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I fall into step with Maddox, keeping my neck on a swivel and watching for anyone who might be hanging back, who might be waiting in hiding solely for the purpose of keeping us away from the house.

After all, not a chance in fuck Dima would ever want a fair fight. Kind of like having his men beat his only child nearly to death instead of doing it himself. Kind of like ordering one of his men to execute her instead of pulling the trigger himself.

Fucking. Coward.

Holding up my hand, I grab Madd and yank him back by the collar of his shirt when movement to my left catches my eye.

Don’t want to get gunned down before we can get inside and make sure our wife is not only safe but gets her revenge.

“It’s Konstantin’s men,” Madd whispers.

Fuck. Maybe it’s time for glasses. I can see the men, can see an arm raised, but I can’t quite make out the dude’s face or even his clothing enough to feel as confident about his identity as Maddox.

When the blurry figure waves and motions toward the house before disappearing into the shadows, I decide I’ll have to trust Madd on this and pray he’s right. Everyone in the vicinity, every person put in place by Konstantin has a role in this as much as we do.

Their role is to make sure no one who wasn’t invited leaves this place with a beating heart.

My role?

Keep my wife safe, keep her alive, help her get her ounce of flesh, then make sure she gets the happily ever after she deserves.

Chapter 45

Everest

I’ve never really been a patient person, but the constant waiting, the constant anticipation is going to end up giving me a damn ulcer.

I’ll be honest – when my husbands sat me down when we arrived here and filled me in on everything, on the exact reason they were so forthcoming to our honeymoon location when they’ve spent so much time and energy keeping me under wraps the past few weeks I was scared. Terrified. But not for myself. I was terrified my father would bring too many men for my guys to take on and I would lose all three of them.

The issue here is there’s only so much Kato can do to distract me from the proverbial clock watching. He can’t let his guard down too much, but he can’t make it too obvious that every moment of the past few days all three of them have been waiting for something – anything – to happen.

At first, I was kind of excited. Maybe excited isn’t the right word; it makes me sound bloodthirsty.

Okay, so maybe I’m a little bloodthirsty. Only because I feel as though I’m owed more than the look of shock from my dad and blasé attitude from my mom.

Since the night of our engagement party, I’ve run that night through my head, wondering why the hell the person who brought me into this world hates me so much. Not like I had a whole lot of interactions with her. She didn’t raise me. She didn’t comfort me when I woke up crying from a thunderstorm or fell off my bike.

Hell. Neither of my parents even taught me to ride my bike, it was one of the constantly rotating nannies. I swear they came and went so fast I never had a chance to grow attached to any of them.

Looking back, I can’t help but wonder whether my father was having affairs with any of them, if my mom ordered their execution out of jealousy.

Maybe they saw too much, and my father had one of his men put a bullet in their brain. Or maybe they just got tired of my parents’ bullshit and left of their own accord.

There is literally no reason for my mom to be jealous of me – not like my father ever gave me any more attention than she did. And since she didn’t raise me, I wasn’t the cause of any of her precious shopping time being reduced.

So…why? What the hell had I ever done to her to make her obviously hate me?

I suppose the more important question is do I give a shit? I mean, I suppose I love my parents solely because they’re my parents. But definitely not much love lost there.

Kind of funny how the rest of the syndicates see my mom as this quiet, proper English lady when I know she’s drunk more often than not. Yeah, she’s fairly soft spoken and keeps her mouth shut when she’s dragged to any business functions, but I have a feeling my mom is just as cold, just as sick and twisted asmy father to not give two flying fucks that her husband tried to kill her only daughter,her only fucking child.

Giving up on pretending to read the book in my hands while Kato scrolls through his phone, I set the book on the table and lift the remote. Apparently, if you have enough money, you can get every single streaming service even in such an isolated area.

Doesn’t really matter how many choices there are when my focus is elsewhere. It’s been five days since they let me in on everything and as each day passed, my nerves have strung tighter and tighter.

There’s a touch of anxiety, of fear constantly squeezing my heart. Every night when we go to bed, I wake at the softest sounds, convinced we’re under attack.

My guys have reassured me over and over that everything is planned out, that we’re completely safe, but I know my father far better than they do. I wouldn’t put anything past him.