Page 23 of The Brutal Arrangement (The Ivanov Syndicate #2)

DAMON

A full day of following dead ends didn’t put me in the best mood. No matter where I directed my men to look and regardless of how many times I met with John and Hugo and any other soldier or spy, Nik couldn’t be found.

“Have you asked Lucy about the Kozlovs?” Maxim asked me when I met with him and Saul at a warehouse where we’d all three oversee the transfer of drugs into our rooms.

“No,” I replied, shoving my hands in my pockets.

“At all?” Saul asked.

I shook my head.

“What have you questioned her about?” He watched me, curious.

I shook my head again. “I haven’t questioned her at all. I’ve been trying other methods of getting her to submit.”

“For fuck’s sake,” Maxim groused. “You’ve just been fucking her? And not even trying to interrogate her?”

I scowled. “It’s all part of the plan.” They didn’t seem convinced, so I tried again. “She was a virgin before I married her. She’s docile and innocent. She knew nothing, all right? And I can tell every time that I… push her, she’s about to crack and cave under my control.”

Maxim narrowed his eyes while Saul shrugged. “Okay…” he drawled.

“It’s great that you’re clearly getting some,” Maxim said, “but have you forgotten that we’re hoping she’ll tell us something about what Anton or Katerina are doing?”

I hadn’t forgotten about that. I could never forget my duty. But I had let myself get carried away with the gift of my submissive wife who could take everything I gave her.

Saul chuckled. “I never thought I’d see the day when you are smitten over a piece of ass.” He laughed harder, even making Maxim smile. “I mean, Brother. Do you hear yourself?”

I only scowled again.

“Hell, I doubt she’d know anything,” Maxim admitted, laughing a bit. “Just a maid. We ran a preliminary background check on her, and nothing really came up.”

Saul nodded. “And the one time she was on her phone, it was not to make a call but to listen to an old voicemail from a debt place.”

I frowned. “She’s got debt?” I suddenly hated how I knew nothing about my wife. That wasn’t true. I knew her body very well. I was versed in how she liked to come on my dick.

I had avoided taking the time to get to know her, though, keeping everything strictly physical. I hadn’t wanted to let her affect me and make me too connected to her because that would give her more power to hurt me or use me.

Dammit. I rubbed my face. I hated how jaded and twisted I was, assuming every woman would end up wanting to hurt me or see me suffer. That was how deeply my mother’s betrayals ran in my psyche.

“I didn’t follow up with it,” Saul said, “but she doesn’t seem to be a threat like a spy.” He made a whatever face, indifferent about it. “Because she hasn’t even turned her phone on much since she’s been here.”

No. I’m not doing this. I’m not going there.

I refused to entertain the idea that when Lucy told me she wouldn’t lie to me or trick me, she meant it.

Maxim lucked out in finding Sloane. She was a good woman and a good person for him.

I trusted my future sister-in-law, not only because Maxim trusted her enough to fall for her, but because I had a good feeling about her too.

But whenever I wanted to trust Lucy with more than being my submissive wife in bed, I locked up and got nervous about being gullible.

Distance seemed critical between us. But the more that she stayed in my bed, the more I was tempted to linger and treat her as more than literally just a pussy to fuck when I was home.

“She seems obedient,” Maxim remarked. “When Sloane took her to the salon earlier, Lucy almost turned her down so she could ask you for permission to go.”

I frowned. “She went to the salon?”

Maxim rolled his eyes. “Yeah. Sloane’s been curious about her.”

Well, shit. They were making it sound like Lucy was going to be part of the whole family now. Not just a woman forced into marrying me.

I didn’t want to admit how nervous I was to trust Lucy. Not to my brothers. It was too vulnerable of a topic to touch on with them, and I’d hate it if they thought I was being too paranoid to let Lucy into my life.

“Anyway,” I said, eager to change the subject, “based on what John told me before I came here, the Romanos don’t seem to have Nik. He’s been following those leads the most.”

Saul shook his head. “The fucker’s staying hidden. I can tell.”

Maxim agreed. “He’s still sending those daily messages that we can see on his computer.”

“All right. So let’s say he’s alive and trying to stay captive for information. That doesn’t change the fact that someone took him and they need to pay.”

They didn’t argue with me on that point, but we left it at that. We would treat Nik’s disappearance with caution.

Now that I knew that Lucy had gone to a salon, I was very curious about what she had done.

“Who the fuck am I kidding?” I grumbled to myself as I drove home.

I just wanted to see her. Like I did every fucking day.

I hurried inside and called out for her. “Lucy?”

And like every fucking day, I caught myself from adding I’m home . That’d be too damn domestic.

She came out of the bedroom, rubbing her face as though I’d just caught her napping.

“Holy fuck.” I blinked, then stared, gobsmacked by how different she looked.

The brown hair was gone, shortened and lighter now. Somehow, it changed her whole face, making her look even sweeter and more innocent.

More beautiful, which hadn’t seemed possible.

She cringed. “Sorry. Maybe I should’ve asked first.” When she lifted her hand to her hair as if to hide it, I approached.

“What? No. It’s just different.”

She nodded. “Not really. This is my natural color.”

“I know.”

The immediate blush on her cheeks made me almost smile. Little things like that were getting to me more and more each day. While I could tell she liked me in bed when I was the rough asshole in charge, I wondered if that was the only way she’d ever view me.

“I know that’s your natural color,” I said again, just to make her blush more. She didn’t shave everything near her pussy, and I liked that she was natural like that, too.

“Right. Um. You would know that,” she agreed, almost sheepish.

I tipped her chin up, staring into the same blue eyes. She could change her hair any way she wanted, but these baby blues would always be the same. Soulful and open. Vulnerable.

Fuck this need for distance. I couldn’t deny that over the last couple of weeks, I was getting attached to her.

“I’m sorry if it was too bold of a change to make,” she added shyly.

“It’s not,” I replied. “I like it.”

Her eyes opened wider yet. “You… do?”

I scowled. “Why can’t I like it?”

She opened and closed her mouth as she seemed stumped for what to say. “I, uh… Never mind.”

When she tried to lower her head, I gripped her chin with more force and narrowed my eyes until she faced me.

“I do mind. What is it? Why can’t I like it?

” I ran my fingers through her silky hair.

I liked it like this, easier to grip and hold on to, and we both knew how much she liked me to grab her hair when I fucked her hard.

Everything this woman did suited me. She never once broke for me when I gave her my worst in bed.

But the more that I lived with her like this, the more I wanted to see every other side of her.

Out of bed. Casual. Just everyday things.

Dammit. So much for keeping this distance.

“I just… I didn’t realize you liked me at all.”

I deepened my scowl, alarmed and annoyed that she’d say such a thing. “What?”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to offend you or?—”

I tipped her chin up higher yet, reminding me how much of a benefit it was that she was shorter than me.

“Does this make you think I don’t like you?

” I growled, pushing my dick that was already getting hard against her stomach.

She couldn’t miss it. The flare of awareness in her eyes hinted that she didn’t.

“Um. No. I know you… I know you are turned on. Like that. But I didn’t think you cared for me in any other way.”

Our marriage hadn’t started traditionally. She wasn’t even the bride I thought I’d be stuck with. Now that I had come to learn her body and how to pleasure her, I realized how much better it was that Lucy had swapped with Katerina.

And it was impossible to believe that I only wanted her in a sexual manner.

She invaded my thoughts. The memory of her sighs when she came ran on repeat in my mind, giving me a dose of triumph that I could make her feel good.

At any time of the day or night, she’d creep into my head and make me obsessed to know more. To take more. To feel more and more and more.

“I am learning to,” I admitted, knowing that I couldn’t keep up this farce that my dick was the only thing ruling how I wanted her.

It didn’t matter how much I tried to compartmentalize her and keep her strictly in the role of being my wife to fuck.

I wasn’t ready to say it out loud yet, but I…enjoyed the thought of being in her company in any way I could.

“You are?” The ghost of a smile lifted her lips.

I nodded, keeping a secure hold on her chin as I lowered to kiss her. I didn’t devour her like I usually did, not even when she kissed me back just as fiercely. Instead, I let her sample a slower burn of the hunger I felt for her.

I’d be damned if she assumed I didn’t like her.