Married to the Russian Kingpin: Sokolov Brothers Book One

by North, Leslie

  She might as well have fired a bullet pointblank into his chest. If he had not been expecting this reception, then Vlad certainly hadn't expected to be the one to deliver the news.

  His lips thinned into a humorless smile. "Dead."

  He could see that the revelation stunned the capricious, curvaceous woman. Her steely expression faltered, and she blinked her big brown eyes. The hard front she had been putting up all but disintegrated.

  "I… I didn't know," she confessed. "How? When?"

  One of these questions Vlad wanted answered himself. Until then… "A month ago," he replied. "I'm surprised the news hasn't reached you."

  "No. No, it hadn't." Her breasts swelled as she clenched her arms. "I'm guessing Father knew, but he must have been keeping it from me. Not just to avoid an 'I-told-you-so,' but to protect me. He knows how worried I've been about this whole arrangement."

  The woman unlaced her arms only long enough to reach out and straighten a nearby vase. Vlad watched her from behind the dark shield of his sunglasses. Was that a nervous tell, and was this all a show for him? Was it possible this woman was only feigning ignorance, or had she really not known that the Pakhan—and her gallery's primary investor—was murdered?

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