk.
I was halfway here before I even texted my men to clean up the mess.
Every excuse my nephews had made suddenly clicked into place. Gregor chasing his wife for three years, never giving up. Damien grinning like a fool when the others teased him about Yelena hitting him with a brick. Even Roman marrying the woman who'd been hell-bent on destroying our family.
Every irrational choice. Every stupid, sappy comment. It all made sense.
No one had ever needed me to care for them before. No one had ever wanted to rely on me. Not really. But if anyone needed someone to care for them, it was my little nightingale.
She'd never asked for it, but she needed someone to protect her. Someone to remind her it was okay to put herself first. And I wanted to be that someone. The one who protected her from her mother's poison, from any ex who crawled out of the woodwork, from anyone who could mean her harm.
I wanted her to come to me.
I leaned down, ready to take her lips in a deep kiss, but she put her hand on my chest and stopped me.
"Wait."
"Do you not want to kiss me,maya soloveyka?"
"I do, but I have to tell you something...and you might not want to kiss me after."
There was nothing she could ever say that would make me not want to kiss her. But I stayed silent, giving her the space she needed.
"I told you, my mother came to my apartment right after you left. She's going to double-cross you. That's why she wanted youdistracted. An Irish group are paying her more to vote the bill down. They want her to restructure it to cut your family out and use theirs instead. I thought you should know while there was still time to fix it."
And just like that, her sweet act of defiance—her loyalty to me over her mother—pushed me from infatuation straight into love.
There wasn't a single thing I wouldn't do for this woman.
Including keeping her.
CHAPTER 34
DARIUS
Itook a deep breath, bracing myself for what was coming.
This was a bed of my own making. Consequences for choices I'd made. Choices I refused to regret.
I opened the wood door to the card room in Gregor's estate.
All my nephews rose to their feet.
Then Damien started a slow clap.
Within seconds, the others joined in. I raised my hands in surrender, a smirk on my lips, tension easing from my shoulders.
I fucking earned it.
Roman handed me a cigar as I took a seat at the card table. Gregor dealt me into a hand of Durak. The room was dim, cigar smoke heavy in the air. Food was spread on a side table, but the real draw was the bar cart stocked with each of our preferred liquors, including an unopened bottle of Macallan twenty-five-year Sherry Oak.
"So," Gregor said. "You came all the way here because we were fucking up. Letting our emotions cloud our judgment. Making poor financial choices because of it. That was the story, right?"
"It was," I agreed.
