“I’m not about to accept money from the people who killed my mother!” she snapped.
Lucy came back and signaled for Chloe to stop talking while she was on the phone. Obviously, she wanted to hear more about Chloe's mother. I knew she was a woman called Renée. I’d heard Ivan and Irina argue about her. My mother thought Ivan had been having an affair. He never admitted to sleeping with Renée, but Irina said an emotional affair was still an affair.
Lucy ended the call. “Sloane is choppering in with Dom. Trevor had followed me and is picking them up at the nearest landing area. I couldn’t get my sister-in-law to hide it from my brother. Sorry.”
Was that another jab at me? That our marriage was doomed from the start because we kept secrets from each other? Maybe it was time to lay our cards on the table. My wound throbbed. After this fucking bleeding stopped.
And what the fuck did she mean, Trevor was following her? If I hadn’t seen her switch vehicles, would that mean they would be alone in these cozy Pocono Mountains? I notched that tidbit away for later interrogation.
“What was that you said about your mother?” Lucy asked. “The Kings ordered a hit on her?”
Chloe clamped her mouth shut, realizing she might have said too much.
My recollection of the affair that involved the Kings and the Zahkarovs was vague. It had caused Irina too much pain. I hated that the sins of the past would come back and hurt her. Sins of the past—that was the living and breathing woman in front of me. The time to kill her had passed. I didn’t kill women withoutreason. As much as Lucy might feel immense regret for shooting me, she couldn’t turn off what was intrinsically embedded in her DNA. She wanted justice for the victims of the mob.
I was the mob. And Chloe was a victim. I was prepared to shoot Chloe to defend myself.
It was as simple as that. I understood my wife’s actions.
Lucy turned to me. “Do you know anything about this?”
I shrugged and then hissed at the reminder of my injury. “All I know is Esther King approached the bratva to do a hit, but Ivan intervened and told Duncan about it. This was long ago, right after I left for Russia.”
“When you were nine?”
“Yes.”
“I wasn’t even born then,” Chloe said. “Bruce had reason to believe my mother died eight years ago.”
“Wait,” Lucy said. “You’re not sure?”
“We’d been separated since I was fifteen. For my safety, Mom said.” Chloe sniffed. “She usually reached out during the holidays and on my birthday, but it’s been total silence for eight years.”
Fuck. I could see Lucy’s face showing sympathy for her. They both scowled in my direction, and I questioned how I put myself at the mercy of two vixens. My hand itched to reach for the knife in my boot, but spilling more blood wouldn’t endear me to my wife.
My phone buzzed in my pocket. That was probably Kolya wondering where the fuck I was. I told everyone at the house my wife was mad at me and we might skip returning to the mansion and head straight for our vacation.
“I need to answer this,” I said.
Lucy came forward. Chloe raised the shotgun.
“Kindly point that thing away,” I enunciated. “You harm a hair on Lucy’s head and I don’t care who you are, I’ll slice your throat.”
“Not if I blow your head off first.”
“Okay, quiet, both of you,” Lucy warned. “What are you going to tell him?”
I grinned. “I’ll put him on speaker as a show of good faith.”
When Kolya came on the line, he was pissed. “Where the fuck are you?”
“Didn’t I tell you I was going on vacation?”
“You haven’t made arrangements for your flight.”
“Change of plans.”
Silence and then, “Am I on fucking speaker?”
