Page 42 of The Brutal Arrangement (The Ivanov Syndicate #2)

I frowned, wondering if more of Maxim’s protectiveness was because of what happened to me earlier than Sloane’s non-scare.

I had been whisked downstairs, accused of being a spy, solely because I’d come from somewhere else, from an enemy’s turf.

Sloane wasn’t an insider to these Mafia people, either.

She came from somewhere else, an outsider, and maybe Maxim was reacting with a slight fear or worry that someone could target her like that and oust her.

That seemed far-fetched, but there was no reasoning with a protective man. I’d learned that lesson.

And usually, they were right.

“We are marrying tomorrow,” Maxim said. “Just in case.”

Once they confirmed that they’d be home soon, we disconnected the call and Damon put his phone on the nightstand to cuddle me again.

But cuddling didn’t soothe me. I was still too on and awake as I thought back to that call and the news that we’d be having a wedding tomorrow.

“Can’t sleep?” Damon asked after a long while of silence.

I jolted a bit, convinced he was sleeping all this time with how still he was and how even his breaths were. “No.”

“Me neither.”

I rubbed his arm that he kept over my side. “I keep thinking about what happened today.”

“Me too.” He leaned up to peer down at me. “And I’m glad that you’re mine.”

I smiled and kissed him as I rolled toward him instead of being spooned. “And I’m glad you’re mine.”

“No, I mean it in the sense that we’re already married. That our baby is secure with the Ivanov protection.” He glowered off to the side and shook his head. “Not that you’ll be thinking much of the Ivanov protection after today…”

“Stop.” I kissed him and snuggled close. “What happened with your father is a unique thing. And I’m not horrified by it. Remember that I have experience with this, Damon. With my mom and seeing other patients suffering from things that seem similar to how your father is.”

He nodded, sighing and holding me close. “But I’ll never forgive myself?—”

I kissed him harder. “There is nothing to forgive you for. What happened wasn’t your fault. Or mine. That’s the end of it.”

“Oh, is it?”

I smiled since he was starting to grin. “I want it to be the end of it.”

“Fine. I’ll try to move past it. If you insist.” He kissed my temple.

“You’ll have to. Because it sounds like we’re going to be too busy with planning a wedding tomorrow.”

“It feels weird to be celebrating something when Nik isn’t here.” He rubbed my arm, comforting me with that steady touch. His hands were capable of so much harm, but with me, always love and tenderness like this.

“It still feels weird that I’d gotten married without Nik here, but I suppose I should be happy about that. He could’ve been the one you married instead of me.”

I shook my head. “I can’t even imagine being with anyone but you.”

“I think that’s why Sloane wanted to wait, because a marriage is such a big thing to us. But I also don’t blame Maxim for the urgency.”

“Was Sloane planning a big wedding?” I asked. She’d talked about it some, but we discussed our pregnancies more than anything else.

“Not really? I don’t know. She doesn’t have any family, so I think a smaller thing is what she wanted. And I’m sure that the house staff will arrange something nice for them. But fast.”

“Like ours?” I asked.

“Not that fast.” He sighed. “I regret how rushed our wedding was. But I take pride in the fact that we’d found something as we went.” He kissed me softly. “I love you, Lucy.”

“And I love you.” I knew what he meant. We hadn’t enjoyed a smooth start, but we were a stronger couple now.

“The GOH house will be available for a small gathering,” he said, almost as if he were musing out loud.

“The Go house?” I asked, frowning.

“No. GOH.” He spelled it out. “It’s an acronym for the guest of honor house. It’s a smaller building a little way upstate, not a long drive. We used to offer it to diplomats and other guests.”

“GOH?” I asked again, more like questioning myself.

“Yeah. GOH.”

I sat up, more awake now.

“What’s wrong?” He sat up with me.

“I… I don’t know. I’ve heard something like that before.”

“What do you mean?”

“Guest of honor, but a place.”

He shrugged. “We used acronyms for some locations. We own a fair amount of properties in the state and all over the world.”

“But…” The memory was there, yet not. I’d overheard that phrase before, not the exact way he’d said, but similar enough that it clicked.

Or did I read it somewhere?

“What’s going on?” he asked, curious and not demanding.

“I…” Shaking my head, I strained to place that term. That acronym. A property?

GOHS.

I whipped around to face him. “Do you always refer to it as the guest-of-honor house ?”

He furrowed his brow. “Yes. Why?”

“Never the guest-of-honor suite ?” I crawled up on my knees to better face him in the darkness, starting to wonder if I was onto something here.

“What are you talking about, Lucy?”

I licked my lips, too excited and hopeful to sleep now. “Don’t quote me on anything,” I said, “but I have a hunch that if Katerina was looking for Nik, she might have thought he was at one of the Kozlovs’ properties.”