Page 113 of Silent Ties

Russet goes alone.

That’s what Uncle Dima said, but it’s the fucking stupidest idea he’s yet to come up with.

Especially since she already looks terrified and she’s only standing outside of Fujimori’s.

Her eyes are wide, taking in the storefront that I’ve seen hundreds of times. A big giant window on the left. An awning covers only the red door, the color popping against the faded dusty blue of the outside.

There are a few people inside and a hostess to the right of the doorway.

“Go in and head straight back,” I tell her.

She swings her head toward me, eyes bugging out. The same expression’s been on her face every time I speak to her and it’s irritating the hell out of me. She needs to stop looking at me like that. Like she can’t figure out what I’m doing or saying.

I haven’t punished her, but she tenses occasionally like she’s expecting it.

And there will be hell to pay. For the fear she put methrough. The anger at how she called Elijah instead of me, her own husband.

I dimly understand her reasoning, but it’s not good enough.

She went into Marissa’s bar with a death wish.

When she marched into that place, she marched away from me. She never once stopped to think about us. About me and what it would’ve been like to see her ripped apart by bullets.

She faced wave after wave of them, never flinching once. Even Dad and Dima were taken aback by the cold, detached killer facing down Marissa’s stronghold without a single worry.

But it scared the living hell out of me.

Because in order to do something like that you have to become a shell. To no longer care.

She didn’t shake or flinch when I found her staring down at that piece of shit Davison. She appeared like a god, looking down at someone not worth her time, and showed no fear when he raised his gun at her.

He’s a shit-shot.She had the actual audacity to say that to me.

She’ll be lucky if I let her out of the house for the next twelve months.

If she complained about a gilded cage before, she has no idea what’s about to come.

She thought she could walk away from me. Put herself in danger like it was nothing?

It’s taken everything in me to bottle the seething rage swirling inside me.

And now I have to stand outside Fujimori’s while she goes in alone.

I know Ren won’t hurt her. That’s not how she operates,but it infuriates me how Dad doesn’t put up a fight against her terms.

I took Russet home after she slept for over twelve hours at the warehouse. Her body slumped over the table. Everything itched in me to lay her down, to take her home and tuck her into bed.

Dad said after everything she’d done, the least she deserved was a crick in the neck.

He’s right, but I felt like shit, watching her sleep. Letting her wake up to find Lev Zimin hovering over her, ready to unleash whatever justice he thought necessary.

He took it easy on her; I hope she realizes that.

There’s a part of me that thinks she doesn’t care. Or at least she wouldn’t if Daisy’s daughter wasn’t in the picture.

I’ll never forget entering that room. There’s sexual kinks and then there’s. . . whatever that was.

I never expected the first time I saw Daisy, I’d encounter her on the floor, a protective arm against her swollen belly. She could barely breathe, blood seeping from whipped skin.