“I need my hands free; they’re busy with my wife at the moment.”
“Fuck, comrade, are you fucking her right now?”
I smirked as Lucy shot me a glare.
“What do you want?” I asked.
“Just letting you know everything tonight went smoothly.”
“Good. Is that it?”
“Yeah, shame I couldn’t convince you to do business in the Bahamas.” As expected, Kolya was on guard because he knew we were on speaker. It was a risk I took with Chloe in the room.
“I told you. It’s a pleasure trip for my wife and me, I have no plans on doing any business.”
“Don’t get too attached to your wife.”
And that was my signal to end the call before I admitted to being exactly that. Lucy’s face had comically taken on the palest shade of white.
“You ran away from me for nothing. You shot me for nothing,” I told her smugly. I didn’t realize the satisfaction of holding something like this over my wife’s head. We were toxic as fuck, and I thrived on it. I was looking forward to having herat my mercy in a secluded cabin somewhere. Yes, when I was driving through the Poconos, I’d changed my plans about the Bahamas.
She emitted a strangled sob so full of guilt, I almost reassured her.
“You did barge in here,” Chloe retorted.
“Shut up.” Lucy turned on the other woman. “Don’t you realize I misjudged him?”
“You don’t tell me to shut up in my house,” Chloe spat. She was right, but it didn’t lessen my desire to strangle her for talking to my wife that way.
“We’ll leave.” I stood only to have a shotgun pointed at my face. I clenched my jaw.
“Oh, no…no…you are going to clean up the mess. This is hardwood floor. I might not even get my deposit back.”
“You worry about deposit money when you could have millions at your disposal?”
“Kirill, sit before you topple over,” Lucy ordered. I was really fine. My heart was pumping more blood than I was losing, or it felt that way as the sharpness returned to my vision. Still, my wife convinced the virago to give me orange juice.
My call with Kolya seemed to have aggravated Chloe. There was no doubt she hated being dragged into the bratva’s orbit again. She had lowered her shotgun but was pacing and mumbling to herself until Lucy asked to see the trust documents. Meanwhile, I listened in.
“It doesn’t say here that you have to marry Kirill?” Lucy pointed out.
“No. But for me to receive the shares, there has to be a union between a King and a Zahkarov.”
I remembered something. “That must be why Ivan was against Maksim’s marriage to Ophelia.” I leveled my eyes at Chloe. “He was hoping to marry him off to you.”
“If he divorces Ophelia—” Lucy started.
“Then it’s possible.”
“Sorry, I’m not a broodmare to be paired off. I have no intention of marrying anyone who is bratva.”
“You can still receive the shares when you’re thirty if Ivan doesn’t produce a suitable Zahkarov for the match.”
Lucy worried her bottom lip. Now I was fixated on it. I drank more orange juice.
“Can you please continue to put pressure on the wound?” Chloe handed me another towel. “You’re still dripping.”
“Such bedside manners,” I drawled.
