by Roxie Rivera
“I don’t want to jinx myself.” She held Sophia’s hand and seemed to marvel at her tiny fingers. “I’d rather not walk down the aisle with a beach ball belly.”
“You’d still be a beautiful bride.”
“But I wouldn’t fit into the dress I picked, and it’s the dress.”
The whirlwind trip to New York City to find that couture gown had been some of the most fun I had had in ages. Yuri had splashed out on the best of everything, putting us up in a penthouse with an incredible view of Central Park and arranging the hardest to get tickets to Broadway shows and reservations at the hottest restaurants. I shuddered to think what it must have cost him to send the five of us girls all that way. The price tag on the gown was scary enough!
“What about your...?” Her gaze lowered to my flat belly. “Any progress?”
I shook my head. “Aunt Flo is in town.”
“I’m sorry,” she said softly and gave my hand a squeeze. “My offer still stands.”
A few months earlier, she had offered to be a surrogate if the issue keeping us from getting pregnant was something to do with my womb. It wasn’t an offer she made lightly, and I had no doubt that if I came to her and asked her to carry a baby for me, she would drop everything to make it happen. It was times like this that she proved what a big, selfless heart she had.
“Benny just had a great idea,” Vivian announced. “We should all meet up for brunch the morning after the gala.”
“Not at Samovar,” Lena said, wrinkling her nose.
“Why not?” Vivian bristled.
“We always eat at your restaurant.”
“No, we don’t,” Vivian argued.
Lena dramatically rolled her eyes and started to list off all the times we had met at Nikolai’s famed restaurant for shared meals. As the two bickered back and forth, I shared an amused smile with Benny and let my thoughts turn back to Ivan and the meeting in his office. What the hell are they talking about in there?
Chapter Four
Worried that Erin might be overwhelmed by all of the people who had descended on their house, Ivan glanced at his watch for the second time in the last ten minutes and wondered how quickly he could run everyone off without being a rude asshole.
“Did she manage to get a good look at them?” Dimitri asked, pulling Ivan from his thoughts.
“They were in all black. Masks. Shirts. Pants. Boots. She thinks they were all white men. Two of them had green eyes. She remembers that very clearly. They were fit and shorter than me. That’s all I got out of her.”
“It probably happened so fast that she didn’t have time for details,” Dimitri reasoned. “It’s a good thing you were teaching her self-defense.”
“I shouldn’t have to teach her how to fight,” he growled, hating that his wife was forced to brawl in the fucking street to defend herself. “She should be able to walk to her car without getting attacked.”
“Yes, she should,” Dimitri agreed, “but the world is a fucked up and dangerous place. You gave her the skills she needed to protect herself. You should be proud of her for not freezing.”
“I am proud of her.” He didn’t even have the right word to describe how proud he was of his wife.
“What do you think they meant?” Yuri asked as he helped himself to a splash of Canadian whiskey. “Keep her mouth shut about what?”
“Fuck if I know,” Ivan replied, slashing his hand through the air when Yuri gestured toward him with the bottle. He wasn’t in the mood for a drink right now.
“It has to be something that Ruby saw in jail,” Nikolai reasoned. “We made sure all of Ruby’s debts and other problems were handled before you married Erin. There’s nothing else out there.”
“She may have seen something in one of the drug dens she used to visit,” Dimitri suggested. “She may have seen a murder or some other crime?”
“Maybe,” Ivan said uncertainly. He caught Nikolai’s gaze. Both men had spent time in prisons back home, and both understood more than Yuri or Dimitri ever would about the sort of horrible shit that happened behind bars. “I worry she saw something happen in jail.”
“Like inmate on inmate?” Yuri took a seat and sipped his whiskey. “Or something worse? The guards doing something they shouldn’t?”
“If that’s the case, we’re going to have a hell of a time finding out what it was,” Dimitri remarked.
“When is Kostya back?” Yuri asked. “This is what he does best.”
“He almost died,” Dimitri said with irritation. “His heart actually stopped. You’re really going to sit there and ask when he’s coming back from Mexico to start chasing down dangerous leads?”
“It’s his job,” Yuri replied matter-of-factly.
“Was,” Nikolai interrupted. “It was his job.”
“And what exactly does a retired cleaner do?” Yuri wondered. “Do you really think he’s just going to stop being what he is? A fixer? A spy? An assassin?” Yuri shook his head. “He’ll come back when he’s ready, and he’ll want to do what he does best.”
“Not for me,” Nikolai stated. “He can freelance if he wants, but his days of cleaning up our shit are over.”
“You better find a new housekeeper then,” Yuri advised. “The underworld is a dirty, messy place. You don’t want to track all that muck back to your clean, tidy house.”
“I don’t need you to tell me how things are, Yuri.” Nikolai’s eyes hardened in a way that would have made lesser men avert their gazes and apologize. Not Yuri, though. He had been pushing Nikolai’s buttons since they were children. Clearly not wanting to argue, Nikolai ended that line of discussion with a simple, “It’s all being handled.”
“I may have a way to get some information about the jail,” Dimitri said, his gaze focused on his phone. “One of our guys is married to a woman who used to work there as a detention officer. I’ll see if she’s willing to talk to me about her experience there. She might know something useful.” He slipped his phone back into the pocket of his jeans. “I’ll be vague. Careful,” he added. “Until we know more, I don’t want to raise any suspicions.”
“What about our detective friend?” Yuri asked, his expression grim and irritated as he mentioned Eric.
“He was at the hospital.” Ivan held Nikolai’s gaze, noticing the slight narrowing of Nikolai’s eyes.
“What did he want?” Dimitri looked worried. “He doesn’t work robberies.”
“He thinks Erin and Zoya are lying and hiding the real reason for the attack. He thinks it’s something to do with my past.”
“That’s all we need,” Yuri grumbled. “Eric fucking Santos digging through our lives again. If he goes after Ruby...”
He let the thought hang unfinished. It was no secret to anyone in the room that Ruby was the weak link.
“There’s nothing to worry about there,” Nikolai decided. “She’s nothing to me or any of my soldiers and captains. Whatever she thinks she knows is complete and total bullshit. If she spins a tale for Eric, let him waste time chasing it down.”
“What about Zoya?” Yuri relentlessly prodded, bringing up yet another complication.
“She knows more about keeping quiet than most of us,” Nikolai remarked. He didn’t have to say anything more than that. They all knew the terrible story of Zoya’s mother.
“Other than chasing down some leads, what else can we do to help, Vanya?” Dimitri asked. “Do you want me to send some of my men to guard Erin? Have them tail her if you’d rather keep it low-key?”
He rubbed his face and admitted, “Erin will lose her shit if I hire a bodyguard without asking her. I wanted to call you at the hospital and hire someone right then and there, but I didn’t want to upset her.”
“Talk to her,” Dimitri urged. “If she’s agreeable, we can find someone she likes.”
“I will.” He already knew what her answer would be. “The most important thing to her is getting back her rings.”
Dimitri winced. “I doubt that’s possible.
”
“I know,” he agreed, “but I have to try. I’ve already spoken to Besian. He used his pawn shop connection to get the word out that I want them back. If someone tries to get rid of them at a pawn or gold shop in town, I’ll find out about it.”
“If those assholes are smart, they’ll melt them down or throw them away,” Yuri warned.
“If they were smart, they wouldn’t have attacked the wife of one of my best friends.” Nikolai glanced at his watch. “Speaking of wives, I need to get mine home.”
Dimitri followed Nikolai’s example and stood. “It’s time for my girls to have their afternoon nap.”
“I thought Benny had taken a break from opening the bakery?” Yuri asked before polishing off the whiskey in his glass.
“There was a family emergency with one of her longtime employees,” Dimitri explained. “She’s back on early mornings until Connie’s mom is out of the stroke unit and into a rehab center.” He made a face. “But, fuck, that alarm at three in the morning is rough.”
“She needs to delegate to another employee,” Yuri advised, taking his dirty glass in one hand and slapping Dimitri on the back with the other. “I get it. She’s proud of her business. She’s protective of what her family built, but she deserves to enjoy the perks of being the owner...”
Ivan watched Dimitri and Yuri leave the office. Nikolai had remained behind, clearly hoping to catch him in a private moment. Worried he wouldn’t like whatever the boss had to say, he sighed and asked, “What?”
“Despite what I said earlier, if this girl is going to be a problem, I expect you to handle it.”
Ivan blew out a noisy breath. “You’re talking about my wife’s sister.”
Nikolai’s eyes were stone cold. “I know exactly what I’m saying.”
Ivan gritted his teeth and didn’t argue. He nodded stiffly. “I’ll handle it.”
“I know you will.” Signaling that he was finished discussing it, Nikolai rose and buttoned the front of jacket.
Fighting the urge to give Nikolai the finger for being so highhanded, he followed him back into the living room where their wives had congregated. He found Erin sitting in the corner of her favorite couch with little Sophia tucked in her arms. Their gazes met, and his earlier irritation with Nikolai fled. Seeing her Dimitri’s little girl filled him with a longing he couldn’t quite articulate. The idea that someday soon Erin would hold their baby, their son or daughter, made his heart do a funny little flip in his chest.
After sharing private, tender smiles, he herded everyone out the door in groups of two and three until only Vivian and Nikolai remained. She had disappeared into the kitchen and emerged a short time later. As Nikolai helped her into her coat, she said, “I put lunch in the oven. Take off the foil when the timer goes off and give it another twenty minutes or so. There’s a salad and dessert in the refrigerator. Lena left a bottle of wine on the counter.”
“Thank you.” Erin hugged Vivian.
“Call me later.”
“I will.”
“Vanya.” Nikolai nodded, silently communicating that he would be a phone call away if they needed anything.
He followed the couple to the front door and locked up behind them, checking the security system before returning to the living room. Erin had moved to the loveseat closer to the fire. He crouched down to add another log and rearrange the glowing coals. When the fire was burning hot the way she liked, he joined her on the loveseat, sinking into the deep, plush cushions and opening his arms. She cuddled into his embrace, placing her head against his chest and wiggling in closer. He held her tightly, knowing that she needed to feel safe.
As he combed his fingers through her hair, he said, “When Ruby calls you, don’t say anything about what happened today.”
She didn’t seem surprised by his request. “I wasn’t planning to,” she replied. “I...I want to see her face when she finds out. It’s the only way I’ll know if she’s...well...you know.”
“I know.” He understood her reticence. She didn’t want to accuse her sister of setting her up, especially when it was likely that Ruby was a victim of something terrible.
“What do you think they want her to be quiet about?” Erin asked, her voice filled with worry. “Like...a murder?”
He winced at the possibility. “Fuck, I hope not.”
“Drugs? Maybe some kind of dealing inside the jail?”
“Probably.” He didn’t want to tell Erin that he feared it might be something worse than drugs. Jails and prisons here were different than the ones back home, but they weren’t that different. There was a fair chance that some kind of forced prostitution or sexual coercion was going on behind the walls of the jail. The type of men who wanted to be guards seemed to have an affinity for playing power games with inmates. He had seen it plenty of times during his short stints as a teenager and then young adult. Whatever went on in women’s jails had to be a hundred times worse than what went on in the men’s side.
“I’m getting my hair done with Lena tomorrow.”
Her comment pulled him away from those old, horrible memories. “Yeah?”
“I’m getting extensions.”
In all the time they had been together, he hadn’t ever seen her with long hair. It would be a novelty to see her look so different so quickly.
Misreading his silence, she glanced up at him with doubt in her eyes. “Is that okay?”
“Erin.” He tipped her chin and claimed her mouth. Holding her gaze so she would know he meant it, he said, “You could shave your head tomorrow, and you would still be the most beautiful fucking woman I’ve ever seen.” With a grin, he added, “I would miss being able to pull your hair when we’re in bed, but I’m sure I could find something else that would make you scream.”
She snorted playfully and pressed a noisy kiss to his jaw. “Wow. So romantic!”
“Make sure to ask them to put those extensions in extra tight,” he teased. “If you want them to last longer than one night.”
“Ivan!” Laughing, she swatted at him. “Stop!”
“Not a chance,” he murmured against her mouth, careful of her bruised bottom lip. When he dragged her onto his lap, hauling her thighs over his until she straddled him, she sighed happily and rocked against him. Not wanting to push her into being intimate after what she had experienced that morning, he asked, “Do you still want me to stop?”
“Nope.” She gripped the back of his neck as he kissed his way down her neck to the curve of her shoulder peeking out of her oversized sweater. “But—.”
“But?”
“I’m on my period.”
“Like that’s ever stopped me before,” he muttered and nipped at her skin. “Are you using it?”
Before Erin, he had never given much thought to women’s cycles or the ways they handled them. Once she had moved in with him, he had become quickly acquainted with things like cups and discs and all of the interesting benefits they had—including allowing them to be intimate anytime they wanted.
“Yes,” she whispered, her voice shaky as he traced his fingers along the seam of her leggings, right between her plump cheeks.
“Good.”
Her short nails bit into the back of his neck as he slipped his hand into her leggings. Exhaling with need, she begged, “Make me forget how gross that other guy made me feel when he touched me. Take me upstairs and fuck me. Remind me that I belong to you—and only you.”
“Fucking right you do,” he growled and captured her mouth. Overcome with the need to claim her, to mark her like a wild beast would its mate, he thrust his tongue against hers. As he stood holding his wife in his arms, her thighs wrapped around his waist, the animalistic side of him entertained violent thoughts of retribution and revenge against that piece of shit who had assaulted her.
Mine. She’s mine. And I’ll kill the next man who dares to touch her.
Carrying her upstairs to their bedroom, he silently vowed that the men who hurt her would regret the day they dec
ided to threaten his family. They had no idea what was coming for them.
Chapter Five
Stepping closer to the full-length mirror in the corner of our walk-in closet, I studied my appearance. The bruises from my ordeal outside the barre studio had faded enough that careful application of color correcting concealer made them disappear under my foundation. I had gone a little heavier with my eyeshadow and liner to draw attention away from the areas I had camouflaged.
Sweeping aside my freshly cut bangs, I reluctantly admitted to myself that Lena and Nisha’s insistence that I needed them was correct. They framed my face and highlighted the shape of my eyes and my cheekbones. I finger combed the waves of luscious brown hair tumbling around my shoulders, some of it mine and some of it extensions, and marveled at how different I looked. Nisha’s prices were exorbitant, but she was worth every single penny.
“Do I have to wear this?”
I stepped into my heels and left the walk-in closet to find Ivan decked out in his tux and standing in front of the mirror, tugging at his bolo tie. I gently swatted his hands away. “Stop. It took forever for me to tie this just right.”
“I look ridiculous,” he groused, eyeing his reflection with distaste.
“You look sexy.” I spread my hands across his broad chest, feeling the starched white fabric of his dress shirt before sliding my hands up and over the crisp black tuxedo jacket. “The dress code is non-negotiable for Denim and Diamonds.”
“I look like an extra in Urban Cowboy!”
Regretting our 80’s movie night, I sassily replied, “Well, smack my butt and call me Sissy because I’m about to climb you like a mechanical bull.”
He made that growling sound that made my insides wobble before slapping my bottom with one of his big hands. I yelped, and he swallowed my cry of protest with one of his punishing kisses, making me ever so grateful I had used a smudge proof color tonight. When he pulled back, he said, “You can climb on me anytime.”
“Later.”
“We can be late.”
“No.” Even though my body was on fire and screaming yes, I declined his tempting offer for a bathroom quickie. “This is our first year going, and I want to make a good impression.”