I shouldn't feel the warm glow spreading through my chest. A man offering to commit violence on my behalf shouldn't be attractive.
And yet.
I nod toward where Cal's standing with Matthew, both of them watching me with expressions that make my skin crawl. "Silver hair. Too much confidence. Standing with my uncle like they're plotting a hostile takeover."
Sergei's gaze locks on target. Something shifts in his posture. Subtle, dangerous. The Wolf sizing up prey.
"If he touches you again," he says quietly, "I'll break every finger on that hand."
"We're at a funeral."
"I'm aware."
"In a church."
"God and I have an understanding." His eyes don't leave Cal. "He ignores my sins. I don't bother Him with prayers."
A laugh escapes me. Raw, inappropriate, the first real thing I've felt since landing in New York. Several mourners glance over with scandalized expressions.
I don't care.
For a moment, we just stand there, his shoulder nearly brushing mine, something electric humming in the space between us.
"I have to survive the will reading after this," I tell him. "Mother scheduled it because she's constitutionally incapable of wasting time on sentiment."
"I'll be there."
"It's supposed to be family-only."
"I'll be there," he repeats. Those grey eyes finally leave Cal to meet mine. "Whoever killed your father knew what he was worth, which means they know what you're worth. I'm not leaving you alone with these people."
These people.My family. My mother's society. The vultures circling my father's corpse.
He's right.
I hate that he's right.
"Fine." I straighten my shoulders. Compose my face into the mask of grieving daughter. "But if you make a scene?—"
"I never make scenes." The corner of his mouth twitches. Almost a smile. "I end them."
The will readingtakes place in my mother's drawing room because she's physically incapable of letting anyone else control the setting.
We're gathered like suspects in an Agatha Christie novel. Mother on her ivory settee. Matthew in the wingback by the window. Cal Reznick sprawled in a chair he wasn't invited to occupy.
My cousin Julie perches on the loveseat, dabbing at bone-dry eyes with a handkerchief. She flew in from Monaco for this. I'm sure the grief is devastating her shopping schedule.
Great-Aunt Cordelia sits rigid in the corner, eighty-seven years old and sharp as a scalpel, watching everyone with the same expression she uses at bridge tournaments. Calculating odds. Counting cards. She’s outlived two husbands and a son. She'll probably outlive us all out of sheer spite.
Harrison hovers near the bar cart. Matthew's stepson from his first marriage, technically not blood, but is somehow always around when money's being discussed. Mid-thirties, too-white teeth, the kind of tan that comes from boats and bad intentions. He keeps glancing at me like he's already spending whatever I'm about to lose.
The family lawyer, Bernard Goldman, perches on the edge of a seat with his leather portfolio, looking older than the Constitution.
And Sergei is stationed by the door, like a gargoyle someone forgot to mount on a cathedral.
Mother tried to have him removed.
He declined to leave.
