Total pages in book: 88
Estimated words: 84968 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 425(@200wpm)___ 340(@250wpm)___ 283(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 84968 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 425(@200wpm)___ 340(@250wpm)___ 283(@300wpm)
I remained frozen in place, afraid to move, afraid to breathe too loudly. In the mirrors surrounding us, I could see him studying me from every angle.
"Did they have to go?" I asked finally, lifting a champagne flute I hadn't touched all afternoon.
The crystal felt impossibly delicate in my trembling hand as the bubbles tickled my nose, sending another wave of nausea through my already unsettled stomach. "We were having fun."
It was a lie, and we both knew it.
I'd been too anxious to truly enjoy anything, too caught up in my own spiraling thoughts to engage properly with the women who'd tried so hard to include me.
"Yes." His gaze never left mine in the mirror, dark and unreadable. "You and I need to talk."
Oh god.
Nothing good ever followed those words.
Not in my experience with Pavel, and certainly not when delivered in that particular tone—calm on the surface but with undercurrents that made my skin prickle with warning.
CHAPTER 26
PAVEL
Iwas going to catch shit from my family for kicking out the wives, especially when they were having fun.
Damien was going to be particularly pissed at me for rushing his wife.
The glare she gave me promised her husband's anger as she carefully peeled Alina from the couture wedding dress that I wasn't supposed to see.
Yeah, all of them were going to get shit from their wives and they would all happily pass that down to me.
Still, Damien and the others would have been far more pissed if I allowed them to stay, given my condition.
Not only could I not protect them, but I also didn’t want them freaking out over the amount of blood that was seeping into my shirt under my jacket.
There was only so long I could keep it hidden.
They had all seen their own husbands bleed, hell, a few of them were responsible for that blood.
I knew they weren't weak or squeamish.
None of them would faint at the sight.
But they knew I'd been on a mission with their husbands.
If they spotted my condition, then they would have worried about what might have happened to their men.
Kostya had explained once or twice that an annoyed wife was a pain in the ass, but far better that than a freaked-out wife.
A sentiment I didn't understand, but which Artem had wholeheartedly agreed with.
The moment the women left, I turned to Alina. "I ordered food. Wait for the guards to knock with the room service."
She nodded as she swapped the robe for the T-shirt and yoga pants I had given her for the girls' visit. I would have complained, but those pants hugged her ass in a way that made gods weep and reminded me of the first time I laid eyes on her.
And I had more pressing matters to attend to.
I headed to the bathroom, carefully pulling off my suit jacket.
The shirt underneath was soaked with blood. It was already sticking to the wound and drying around the edges. Taking it off was going to hurt like a bitch.
A sharp gasp at the door made me turn.
Alina stood there, her eyes wide and the color draining from her face.
Something close to concern flashed across her face.
It must have been the blood loss.
There was no way she was worried about me.
In time, maybe.
But for now, she didn't see me as a lover but rather as a jailor.
If that was what it took to protect her, then I would be her monster.
"Babygirl, you shouldn't see this. Go back to the other room. I'll be out in a moment, and we'll have dinner," I said, turning back to the mirror.
She didn't move, her gaze locked onto the blood.
"You're hurt."
"It's just a scratch."
It wasn't.
The bullet had only grazed me, but it cut deeper than I had originally thought.
Nothing vital was hit, but I was bleeding a lot, and I would be left with a brutal scar that would mar the tattoos I had covering my side.
The annoyance at the ruined art was almost as bad as the pain itself. That piece had taken forever. It was slow and excruciating. Not only the tattooing itself, but the itching afterward was brutal. Now it was ruined.
Coming home to my fiancée covered in blood was not how I wanted the night before our wedding to go.
I had intended a quiet night where we talked, and I told her what our lives together would look like. I would give her the rules she was expected to live by and the new freedoms she would have as my wife.
The gunfight had been…unexpected.
The Colombians were proving to be more of a threat than Damien had led me to believe.
They should have barely had enough men or firepower to be anything other than an inconvenience.
After they kidnapped Yelena, Damien had all but wiped them out.
The ones who terrorized Alina should have been barely more than low-level street thugs.