Page 9 of Her Rustanov Husband (Ruthless Bullies #2)

Rustanov Math

YOM

“I am obsessing over you.”

That was how Yom had explained his feelings to Lydia back in February.

He had been honest about this from the start of their official relationship. But then again, not really.

He’d buried that biological fact inside his confession of being in love with her. And though Lydia professed to feel the same way about him, he’d known it could not possibly be true.

She loved him in a way that allowed her to trust in their happily ever after. Her love did not keep her up at night, or fill her with intrusive thoughts of losing him that could only be quelled by taking him over and over again.

She thought her appreciation of his handsome features was equal to the hunger that gnawed at his chest whenever he looked upon her.

The first time they had sex, it had lasted for several days because he would not—could not—stop taking her, claiming her, marking her as his. Suro Nakamura, Uncle Alexei’s best friend and general fixer, had finally invaded the hotel room with his wife, Tasha, to make him stop.

Lydia continued to think of this event merely as her new boyfriend’s passionate response to their mutual confession of feelings. She was someone who gave her love freely to others outside of her family and had failed to comprehend the dark reasons Yom did not.

Nyet , she did not understand. She was not capable of reconciling how deep his feelings for her ran. His love was not pure like hers. It was a dark, all-consuming obsession. A cage he’d made as comfortable and pretty as possible so she would not notice her imprisonment.

She knew he wanted either himself or Rina with her at all times and believed it was protection. But she did not know his definition of protection went much further than checking her email on Thursdays.

After she agreed to love him back, he had spyware installed on both the phone and the office computer he’d gifted her, including a program that flagged self-deprecating language and alerted him to send an encouraging voice text whenever she felt down.

She did not know Rina had to submit three requests to him before being allowed to enter into a relationship with her best friend—and that Yom hadn’t granted permission until he and Lydia were official.

And she most likely had no idea that Rina also monitored Trish’s phone, sending daily reports on Lydia’s well-being from her best friend’s point of view.

Yom had checked on her reflexively before getting out of his truck and entering the barn at the Hanson farm. The phone he’d gifted her was still at his home.

How, then, was she here?

Speaking his last order in English had been his first mistake. His shock and confusion led to his second.

Instead of diffusing the ticking relationship bomb her arrival had planted, he demanded, “Why are you here? You are supposed to be at home, packing for trip.”

They had agreed that was what she would do today. Yom found himself infuriated that she was here instead of at the lake house, safe from the sight of her brother’s battered body.

She didn’t answer. For several moments, she didn’t answer.

And when she finally did, her voice was little more than a choked whisper.

“You promised.”

Just two words, but they sliced through him with the precision of his finka knife.

“That promise was bullshit!” The response came roaring out of Yom before he could stop it.

“I am only promising this because you are naive, little girl, when it comes to your brother and must be told bedtime story to reconcile what I will, of course, be doing. But Rustanovs are not forgiving. I am telling you this before, but you forget. You are making me lie to you about my nature so that we can be together.”

He hadn’t even realized how much he resented that promise until the words were out. But he knew they were true, and it felt right in his bones. “He hurt you, so I hurt him back on your behalf. This is Rustanov math. And it is canceling any silly promises you had no business demanding of me.”

For several moments, Lydia just stared back at him, her brown eyes flashing and defiant. But then the anger drained from her face.

“You’re right.” She bowed her head under his argument, surrendering. “I was naive.”

“ Da , da , I am right! We both know this!”

Righteous fury pumped through his veins as he looked down at the woman he’d do anything— anything —to protect.

But then Lydia said, “I thought you were different from Paul. But you’re not.”

The blood in Yom’s veins froze.

“Wha-what are you talking on?” His brain stuttered, the words fumbling in his mouth. He felt like a teenager again, struggling to understand enough English to survive American university. “Of course I am different from that ublyudok ?—”

He cut off when Lydia laughed. The same way she did at the comic relief characters in the Japanese cartoons she liked so much. As if Yom were a joke, planted for her amusement.

“You’re acting just like him. He’d break every promise, then make me feel like an idiot for believing him. Like I was the problem, not him. You’re just like him. And I can’t believe…”

Her laughter died, replaced by a sad tilt of her head. “I can’t believe I fell in love with someone even more toxic than my brother. And way more dangerous—I mean, my god, Yom. Look at this scene.”

She shook her head. “Is this what really happened to Tommy? Did you torture him to death in his own barn?”

His heart stopped. She did not truly wish to know the answer to that question.

Also, she’d used a word that made his blood run cold. Fell.

Past tense irregular verbs had always been a most troublesome spot for him as an ESL learner. German and Russian just added endings, but English insisted on changing vowels for reasons that could only be explained as “history.”

However, this one he understood. Fell.

He lived in a constant state of falling for the Library Girl who had captured his attention from the first moment. He would never use that word in the past tense. But she had.

Fell.

The one damning word echoed like a death knell in his chest as she silently moved past him toward where Carrington was hanging.

“Lydia…” He turned and tracked her movements with a desperate need to have her eyes back on him. For her to keep talking to him. To let him explain that he would have kept his promise if Paul hadn’t shown up at the engagement party—an event he’d been invited to, expected at.

But even Yom knew how insane that excuse would sound if he tried it on her. So he stood there, helpless, as she assessed Carrington with a few hard glances.

“He needs medical attention.” Lips pressed thin, she turned to Stepan. “Please, either kill me or let him down so I can get him the help he needs.”

Stepan’s gaze flicked to Yom, openly shocked. Lydia had never been anything but unfailingly polite to him, and now she was giving him orders.

“Let him down,” Yom instructed in Russian, finally understanding the English idiom buying time.

He needed time. Time to think. Time to figure out how to fix this.

That was how he found himself in Stepan’s cramped two-bedroom home deep in the woods beyond Lake Gemidgee, standing by as the Chicago surgeon the Rustanovs kept on retainer spent hours patching Carrington up. The doctor sedated him to dull the pain while a well-paid assistant worked alongside.

This was the opposite of how Yom had planned to spend the Friday night before leaving for Minneapolis.

Lydia wouldn’t talk to him. She looked past him stonily whenever he tried to apologize for words that, in hindsight, had come out far harsher than he meant them to. She wouldn’t even look at him, and worst of all, when he reached out to touch her, she flinched away with a quiet: “Please, don’t.”

Please, don’t.

Those were the only words she gave him during the long hours it took the doctor to tend to Carrington’s wounds.

She refused to come home to the lake house with him. Refused even to share the primary bedroom Stepan offered. Instead, she took a seat on his couch.

Yom—who despised anything short of luxury—had no choice but to sit at the other end at the lumpy piece of furniture, watching her neither eat nor drink, dozing only occasionally until the doctor emerged Saturday morning.

“His concussion appears stable,” the jolly surgeon announced, glancing between Lydia and Yom. “He should be back to work in a week or two. And with a couple months of physical therapy, he’ll be right as rain.”

Considering this was the same medical professional who offered castration on his dark list of underground services, Yom found his Midwestern cheer grating.

Nonetheless, he attempted to match the man’s tone when he made another bid to break through the wall of reproach his Library Girl had thrown up between them.

“I will pay for this physical therapy and find him new job,” he assured Lydia, begging for her eyes. Come, zayka , look at me.

She did not look at him.

“Can I see my brother?” she asked the doctor, as if she hadn’t even heard Yom speak.

“Actually, ah…” The doctor shifted uncomfortably. “He became quite agitated when we told him you were here, and he asked that you not be let in to see him. But if you wish to see your brother…”

He shot a nervous glance toward Yom. “We can give him a sedative, and of course, you can speak to him if you like.”

“ Da , do that,” Yom commanded—at the same time Lydia said, “No. If he doesn’t want to see me, that’s fine.”

Yom turned his head sharply to her. “Truly? After all these hours of waiting, you do not believe you have the right?”

Again, Lydia acted as if she could not hear him.

“I have to make a few calls,” she said to the doctor—and the doctor alone. “Will you excuse me?”

Lydia pulled out her phone. Not the one he’d given her, loaded down with the spyware he required to track her movements and spy on her messages. This was the phone she’d hidden from him all this time. The one he had no idea still existed.

Without a backward glance, she walked outside and began pacing in front of the house with the device to her ear. One call turned into another. Then another. What should have been minutes stretched into over two hours as the morning sun rose higher in the sky.

An unsettled feeling came over Yom as he watched her pace. Who was she talking to?

Not the police—he knew that much. They wouldn’t have kept her on the phone this long, and besides, the Gemidgee Police Chief was already bought off.

Not her guard Rina. She had been at home since yesterday and had no idea how Lydia had ended up at the barn.

Not Trish, either. A text exchange with Rina confirmed that.

Rina [in Russian]: “She’s still getting ready to go out with me for brunch. Does not know yet what happened yesterday.”

Every muscle in Yom’s body strained to follow Lydia outside, to demand answers. But even he knew that forcing the truth from her would only make a bad situation worse. Instead he texted back in Russian…

YOM: Send me number for pregnant other friend.

Merry picked up immediately, voice groggy with sleep. “Hello. Who’s this?”

So, it was not her pregnant friend, either.

“Hello? Who’s this?” Merry repeated. Her voice was wary now.

But Yom did not reply.

Because the answer to his question about who Lydia was talking to arrived at that very moment.