“Then I guess we’re both assholes,” she snaps, throwing up her hands in resignation.
I can’t help but laugh. This whole situation is so bizarre. Here I am, on my wedding night. I’m married to a gorgeous woman who’s pregnant with my child. I should be the happiest man in the world, and I should absolutely not be fighting with her.
“Alina,” I say softly. “I’m sorry for not telling you about Kostya.”
She crosses her arms and narrows her eyes like she doesn’t believe me.
“Seriously,” I say, putting up my hands in surrender. “I am so sorry for springing that all on you. Would you like to know how it all happened?”
She thinks for a moment before reluctantly nodding. She approaches slowly and I lead her to the couch, where we both sit down and take a beat to collect ourselves. Finally, I speak.
“You’ll remember that after your attack, the guards got a license plate,” I start.
She nods, looking at the floor. I know that day is hard for her to talk about. She’s spent almost two weeks in bed, unable to function.
“It led nowhere, obviously,” I say. “They were dummy plates. But those idiots ditched the van anyway, and didn’t scratch out the VIN. From there, it was easy connecting all the dots. The van belonged to a shell corporation that belonged to Kostya.”
She looks up at me in surprise.
“So it’s really been him this whole time?” she asks. “He’s the one who tried to kill you? The one who sent those men to grab me?”
I nod gravely. “If it’s any consolation at all, he wasn’t trying to hurt you,” I tell her, even though the words burn like acid in mythroat. “I think he really did love you in his own twisted way. He thought he was saving you from me. Finding out you were going to marry me must have really set him off.”
“I don’t understand.” She sighs.
“I won’t tell you exactly how we got this information, but let’s just say, he got very chatty. He told us that he’d been looking for a way to get into my organization for years. Then he came to the worksite posing as the cousin of one of my managers. That’s when he met your dad.”
“So I’ve been part of the plan from the beginning?” she asks in horror, starting to shake. “Why? I didn’t know anything about any of this!”
I grab her hand and rub slow circles against the back of it with my thumb. I don’t want her to feel scared or like any of it was her fault. It wasn’t. She was just a pawn in a very sick man’s game.
“That’s what made you the perfect mark for him,” I tell her calmly. “And he wanted us to meet. He knew that putting you in my path would make me vulnerable.”
She looks up in surprise. “What?” she asks incredulously. “How could he have possibly known that we would meet?”
“Because he knew that if he cheated on you, that would send you right to that elevator. They had it all planned, Alina. There were so many of his men and some of mine who were working to make sure that we met exactly when we did.”
She pulls away slightly, shaking her head. “I don’t understand,” she says slowly. “He faked an entire relationship with me just so we could meet that night of my engagement party? That seems…”
“Elaborate,” I supply. “Desperate, maybe?”
“Psychotic,” she finishes. “Was any of it real?”
“He says that he fell in love with you along the way. That he wanted to call it off, but it was too late. By the time he’d come to his senses, the car bomb had already gone off.”
“I was supposed to die that night too, wasn’t I?” she whispers in horror.
“Yes.” I nod gravely. “I’m so sorry, Alina. In the original plan, if you were dead, he could just move on and play the grieving fiancé.”
She looks up with me with tears in her eyes, but she doesn’t seem sad. She stands up and starts pacing.
“Why didn’t you kill him?” she shouts at me.
I can’t help but chuckle at her. She’s so beautiful when she’s angry.
“Alina,” I say softly. “Believe me when I tell you that the fate he’s going to suffer is much worse than death.”
She stops pacing and looks at me, nodding once in agreement. “Good,” she says. “That’s good. I hope his life is a living hell.”
