Page 138 of Ruthless Rustanovs

“No, Bair. Don’t,” she said, managing to get between him and Ivan at the very last moment. She planted her hands on his chest. “Look at his face. You’ll kill him.”

“That is my intention exactly,” Bair answered, snarling with rage. “Move.”

“No,” she said, pushing against his chest. “No. Don’t. Please. It’s Christmas. Please don’t. For me.”

For moments on end, Bair breathed in and out, bursts of air flaring his nostrils with rage as his massive chest pushed against her hands.

But then he said, “You are lucky, little cousin. I will not act the monster in front of my wife. In front of her family. Go. Go now before I change my mind.”

Ivan just sneered, opening his mouth to say something else.

But that something else was lost when Thel turned around and straight punched him in the balls.

He yelled out in surprise, going down like a sack of Cold War potatoes.

“Who do you think you are?” Thel demanded. “Coming in here and talking greasy?”

She kicked him in his stomach as hard as she could, and her heart lit up with satisfaction at the answering groan.

“You don’t know Bair. You didn’t know his mama!

But you wanna come up in here talking a fool?

Like some kind of fucking spoiled brat? Well, you picked the wrong one, bitch, because I ain’t nice like the rest of these fine ladies up in here.

You from Russia, but I’m from Richmond, bitch, and if you ever open your mouth against my husband again, I will close it with my FOOT! Do you understand? Huh? Huh?!?!”

She furiously kicked him over and over again.

Getting angrier and angrier with each strike and wishing she hadn’t decided against wearing high heels.

She wanted to hurt this fucking bully. In that moment, she understood how Bair must have felt when he fought, because she wanted to break every bone in this man’s body.

She might never have stopped kicking him if a pair of strong hands hadn’t grabbed her from behind and pulled her away.

“You must stop this now,” came Nikolai’s worried voice.

“Alright, alright. I’ll stop,” she promised, breathing hard.

And he let her go. Which gave her the perfect opportunity to run back up on that big ol’ Ivan bitch and stomp him in the ribs. “Get. Some. Home. Training. Before. You. Come. Up. In. Here. Again. Boy!!!” she yelled, punctuating each word with a stomp.

This time there was no benefit of the doubt. Nikolai not only pulled her off Ivan, he dragged her to the other side of the large dining room.

“So, ya’ll just met the Real Thel,” Willa announced as Nikolai dragged Thel away. “The one I used to know back in high school.”

“I like the Real Thel!” Tasha answered. “Pass me over some of that popcorn, Marian.”

“I kind of sensed Real Thel lurking beneath the opera singer. That’s why I called dibs on her as my new best friend,” Eva told everyone with a smug grin.

“I supposed one of us better go make sure he’s okay,” Sam grumbled, heaving herself out of her seat.

“I must go help my wife see to Ivan.” Nikolai said after setting Thel down at the dining room’s arched entrance.

He might have been an illegitimate Rustanov like Bair, but his apple obviously hadn’t fallen too far from the tree.

He sounded just like them when he commanded, “You will stay here, Sirena.”

“Fuck that,” she answered. “Did you hear what he said to Bair? How about if he’d been talking like that about your mother? Or Sam’s?”

“I understand why you do what you do. Ivan deserved that and more, even in his condition. But you are very pregnant like my wife. And I do not want any harm to come to your baby.”

That finally got Thel to back down. He was right, she realized, her anger subsiding. She could feel the little girl inside her, kicking up a storm like, “what just happened?!?!”

“Sorry,” she whispered, laying a hand over her stomach to soothe the distressed baby.

So Thel stayed put while Nikolai went to help Ivan to his feet on the other side of the room. But her eyes sought out Bair, remembering the many times he’d gone dark in Germany, and wondering how he’d handle this situation.

She found him at the other end of the huge archway, arguing loudly in Russian with Alexei, who must have drug him away from Ivan the same way Nikolai had dragged her.

Both men were pointing between her and Ivan, who was now being escorted out through the dining room’s service door by Nikolai and a grim Suro.

But just as she was about to walk over to see what she could do to help keep the beast at bay, Bair abruptly ended the argument by storming out.

Thel started to follow, only to have Alexei step in front of her. “No, little opera fighter, you will come with me to my study and we will talk now.”

“But—” she started, looking after Bair’s retreating figure.

“You and I have put off this conversation long enough. It is time we talk.”

Beyond Alexei’s shoulder, Thel could see Bair storming across the foyer.

He yanked open the door, and the sound of it slamming behind him reverberated through the house.

An Ozzy Osbourne chewed on Thel’s chest in the wake of his departure, making her feel like she had to go after him. Calm him down. Make sure he was okay.

“No, I don’t want to talk to you,” she said, trying to shove past Alexei. “I need to go after Bair.”,.

“Not until you hear me out,” Alexei answered, once again blocking her way.

She looked over her shoulder at Eva, the only woman who seemed to have any real control over this domineering billionaire. “Help me out here, E.”

But Eva just said, “You should go with him, honey. I don’t know what he wants to say to you, but he wouldn’t be insisting if it wasn’t important.”