Page 43 of The Brutal Arrangement (The Ivanov Syndicate #2)

DAMON

I t turned out that Sloane wasn’t one of those women who were obsessed with details about her wedding. Her only request to Maxim was that they’d wait until Nik was back home, but that wasn’t happening.

What was happening was their wedding.

Today.

Now.

I sat with Lucy as Maxim and Sloane stood at the small altar space that the staff had arranged overnight. Flowers and greenery went toward the aesthetics, but I doubted that my brother gave it much notice.

His gaze was locked on his bride. He had eyes only for her, and I drew in a deep breath, trying to give myself the permission to feel relaxed and happy for him.

But that was the problem with ignoring or resisting emotions for most of my life. I couldn’t just chill and let happiness take over.

Not right at this moment.

And oddly, despite how happy Maxim had to be to marry Sloane sooner than later, I knew he couldn’t really lower his guard and be nothing but happy, either.

Sloane tried. She smiled and put on a brave act of seeming at ease and glad to make this wedding happen now.

But the truth was that none of us were calm.

Since Lucy had a lightbulb moment of recognizing the importance of guest-of-honor acronyms last night, we had all been excited at the hopeful turn of clues in our search for Nik.

She hadn’t blurted out that detail about the acronym for the hell of it. She’d only wanted to help.

The timing did suck, though. Because instead of us being joyful and in any celebratory mood for Maxim and Sloane’s wedding, we were all impatient to dig into this angle of Nik’s location.

“You may now kiss the bride.”

The officiant, the same one who’d seen me and Lucy get married, reared back in surprise.

Maxim reached out to grab the back of Sloane’s neck and haul her in close for a kiss. Saul chuckled at his enthusiasm, and Grandmother rolled her eyes.

I leaned over to kiss Lucy’s temple, amused but not surprised that my brother would act like that with his new wife.

It wasn’t so strange to witness them as a loving couple anymore, not since I was now one half of a couple with Lucy.

We were committed to each other through all the ups and downs we’d experienced so far, and I was proud that I’d overcome my fear of trusting women to let her into my life.

Sloane pulled back from the first kiss and smiled at Maxim with eyes of wonder and mischief.

“You’re never getting rid of me now,” she teased.

“Wouldn’t dream of it,” he replied, leaning back in to kiss her again.

We applauded them and waited for them to walk back down to the few seats that had been arranged for the ceremony.

While it was rushed, it wasn’t without love.

Maxim had already promised her that they could renew their vows with a big, fancy wedding if she wanted.

I kind of liked that idea myself. Maybe after Lucy delivered our baby, we could go big on a lavish gathering—if she wanted.

I was content with simply calling her my wife, unafraid to let the whole world know that she was irrevocably mine forever.

Sloane held Maxim’s hand as they joined us.

For as much as she protested marrying too soon, waiting for the baby to be born and Nik to be home with us, she looked like she was taking Maxim’s orders in stride.

I doubted she’d ever really fight with him so much that they wouldn’t be in agreement in the end.

“Okay, so what’s the plan again?” she asked, furrowing her brow.

“Now we celebrate,” Grandmother said with a smile. She was slow to approve of Sloane, but I could tell that she’d come around. “We have cake and?—”

“No.” Maxim shook his head. “The cake can wait.”

Sloane nodded then leaned against his shoulder. “Yeah. Besides, I want something salty and cheesy instead.”

“We need to start going through the Kozlov properties,” Maxim replied, all business.

Lucy winced at my side. “Look, I don’t want anyone to get their hopes up…”

“We’re not,” I promised her. Last night, when she told me that she had a hunch that Katerina was looking for Nik at a Kozlov property, I called Maxim and Saul and updated them. We already had men compiling a list of all the properties and buildings Anton owned.

“Thomas Kozlov was always big into real estate,” Maxim said. “I remember Father discussing it with him often. So there’s countless places we’d need to search and consider.”

I glanced back at the chair Father sat in, staring off into space.

He wasn’t zoning out with that vacant gaze that suggested he wasn’t with it at the moment.

When he was more lucid, we explained to him what he had done to Lucy and Grandmother.

He was appalled by his behavior, completely unaware of his actions.

It sobered him, scaring him perhaps, and he’d tried to maintain distance from us, afraid his sons—and Lucy—would never want to be near him or trust him again.

Lucy was sweet with him, though, experienced and familiar with addressing someone of questionable memory and cognitive abilities. I wouldn’t blame her for wanting nothing to do with him, but she was too good of a person to be like that.

“But I’m scared that what I remembered will end up meaning nothing,” Lucy said. “I don’t want anyone distracted on a wild goose chase because of me.”

“It has to mean something,” I told her.

She’d clicked at my mention of this building, the GOH house, because she’d once spotted a list lying out at the Kozlov house.

It had lines of acronyms on it, with addresses and coordinates.

She’d dusted around it, assuming it was a real estate thing, and dismissed it because, like she reminded us, she told herself to keep her head down and mind her own business, always.

But when she thought she saw that same list on Katerina’s laptop, with a map, she wondered if Katerina was the one who focused on that list. And if she wanted to avoid marriage so she could continue to look for something…

“It can’t be a coincidence,” Saul said.

“And you said that Katerina was sneaking out at night,” Maxim reminded her.

Lucy nodded, still frowning and so worried.

“She was. I just don’t want this to be a false lead.

I don’t want to waste anyone’s time or efforts.

” She squeezed my hand. “I know I’ve never met Nik, but if he’s like you guys, I want the best for him.

I hope wherever he is, he’s all right and will be back with his loved ones again. ”

I hugged her and kissed her quickly, touched that she’d always have such a big heart for my family. After the rocky start we had, she’d gone above and beyond to teach me how much I had been missing out on with my reluctance to let a woman in my life.

Not just any woman.

But her.

Only her.

While my brothers spoke with Hugo and John, planning, I led Lucy off to the side.

“You’re my loved one,” I told her, just because I could. Because I would always mean it. It was freeing to be able to tell her that and know that she wouldn’t use that vulnerability against me.

She smiled, caressing my face.

“Before we get carried away with this direction of the case,” I said sincerely, gazing into her beautiful blue eyes that shone with love for me, “I want you to know that I’m glad I’ve got you to support me and my family.”

“ Our family,” she insisted, bold enough to finally know that she’d found her place and belonged with us, with me.

“Don’t ever think that I don’t appreciate you, Lucy. Everything you do and say is valuable, not a waste of time or effort. I appreciate and cherish everything you do to make me a better man, to help my family stay together and strong.”

She leaned up to kiss me, smiling against my lips. With a dreamy sigh, she stared at me and nodded once. “We’re a team, Damon.”

We were. And we always would be as we navigated this dangerous period of threats against the Ivanov name.