I loosened my grip, looking down. The sheer terror of what I saw made my heart stop, then hammered violently against my ribs.
“Liza?” I repeated, my voice tight.
She was utterly pale. The rich color had drained from her face, leaving her features sharp and ghostly against the cream satin. Her body, which moments ago had been defiant and stiff, had gone limp in my arms. The sudden weight was alarming. I was instantly, terrifyingly certain she had been hit. My mind raced ahead, calculating the cost of public injury, the location of the best underground clinic, and the risk to the entire operation.
“Viktor, check the perimeter again! I need a clear–“
“Roman, stop,” Viktor commanded, stepping closer.
I ignored him. My focus was absolute, visceral. I pushed Liza gently away, holding her by the shoulders, frantic to find the wound. I ran my hands over her back, feeling the expensive fabric, searching for the warmth of blood, the sticky wetness that would confirm my worst fear. My fingers searched her shoulder, her side, the thick satin of the cape.
“Where is it? Where did they get you?” I demanded, my voice low and fierce.
“She’s not bleeding, Roman,” Konstantin said, his voice flat, observing with his usual unsettling intensity. “No entry wound.”
Confusion slammed into me. Relief was a fleeting, sharp jolt, instantly buried under panic. They missed. Why did she look like death?
Her entire body was trembling violently, not a shudder, but a deep, uncontrollable vibration that ran through her shoulders and down her arms. Her lips were parted, but no sound came out. She wasn’t playing a part now. There was raw fear, or something much worse.
I grasped her jaw, forcing her to look up at me. “Liza, you’re safe. Look at me. Tell me what is wrong!”
Her eyes, wide and unfocused, finally settled on mine. A slow, dizzying wave of terror seemed to wash over them. She tried to speak, her throat clinking audibly.
“I… can’t…” She managed, her voice a reedy whisper, barely a sound in the ruined hall.
“Can’t what? Speak? Tell me!” I urged, my grip tightening, my own breath coming fast and shallow. My carefully constructed control was dissolving into nothing.
She took another shallow, sharp gasp, her face contorting with panic. “I can’t breathe,” she whispered, the words sounding like a final, damning confession.
Then, the final, sickening realization hit me. Her beautiful, defiant eyes rolled back into her head. Her entire body went completely slack, a heavy, dead weight in my arms.
“Damn it, Liza!” I roared, catching her fully against my chest before she could hit the floor.
My entire internal system dissolved into pure panic. The planned interrogation, the need to extract information about Arkady, the political fallout, all of it became instantly, utterly irrelevant.
I looked down at the lifeless weight in my arms and felt a profound, savage shift. This was no longer a pawn. This was my wife. My possession. And someone dared to threaten what was mine, putting her life in danger.
My hands trembled with a fierce, protective rage. The empire was secondary. All that mattered was the immediate, desperate need to protect the woman I had just married.
I looked up at Viktor, my eyes burning. “Someone is going to pay for this. They put my wife in danger! Get the car. Now, I don’t care about the bodies or the press. I am taking her back to the mansion.”
My rage wasn’t strategic. It was primal. They had attacked my property, and I would tear the city apart for the audacity.
She was a dead weight in my arms, and the horrifying silence of the ruined hall only amplified the chaotic drummingin my ears. I didn’t wait for permission or strategy. I didn’t care that Pakhan was standing two feet away.
I immediately scooped Liza up. The cream satin of her wedding dress was heavy, a suffocating weight of silk and tulle, but I lifted her easily, cradling her head against my shoulder.
“She needs a doctor now. Stepan! Get the secure car to the exit immediately!” I roared, my voice echoing off the high ceiling.
Viktor stepped in front of me, his face granite. “Roman, wait. I need to—”
“No. You handle the mess,” I snarled, cutting him off entirely. I ignored the audacity of defying him. This wasn’t about the Bratva’s hierarchy; it was about the life fading in my arms. “Konstantin, you stay here. You sweep the area, find out who they were, and who sent them. I want a name, Konstantin. I want Arkady’s rivals to be found and crushed before the sun sets.”
Konstantin merely nodded, his eyes lethal and forced. “Done.”
I looked at Viktor again, my jaw set tight. “You handle the cover story. The press. The body removal. Tell them it was a mechanical failure in the lightning grid. I don’t care what you say; just keep this out of the papers. My wife is leaving. Now.”
I bypassed the few astonished faces of the Lobanov wives and guests, rushing past the silent, armed guards who were still holding formation. My exit was hurried, humiliating, and utterly without the control I prized. The sound of my own ragged breathing mixed with the crunch of shattered crystal beneath my expensive shoes.
