Page 103 of Marrying the Savage

Nikolai shifts. “So Sergei?”

“Maybe.”

Mikhail shakes his head once. “Sergei would want you alive long enough to suffer publicly. He wouldn’t send men without marks to die in your warehouse unless there was a larger game.”

“There may be.”

I look at the captain’s body being carried in from the yard, his face already slack, blood black against his beard.

“Find the SUV,” I say.

Nikolai nods. “Already have men on the road.”

“Find the driver.”

“Yes.”

“Mikhail.”

He straightens.

“Pull every file on old Volodin, Antonov, and Sokolov routes from the last twenty-five years. I want to see everything laid out in front of me.”

Only then will I get to the bottom of things.

16

SOFIA

Damir doesn’t come home for breakfast.

Or lunch.

Not that I’m keeping track.

I am simply aware, in a completely normal and unemotional way, that the chair across from me remains empty, the coffee pot goes untouched except by me, and every man in this house becomes slightly more silent each time a phone rings.

That is all. Observation.

Not concern.

Certainly not concern for the man who dragged me out of a church, married me at gunpoint, gave me his father’s ring, and then did something with his fingers in his study that I am absolutely not thinking about while eating toast.

The toast is suffering. I’ve torn it into small pieces instead of eating it, which feels unfair to the toast but safer than admitting I’m waiting for him.

Marina notices. “Would you like something else, madam?” she asks.

“Sofia,” I remind her automatically.

“Sofia,” she corrects, though she says it quietly, as if the walls might report her for treason.

“No, thank you. The food is fine.”

“You haven’t eaten.”

“I’m bonding with it first.”

Her mouth almost twitches.