“I thought you’d left me,” I said, but stopped in my tracks as Alexander held a hand up for me to wait where I was. He pressed a finger to his lips and moved towards me quietly.
“Someone just came into the house. What time was Ivan supposed to be back?” He pitched his voice low so his words wouldn’t carry. The acoustics in such a massive house were insane.
“I don’t know. He acted like the deal with your father was falling apart. Sometimes he’ll be gone all night to fix an issue, other times only a few hours. It could just be the front guard?” I said, hopefully.
“No,” he murmured with a shake of his head, “he knows I’m here…or at least, whoever you’ve been sleeping with is here. Only Ivan would be stupid enough to enter.” Alexander pushed me the few short steps back into the bedroom.
As we moved, my eyes flashed up to the sleek black camera in the corner of the hallway. “The cameras,” I breathed out, panic surging through me so suddenly I felt sick. “They’re everywhere. Ivan checks them constantly from his phone and the monitors in his study. Oh my god, Alex. He knows you’re here. He knows it’s you now!”
“Let him know it’s me, Marisha. Let him challenge the future Bratva King.” He exuded confidence and I wanted to feel the same, but instead I felt an undercurrent of anxiety. Ivan wasn’t just an abusive husband; he was a lucrative businessman to the mafia. He was dangerous. I was just a brittle, useless woman. I was expendable.
“Alex, you can’t do anything rash. Your father will—”
“My father doesn’t like the bastard any better than I do, Marisha. I had to convince him to keep him in the fold for business reasons. If he’s screwing over my father with that deal, then he’s as good as fucking dead anyways.” He pulled a gun into view and backed away.
“He’ll kill you!” I hissed, panic gripping me.
Alexander smirked, the Devil in his eye. “He can fucking try.”
My heart was pounding, sweat breaking out on my forehead. I clutched my mother’s bird hair pen so fiercely that my palm ached. “What are you going to do?”
“Anything I damn well have to.” He looked around the room and then pointed at the bathroom. “Does that lock?”
“No, not anymore. I locked myself in there once after he…after he hurt me. He changed the doorknob the day after.” I couldn’t look Alexander in the eye. Ivan’s abuse was written all over my face like a billboard. Bright colors. Shimmering lights.Look here! Look here! Abused wife walking.
“Dammit,” he growled, searching the room again. “Take the chair from your makeup vanity, go in there, and shove the chair under the handle at an angle. Don’t come out unless I’m at the door telling you it’s safe.”
I nodded, my body starting to shake.
“You have to be strong for me, Marisha.” He leaned down and curved his hand around the back of my head, pulling it forward so that our foreheads touched. “No matter what you hear. No matter what happens. Stay in there.”
“Please don’t die. You can’t die and leave me behind.” Crying. I couldn’t stop crying. “I need you!”
“And you’ll have me, just as soon as I end the piece of shit downstairs.”
He kissed me, and I wished he’d press his mouth harder to mine. I wanted the full experience of kissing him, even if it hurt like hell against my bruised, busted lips. But there was no time for romance. No time for comfort.
The faint clicking of dress shoes on marble floors made me stiffen and Alexander turned to look at the entrance to the bedroom.
“Go now, Marisha. Go.”
I ran to the vanity and grabbed the mahogany chair. It was heavy, but adrenaline rushed through my veins as I hauled it to the bathroom and closed the door quickly, shoving the back beneath the door handle. I wiggled the knob, trying to pull the door open. The knob turned, but the angled chair kept the door wedged shut.
My imagination ran wild.
Alexander was out there with Ivan.
Loose-cannon-Ivan who, when he lost his temper, could not, and would not, control himself.
He would kill Alexander at the first chance he got. I couldn’t let that happen.
I stared at the chair, guilt joining the adrenaline to make me feel ill as I coped with the fact that I was safe right now, whilst Alexander was putting his life on the line to save me from a loveless, dangerous marriage. My face ached from Ivan’s fists and my arms throbbed where he’d grabbed me. It was almost like my body was trying to warn me to stay where I was.
And yet…I still found myself reaching for the chair, my heart desperate to move it, desperate to run out into the house and do whatever I had to do to save Alexander. Even if whatever I had to do involved dying.
I’d die for him.
Without question.
