Page 124 of Queen’s Gambit

“I’ll wait here until you take off,” Mom said.

“Okay.”

Lilya climbed onto the seat beside me, and I grabbed her hand as Vlad opened the limo door. We’d no sooner stepped out when the hangar began to open. The butterflies in my stomach took flight as it slowly rose. Then…everything crashed at the sight of the soldiers with automatic weapons and Christov standing in front of them.

“Daddy,” Lilya said, smiling as opposed to the look on my face. What the hell did he do? “Are you coming on the trip, too?”

My guards reached for their weapons, but I held out my arms. “Don’t! You could hit Lilya,” I yelled.

“Smart choice,” Christov sneered.

“Lilya, stay with Vlad.”

She looked confused but transferred her little hand to Vlad’s. I marched over to Christov.

“What the hell are you doing here?”

“What does it look like I’m doing? I’m bringing my wife home.”

I laughed and then realized he was serious. “What? We have a deal.”

“You mean this?”

He held up the contract that we’d signed years ago, then pulled a lighter from his pocket.

“Don’t you dare.”

I reached for the papers, but he yanked them away and lit them on fire before tossing them over his shoulder. I tried to run around him, but he snatched me by the waist and hauled me back.

“Let go of me. You can’t do this. We had an agreement.”

“And that agreement is now dead. Oh, and that was the copy you gave your lawyer. I already destroyed mine.”

“You, asshole,” I growled, staring helplessly at the ashes. “What if I have another copy?”

“Careful wife, that almost sounded threatening. It would be a shame for someone to get trigger-happy accidentally.”

“You haven’t even begun to see threatening,” I said, yanking out of his hold. The contract didn’t matter now that Christov’s father was dead. Everyone already believed Sabastian was legitimate, and Christov and Alina had a plan to kill me.

“What is the meaning of this,” Mother asked, getting out of the car.

“Mrs. Mikhailov, how lovely to see you. I didn’t know you were aware that your daughter was about to run out on her marriage.”

My mother narrowed her eyes.

“Don’t play games with me, Christov. You won’t like the outcome. What have you done with Edmundo Genovese?”

Shit. I’d foolishly hoped that he hadn’t landed yet. She was right. Eddie should already be here.

Christov smirked. “I didn’t do anything to him.”

“Answer the question,” I ordered, the anger taking over.

“I called in a favor when we made our deal. I was notified whenever Mr. Genovese’s plane arrived in our country. So, imagine my concern when I come home from my meeting to find that you’ve fled the house and the Genovese jet has scheduled a landing.”

He tapped his chin like he was so smart, and I wanted to punch him square in his smug face.

“Since Edmundo cut all ties with Mr. Mikhailov’s businesses, there’s really no need for him to visit. Vadin felt the same way, and we had his entry onto Russian soil revoked.”