“Klaus is ten minutes away.”
The words hit like ice water poured straight into my veins. Shock locks my muscles for half a heartbeat. Ten minutes. He’s here. In my city. In my territory. Ten fucking minutes.
I turn to Alena.
She’s sitting up now, sheet clutched to her chest, eyes wide and dark with sudden fear. The black diamond on her finger catches the light, glinting like a warning. Her lips are still swollen from kissing, her neck marked with my bite, a thin line of blood already drying. She looks vulnerable. Beautiful. Mine.
“Babe,” I say, voice steady even though my pulse is roaring in my ears. “Get dressed. Now.”
She nods, quick and silent, the fear in her eyes sharp but controlled.
I lean down, cup her face with my free hand, thumb brushing over her cheekbone. “Whatever you hear—whatever happens—know I will protect you. I love you. You will be okay. Okay?”
She nods again, swallowing hard, her throat working under the mark I left.
I press my forehead to hers for one brief second, breathing her in—smoke, sex, her. Then I pull back, eyes locked on hers.
“Babe,” I whisper, fierce and low. “I will take a bullet to the heart and keep going if it’s for you. Don’t be scared. Okay?”
“Okay,” she breathes, voice small but steady.
I kiss her—hard, fast, like it might be the last time—tasting fear and love and everything we’ve built in seventeen years.
Then I stand.
Fuck.
Klaus is here.
That means he knows. If not everything, then most. He’s not coming for a casual visit. He’s coming because he smells blood in the water.
He must have men tailing us. Watching. Reporting. Worse—he might have a traitor. Someone inside my circle. Someone who’s been feeding him pieces of the truth.
My city. My family. My wife.
He’s walking into my territory thinking he still owns it.
He’s wrong.
I grab my shirt from the floor, pull it on, holster the gun against my ribs, and head for the door.
Time to end this.
52
ALENA
The moment Drogo closes the bedroom door behind him, I scramble out of bed with my heart hammering against my ribs. Klaus is ten minutes away. I can still feel Drogo's kiss on my lips, still hear his words echoing in my head—I will take a bullet to the heart and keep going if it's for you—and terror is crawling up my throat like something alive.
I grab the first clothes I can find—black jeans, a grey sweater, underwear pulled on with shaking hands. My fingers fumble with the zipper, with the fabric, with everything. I drop my phone twice trying to pick it up. My hands will not stop trembling.
I catch a glimpse of myself in the mirror as I pull the sweater over my head. My neck has a bite mark—his bite mark—a thin line of dried blood visible above the collar. My lips are swollen. My hair is a mess. I look exactly like what I am: a woman who was just making love to her fiancé when the world came crashing down around her.
I run my hands through my hair, trying to make myself presentable, trying to steady my breathing, but my stomach lurches like I am going to be sick. The black diamond on my finger catches the light, and I stare at it for a moment. Engaged this morning. Meeting my future father-in-law—the head of the Russian mafia—in minutes. What is my life?
I force myself to head downstairs, and the scene that greets me stops me cold. The house has transformed into something out of a military operation. Men in suits are everywhere—positioning themselves at windows, checking sight lines, speaking in rapid Russian through earpieces. I count at least eight of them just in the areas I can see.
And in the center of it all is Drogo, dressed in black jeans and a black shirt that makes him look every inch the dangerous man he has become. He is giving orders in Russian—calm, controlled, his voice carrying authority that makes grown men snap to attention. I watch him point to different positions, adjust formations, his movements efficient and practiced. This is not my Drogo from this morning making me coffee and proposing with shaking hands. This is the heir to the Bratva, preparing for war.
