The picture of Isla is still facing me like an accusation. I want to kill Igor for holding it. For looking at her, so vulnerable and afraid. This is all my fucking fault. I should have insisted otherwise when Priest said Isla should fly back to Iowa today. If I had, none of this would have happened. She’d be in the safe house and out of this psycho’s reach.
It takes all the willpower I have to keep myself under control. I’m panting, my hands shaking with the need for violence. I’ve never been in such a rage. But I know that if I keep letting Sidorov get under my skin, it won’t help Isla.
“What do you want, Sidorov?” Priest demands.
Sidorov’s smug smile returns. “Now you finally get to the point, Andriani. Took you long enough. We can do this the easy way or the hard way, up to you. The hard way, I’ll pay our friend Isla a visit. Maybe she has some things she’d like to tell me. Maybe she’s tired of a man who throws her away like trash. Maybe she wants a man who would appreciate her and keep her. A man who could give her so much more.”
“If you touch her,” I rasp hoarsely, “you’re a fucking dead man, Sidorov.”
He laughs like he’s having fun, like this is all one big game for his amusement. “Then maybe we should do this the easy way,da?”
“Saint,” Priest says my name in a warning tone. “Check yourself.”
And as much as I fucking hate it in this moment, he’s my don, and I need to stand down if that’s what he asks of me.
“What do you want in exchange for Isla’s safe return, Sidorov?” I bite out.
I’m prepared to move mountains. To do anything and everything I can to make it happen.
“I want you to marry my sister,” the smirking Russian says.
Chapter 26
SAINT
“I’ll do it,” I say without hesitation.
“Not so fast,” Priest interrupts.
“I’ll marry her,” I repeat.
If that’s what it takes to get Isla out of this fucking maniac’s clutches, then so be it. I’m beyond caring at this point. I already know I can’t have the woman I love at my side, so nothing else matters.
“Excellent,” Sidorov says. “Get yourzasranetsbrother to bring Ekaterina back to civilization, and then we can talk.”
“Saint isn’t marrying your sister,” Priest bites out before I can say anything else. “You’re forgetting, we have the upper hand here.”
I turn to him, wondering what the fuck he’s thinking. We need to make sure this bastard lets Isla go. I’ll happily sacrifice myself.
“I don’t give a shit what I have to do, as long as Isla’s safe at the end.”
And I mean that. I mean it more than I’ve ever meant anything. She’s it for me. She’s too fucking good for me; thatmuch is a given. And she’s not cut out for this life. I know that too. But I’ll always protect her.
She’s mine.
Even if I can’t have her.
Priest holds up a hand to me and turns back to Sidorov. “You want an alliance between our families? That’s what you’re after now?”
Sidorov nods. “A guarantee. That’s what I want. I need a promise that what happened…the gas leak…that there won’t be retaliation.”
It all makes perfect, sickening sense. At first, Sidorov was coming at us hard because he thought the Andrianis were double-crossing the Bratva. Now that he knows differently, he’s trying to save his ass. Only, he’s using the woman I love as a pawn.
“You have my word,” Priest says easily.
“Not good enough,” Sidorov denies just as swiftly. “I need blood ties. Ties that can’t be broken the second we leave this room.”
Priest nods. “Fair enough. But wouldn’t you agree that we could do an even exchange, your sister for Isla and my men? Why force anyone into a marriage they don’t want?”
