Page 43 of Kidnapped Bride

Yakov nodded and tucked the mock-up back into his jacket. "It's scheduled to run today, Boss."

Guilt needled at my conscience, which I had always been very good at pushing away. But now it felt unshakeable. Every step I took would affect Kira in ways she may not be able to recover from for years.

"Good." I shifted my attention to Vlad. "I need you to gather the men for a meeting tonight at midnight, here at the house."

Vlad raised an eyebrow but didn't question it. "All of them?"

"Everyone we have left. We need to discuss how we handle Markin going forward because what we've been doing isn't working. He's taken too much and if we don't respond with something decisive, he'll take the rest."

Vlad grunted his acknowledgement and headed out the door while Yakov stepped forward, ready to receive his own orders. "You want me there tonight?" he asked.

"I want you next to me every time I leave this desk until this is over." I couldn't risk Markin pulling a fast one on me. I needed the extra protection to ensure he didn't attack when I least expected it.

"And get me a drink," I grumbled, annoyed at how much this damn wound still hurt. "I can't think straight."

Yakov walked to my liquor cabinet while I rested my head on the headrest of my chair. We would force Markin back one way or another. As pathetic and weak as that man was, I was shocked we hadn't managed to do it already. But he was sneaky and conniving too, and evil.

Still, the man had not come for his own blood. That said a lot about him—and me.

Because Kira was mine now, and I'd made that clear to pretty much everyone. Today's paper promised to be gasoline on the fires burning between the two families, and if Markin were smart, he'd try to douse the flames, not fan them.

14

KIRA

Nikolai had surprised me this evening by inviting me to dinner. We hadn't spoken in over a week, though I was awake every night when he came to bed. My pretending had gotten better or his ability to detect it had gotten worse. But now that I had a bit more freedom to leave the bedroom, I had made myself more at home.

Yakov had to follow me around, but I sat in the study reading or spent time with Anya in the kitchen. This afternoon when he requested for me to join him for this meal, I had been sitting on the back patio with Vlad, enjoying the warm sunshine and fresh air. And he was polite enough about it. How could I refuse him?

"You think that would work?" he asked me, of the several attempts he'd made to sleep through my supposed snoring. Though, I still thought he was picking on me and lying. If anyone snored loudly, it was him.

"You could try anything." I snickered, picturing him with noise cancelling headphones on his head while trying to sleep. We'd been joking and talking about anything and everything for thiswhole meal, and three glasses of wine in, on the final course, things were winding down.

I was right to question him on every turn, after everything he'd put me through, but having seen him at a very low moment for him, I felt I owed him a second look. The Nikolai Dragonov whom I got to know over a few weeks of messaging, previous to our failed date, had been so charming and alluring. Like the man I sat across from tonight. When he said he'd been genuine with me, I originally dismissed him as a liar. Now I felt there was more depth to him than I’d given him credit for.

I plunged my fork into my last piece of lamb and brought it to my mouth as Niko topped off my wineglass without asking. And the way he dived back into stories about his childhood made me smile. He'd already told me several of them, and it appeared he enjoyed remembering those days.

"My grandfather had this fishing boat in St. Petersburg," he said, leaning back in his chair. "God, it was a tiny thing. My mother told me he glued it together out of popsicle sticks." He chuckled, and it warmed his entire expression. "Anyway, one morning when I was maybe eight, my grandfather took me out before sunrise to check his nets, and I was so tired I could barely keep my eyes open.

"So he hands me this thermos of coffee and tells me it'll wake me up." Both of his eyebrows rose and I already knew what he was going to say. "I'd never had coffee before." He gestured impishly with his hands. "I took one huge gulp and spat it all over the side of the boat. Pops started yelling because I'd spat it directly onto a fish he'd just pulled in." The belly laugh that erupts is heartwarming. "He spent the next twenty minutes rinsing coffee off this fish while it flopped around the deck, and I sat there crying because I thought I'd poisoned it."

I laughed so hard I had to cover my mouth with my napkin to keep from spitting out wine. I knew I was tipsy and the story wasn't all that funny to me, but his laughter was infectious, and thinking of Nikolai as a child humanized him. It was easier to relate, and it sucked me in.

"Did the fish survive?" I asked, still grinning.

"He sold it at the market that afternoon. Told the woman it was a special blend." His mouth twitched and I could see the kid in him, with sparkling eyes and high hopes that the woman seated across from him was enjoying him. "My grandmother found out he made me cry and hollered at him." He sighed deeply and it sounded like he was content. He picked up his wine and finished it as I wiped my mouth.

"Were they close?"

"Until the day he died, I'm told. My parents brought me here to the States when I was so young, maybe ten… I can't remember." His joy lifted, like someone had suctioned it out of him at the mention of his move. I pictured a happy life there in St. Petersburg with his grandparents, and I wondered what made his family uproot themselves.

I set my fork down and picked up my glass. There was something about the way he talked about his family that didn't line up with the man I'd been held captive by. But when he spoke of his childhood, I found myself resonating with him. It put me at ease the way "Niko" had, and I almost could forget why I was here and what The Dragon had done to me.

"What about you?" he asked. "What were you like as a kid?"

"A nightmare, honestly." I smiled and shrugged a shoulder. "I never stopped talking. My mom used to hide in her study justto get five minutes of peace." I laughed fondly at the memory. That was long before my mother decided that her long trips to Europe were a better escape than the lock on her home office. I missed her, though, and the longer I was away from my father, the more time I'd had to think about how right she was. I needed to reconnect with her somehow, bridge that gap, and hope and pray she cared more about me than my father.

"What did you do for fun?" Nikolai picked up the bottle of wine, only to find it empty and set it back down.