Page 130 of Deadly Knight

“I can.” My arm tightens around her waist. “We should have had it ten years ago.”

Her expression falls six feet under. “Sorry.”

“I’m not. We’ve grown, Katya. We became who we had to be. Now, you’re a kickass woman meant to be by my side.” I pause, wondering how she’ll feel about me bringing up the next subject. “Heard you protected yourself.”

Unblinkingly, she replies, “I’m not sorry. He was coming for me and Vanessa. He worked for the people who took you.Hurtyou. He deserved to die. I only wish I was the one to do it. It felt nice to protect myself rather than be attacked.”

With her explanation, all previous fears of her being in danger are swept away by her self-acceptance and willingness to fight when required.

“Moy malen'kiy zadira.”My little badass. “You defended yourself and did amazing at it too.”

Pink taints her cheeks. “I’d like to not make it a regular occurrence, but it was necessary.”

It’ll never happen again.It’s the vow I make to both her and myself. She’ll never have to defend herself like that again, because I’ll be the one taking the bloodshed.

Nevertheless, I’d be dumb not to cover all our bases.

“You’ve been taking self-defence classes and they clearly paid off. In Moscow, I’d be more than happy to continue training you. Weapons lessons, as well, would be beneficial, so you’ll have a few ways to defend yourself, should the worst happen. If you’re not comfortable with me doing it, we can ask Vanessa or Ana. Ana especially lives for this stuff.”

“That’d be good. I, uh, never practiced with a man before. For comfort reasons, so you might have to go gentle for a bit while I figure out how to take down someone of your stature.” She makes a point of looking me up and down.

I link my hands into hers, bringing one between us and laying a kiss on her knuckles. “Moya dusha, you did that already. At least with me, I won’t actually hurt you.”

She opens her mouth to say more but a loud knock followed by Vanessa’s face appearing interrupts us. “If you two are almost done, this food smells fucking amazing, so if you’re not going to eat it, we will.”

Katya slides off me and stands beside the bed. “Anastasia and I picked up Thai on our way home. You need something to eat and soup’s probably the best, so I ordered you pho from one of my favourite restaurants.”

With her help, I unsteadily get to my feet and swipe a shirt from my duffle bag. After shrugging it on, she leads me into the kitchen, which has almost never been used in all my years of staying here. When I eat, it’s normally takeout on the couch.

Across my island, Anastasia has plates never before used spread out. There’s a large plastic takeout bowl of pho soup on one end that Katya directs me to.

“Should you be standing?” Vanessa asks as I pick up a spoon and use the counter to take most of my weight.

“I didn’t exactly stock this place with chairs. It’s fine. Worst case, there’s a couch.”

Katya moves beside me with her own plate of food, and Vanessa and Anastasia stand across from us, both with theirs. Vanessa gestures between us with her fork. “Back together for good then? Katya, will you be coming home on the jet with us?”

She shakes her head, and immediately I’m irritated with the realization that she has a life to wrap up here and I must be patient while she does so. With Corsetti having a record of exactly who is in the country, he’ll be monitoring to ensure every one of us goes back—me included.

“No. I have two more weeks of work to tie up, a friend to say goodbye to, plus packing an apartment’s worth of stuff.”

“We can take whatever back with us,” Anastasia offers. “That way, when you’re ready it’ll be less to move.”

“And of course,” my cousin interjects, “when you are ready to leave for good, don’t worry about flights or shipping companies. I’ll send the plane.”

Katya beams. “Thank you. And yeah, actually, that sounds good. Later, I’ll go up and pack as much as I can; I have some stuff I won’t be needing.”

I eat more of my soup to hide my irritation, because it means she’ll be heading upstairs later while I’ll probably be too weak to pass the threshold.

“How long do I have?”

Vanessa stares at me when answering. “’Til tomorrow. Since Dimitri’s up on his feet, we need to head back before we wear out our uncomfortable welcome from the Corsettis.”

“I’m not leaving without her.”

“You don’t have a choice.” Vanessa’s tone turns sharp, her eyes narrowing in that look she gets when she’s enforcing demands. “Corsetti has men waiting outside to ensure we stay inside until leaving for the plane.”

“It’s true,” Anastasia mumbles around food. “They tailed us when I brought Katya to work and her parents’ house.”