Page 55 of Marrying the Savage

For some reason, that makes me laugh.

Only once. Small and surprised.

All three men look at me, Damir longest of all.

I immediately stop. “Sorry. I have had a strange morning.”

Grigori glances at the blood on Damir’s sleeve, the ruined hem of my wedding dress, the missing shoe, and my crooked veil. “So we heard.”

Mikhail enters behind us, followed by three other men. They arrange themselves naturally, not like servants, not like guests, but like pieces of a machine that has worked together for years.

Damir introduces them without ceremony. “Mikhail Lebedev, my second. You met him briefly.”

“I was being kidnapped at the time,” I say. “My manners suffered.”

Mikhail’s mouth twitches. “Understandable.”

“Nikolai Baranov,” Damir continues, nodding toward a broad man with close-cropped dark hair and a scar along his jaw. “Security.”

Nikolai inclines his head.

“Lev Orlov. Operations.”

Lev is younger than the others, maybe early thirties, with cold blue eyes and a face that gives away absolutely nothing.

“And Anton Sokol,” Damir adds.

Anton is the man who was shot in the church. His arm is bandaged now, his face pale but alert.

My guilt flickers. “You were hurt,” I say.

Anton looks surprised that I’m speaking to him. “It’s only a graze.”

“That’s what men say when they want women to stop asking questions.”

Grigori laughs.

Anton looks briefly helpless.

Damir watches me with an expression I can’t read. Then he says, “Enough. We will speak downstairs later.”

“Downstairs?” I ask.

Damir turns toward the staircase. “Come.”

“I would love to stop hearing that word.”

“You prefer being carried?”

My mouth shuts.

Grigori coughs into his fist.

Kirill looks at the ceiling like he is praying for strength.

I gather the front of my dress and follow Damir up the stairs, mostly because I have no idea where the exits are and because walking voluntarily feels better than being hauled over his shoulder like a morally complicated sack of flour.

The upstairs corridor is wide and dim, lined with more portraits and tall windows facing the sea. The waves crash below, white against black rock. It’s beautiful in a way that makes running feel impossible. Where would I go? Down the cliff? Into the water? Through a house full of armed men who all seem deeply loyal to the husband I acquired during a firefight?