I dial his number, listening to it ring several times before he finally picks up. “Win.”
“Ryker.”
“Everything all right?”
Him asking that question both relaxes and worries me. “All right. You?”
He lets out a long breath. “All right. Our brothers are complete fucking pains in the asses.”
“Want to tell me why?” I ask, sitting forward.
“Not really.”
Well, we’re really getting somewhere. And Katarina’s got a point about the minimal use of words being a real annoyance. “What is going on?”
“They called me in for a meeting. They know what I did with Katarina.”
That was quick. Then again, Triston is savvy as hell, and Killian has a nose for trouble. But that’s Ryker’s problem, not mine. “How’s Sasha?”
The pause that stretches over the line has my brows climbing up my forehead. “She’s…uh…so much more than I thought she’d be. It’s complicated.”
“In what way?”
“You know that of all the men in this family that I might confide in, you are the last, don’t you?”
I smile. “Too late.”
I hear his light groan. “You’ve got a point.”
“So. How is she? Katarina is worried.”
Another long pause. “How is Katarina?”
Fuck. We’re getting nowhere and he’s right. I really don’t want to talk about my feelings with my brother either. But one of us has got to start. And I am the oldest, I’m used to leading the way. “Do you think Mother would freak out if I married a Russian?”
Ryker coughs into the line. “Did you just say freak out?”
“Answer the question,” I growl.
“That’s more like my brother. Do I think she’d freak out if you married a Russian? No. Do I think she’d be concerned about Katarina’s lineage? I’m not sure. She knows better than anyone that a pedigree does not make for a good spouse.”
“Katarina was finished. Trained to be a lord’s wife.”
“Really?” Ryker asks. “Why?”
“He wanted her to marry into nobility, of course. Katarina has been nothing but a tool for his own success.”
“Sick fuck,” Ryker spits. “If I get my hands on him, I’ll tear him apart.”
I hear my brother’s fury, it’s an anger I share. “Have you been intimate with Sasha yet?”
“None of your fucking business.”
That makes me smile. If he’s guarding his relations with Sasha, he’s in deep. Men who care don’t share. “I’m only asking, because I’m wondering if she’s covered in scars like Katarina.”
“Katarina is covered in scars?” Ryker quietly asks.
“They’re horrid, Ryker. What he did to her…” And that’s when I realize that I am now fighting more for Katarina than I am for Rebecca. I never told my brothers who killed Rebecca. The guilt over my own part was too much to bear reflected back at me.
