Page 7 of Her Rustanov Husband (Ruthless Bullies #2)

Volfie

LYDIA

Six Years Ago

“Yom, volfie, are you home?” I called as soon as I stepped into the huge, ultra-modern house overlooking Lake Gemidgee that I now shared with my fiancé.

He hated when I called him anything other than “Daddy,” but no way was I going there with his housekeeper, Pesya—Rina’s Russian Jewish grandmother—possibly in the house.

I started toward the kitchen to check if Pesya was still around, even as I called out, “I’ve got a weird situation, and I kind of need your…”

I stopped short, the word help trailing off, when I saw Yom in the downstairs bedroom he’d converted into an ADHD/dyslexic’s dream office for me, sitting at my computer.

“Yom, what’s up?” I asked. “Why are you in here?”

He swiveled around in the gaming chair like a stereotypical villain in a high-stakes action movie. Which, let’s face it, even with minimal acting ability, he’d do a totally believable job of playing.

The American Rustanovs had supposedly broken ties with their Bratva roots, but I could see why the media always treated that claim as scurrilous at best.

Yom radiated danger, even just sitting there in the workout sweats he always threw on after a full day of rink conditioning.

He’d never hurt me. I knew that deep in my bones.

But alarm bells went off in my chest when he just sat there, regarding me with a hard, impenetrable look. “What’s going on?”

“This is what I am wondering.” He rose to his feet, so tall I had to tip my head back to meet his gaze.

“I am seeing follow-up email from organization that is calling itself Barrington Foundation of Canada Dog Guides in your inbox. They are offering you three-year apprenticeship. In city called Delta. I am looking it up, and nyet , it is not in Minnesota but far away in British Columbia.”

I blinked. Then realized. “Wait, you went through my email?”

“ Da . I am doing this as part of my routine every Thursday before you come home from shelter.” The dark scent of his cologne wafted into my nose as he continued to regard me without an ounce of remorse in his cold, gray stare. “To ensure your inbox contains no matters in need of handling.”

Oh… well, that explained why I hadn’t gotten any overdue notices since I started dating him, and how the three-figure fine in overdue library books I’d managed to accrue had magically already been paid.

Technically, having somebody else manage my dumpster fire of an inbox was an ADHD girl’s dream. But… “I didn’t give you permission to do that.”

Yom regarded me for one of those long, appraising beats that never failed to make me squirm—even when I was totally in the right.

“We will discuss you giving me permission I am not bothering to ask for after you tell me why you are hiding this job offer from me. According to email, there was even Zoom interview over spring break you are not telling me about.”

More squirming under that, hard gray gaze. It was so cold, yet I felt like a bug in the sun underneath his magnifying glass.

“Listen, that’s nothing. I mean, it’s something. I just… wasn’t sure where we were going, so when they offered me the interview, I took it. That was before you proposed—and apparently before you started rooting through my email.”

He squinted, but I rushed on before he could launch another Berlin Wall-level defense of his actions. “But obviously, I can’t take the job with us moving to Minneapolis, so of course I’m going to turn it down. I’m sorry. I wasn’t trying to lie to you or omit anything.”

Words tumbled out of me. “Getting paid a living wage while I trained to become a Guide Dog Mobility Instructor was just a really big opportunity. One I would have jumped on if I wasn’t moving to Minneapolis, which has service dog schools, but no guide dog specific ones.

So I shot my shot, back in the spring before I promised to spend the rest of my life with you. ”

Yom looked down at the floor with a heavy frown, then back up at me. “In that case, I am sorry.”

My eyes widened. I could literally count on one hand the number of times I’d ever heard Yom apologize. And I wouldn’t even need a thumb.

“Not for reading your email,” he clarified. “You will be giving me permission to do this if you are requiring me to have it.”

I tilted my head. “Um, that’s not how?—”

But Yom cut me off before I could explain why demanding permission was not a healthy relationship boundary.

“I am sorry for costing you, zayka . I am always wanting to make your life easier and for you to be sacrificing nothing to be with me. But I am too selfish, and I am wanting you always by my side.”

He scraped his fingers through his dark hair, then took one of my hands in both of his. “This is why I am telling you I am sorry—truly sorry for costing you your dream job that you would be very good at, zayka .”

I couldn’t believe this. Not only had Yom apologized, but he looked sincerely regretful. Like the guilt was eating him alive.

“What? Volfie, no! Don’t you get it?” I brought the hand he wasn’t holding up to cup his face. “You are the dream now. Not some apprenticeship. Nothing in the world—no, don’t do that.”

When he tried to look away, I dipped my head, forcing his gaze back to mine.

“I need you to see me, hear me on this. Nothing—no job, no person, nothing in the world would make me leave the paradise of your love. I love you so much. Marrying you has obliterated any other opportunity that might come my way. If there’s a choice to be made, I choose you. I always choose you.”

“ Zayka , you…” Yom broke off, his eyes growing suspiciously wet. “You are relieving me with your words. Thank you. You are so good and kind for me.”

He gave my palm more sweet, almost desperate kisses. “Thank you for wishing to be always with me as I am wishing to be with you.”

I’d come into the house wanting to ask him for help identifying the mystery buyer of the Hanson Farm. But after those re-affirmations of love, Yom carried me upstairs and spent the rest of the night convincing me to happily give him permission to oversee my emails.

We made such tender love that I forgot all about the mystery I needed his help to solve.

Until it was too late.

Six Years Later

Skye

Gone-gone-gone-gone- GONE !

Death Buddha was still thrashing on the concert screen, one of their early-aughts metal hits pounding through the speakers.

But I was all slow-mo strut to a triumphant pop song as I walked out of the Benton Villa event toward the floor’s elevator bank.

I’d escaped Yom’s clutches. I’d stared straight into the toxic face of temptation and chosen the smart, grown-woman path I should have taken six years ago when he proposed to me.

Honestly, it felt like the opposite of that recurring nightmare about not being ready for the high school math test—the one I still had ten years after graduating.

In fact, as confused as I’d been waking up that morning, I was crystal clear now.

Whatever hold Yom used to have over me, I’d broken it, and I would never, ever?—

The buzz of my phone in my crossbody bag stopped me just as I was about to hit the elevator button to take me down to the much-less-posh block of interior rooms on one of the lower floors.

It was Merry.

Oh no. Did she see that SportsGoss story? She must be losing her mind.

Not wanting her to worry, I answered the call with, “Girl, I promise you, I wasn’t crazy enough to go back to him. That news item was just a huge… Merry?”

I trailed off when a sound I hadn’t heard in years came over the line—not since that day she had to pull off to the side of the road.

Merry sobbing.

“Oh no.” My stomach dropped. Because only one thing could make my stoic, sarcastic friend cry like this six years later. And the reason I was here representing our nonprofit instead of Merry was because she’d managed to snag a hard-to-get appointment with a geneticist in Minneapolis for her son.

“It’s Chris…” Merry gasped out, confirming my worst fear. Her voice was wrecked with tears. “They’re saying… they’re saying… he has… he has… and it’s going… it’s going to cost so much!”

She couldn’t finish, she was so upset.

And that’s when one of my weird ADHD superpowers kicked in. I fell apart over the small stuff, like losing the TV remote or figuring out what to eat for lunch, but the second a real crisis hit, I leveled up into a general.

“Merry,” I commanded. “Breathe. Breathe. Follow the sound of my voice and just breathe with me.”

Merry did as I told her, and eventually, her ragged sobbing broke into shaky sniffles.

“Now,” I said, keeping my voice calm and steady for the both of us. “Tell me exactly what’s happening, and whatever it is, I promise you, we’ll figure it out.”