Page 9 of Plaintive Vow

“C’mon, Blair, it’s not that. It’s just that—”

“Appearances are important. Trust me, I heard you the first hundred times.” He rolls his eyes, and I turn over to switch off my lamp.

Honestly? Fuck him. We both know damn well that I can’t do anything about what he does or doesn’t do, but if I don’t have the thin protection that our marriage offers, there’s a real chance that the pakhan, Maksim, would let his son do what he failed to do the first time I ran into him.

Maksim’s son, Pavel, was so determined to see his plan to smuggle drugs from Mexico succeed he ignored all of the problems. And when Andrei and Daniil went to Colorado to clean up the mess he’d created, he was determined to lay the blame at their feet.

He wanted them to fail so badly he cornered me on my way home from work one night and beat me half to death. If he hadn’t been interrupted, I have no doubt he would have killed me.

And I wouldn’t put it past him to try again if he thought it would help erase history.

Daniil can do whatever he wants because I’m stuck, and I refuse to go out of my way and make it easier for Maksim and Pavel to let my son grow up without a mother.

Eventually, Daniil turns off his own lamp, but I can feel him watching me in the dark.

“We aren’t going to run into Maksim at the aquarium. You know that, right?”

“I know,” he eventually answers.

“And if we did, you could always just blame me for why Niko looks like that.” I swallow, closing my eyes against tears. “Maksim already hates me. What more is there to lose?”

The sheets shift as he rolls over, pressing a kiss to the back of my head. “It isn’t that I don’t want to spend the day with the two of you. I do, it’s just… things are a fucking mess right now, Blair.”

I don’t doubt that.

Daniil makes an effort to hide his work from me, but he’s away more nights than he’s home lately, and when heishome, he’s often gone before Niko and I are awake. It doesn’t take a genius to know thatsomething’sgoing on.

“I know, but Niko isn’t getting any younger. He misses you.”

I miss you, too,I think, but don’t dare say.

The way he pulls me back against him, arms tight, tells me he heard it anyway.

For a couple of agonizing minutes his steady breathing is his only reply. Each one makes me long even more for the days when our conversations were easy and our arguments were only petty squabbles. I’m sick of spending the few moments I’m able to steal with him arguing.

“You’re right. I’ll go.” I try to relax against him, but it’s hard. “I love you, yeah?”

I don’t know if I even believethat anymore.

If Niko weren’t a factor, would Daniil toss me to the wolves? Would he wash his hands of our relationship if it would get him closer to Maksim?

My chest squeezes.

“I love you, too.”

Chapter 2

Andrei

Ashes float down like snow, blanketing everything in a coat that will linger here for weeks. When I come back, I’ll be tracking the evidence of this fire with me in the dust and smell that will cling to my clothes.

I stay back, watching from across the street as firefighters stalk around the ruined remains of my warehouse, dousing the few remaining embers.

I clench my fists in my pockets, taking a breath to get my temper under control.

This is the fourth warehouse that’s been destroyed in the past two months, but at least this one paints a clearer picture. It was public information that I owned the other three, but this one was owned by a shell company. And that shell company is owned by another shell company.

It’s enough layers deep that most people wouldn’t bother doing the work to trace it back to me. Including law enforcement. They’ll have to do the work for their investigation now, but I doubt the culprit behind this bullshit did.