Total pages in book: 106
Estimated words: 108119 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 541(@200wpm)___ 432(@250wpm)___ 360(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 108119 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 541(@200wpm)___ 432(@250wpm)___ 360(@300wpm)
Alice licked her swollen lips and nodded in understanding.
“So, when I tell you that I’m binding myself to you,” I continued. “I want you to know that the only thing that will keep me from you is death.”
Tears filled her eyes, and one spilled down her cheek. I caught it with my finger and lifted it to my mouth, tasting the salt of her tears, pledging a silent oath to make sure that she never spilled them because of me or her family again.
With shaking hands I let the facade slip.
I let go of the control I so desperately felt the need to have over everything.
And I took off both gloves and dropped them onto the console.
She sucked in a sharp breath like she’d just seen monster and man fuse or maybe she just saw vulnerability I refused to let anyone else see.
This was it.
This moment.
On the side of the road.
With Alice De Lange.
My gaze didn’t waver from hers. “The Italians cut across the hand.”
I peeled my shirt over my head. “The Russians…cut across the heart.”
I sliced across my chest, felt my heart beat against the metal blade as I carved a bloody A into my own skin.
Her eyes widened as I reached for her right hand, slicing across the palm and pressing it to my chest.
I kept it there.
More tears filled her eyes as she stared at me in wonder.
“I, Andrei Petrov, pledge my life, my heart, my soul to you.”
I didn’t realize that I was shaking until she wrapped her free arm around me and held me tight.
Our blood flowing, mixing, making love, as it dripped down my body.
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
Phoenix
“Nice swing.” I pulled off my aviators and watched as Luca stiffened and then turned toward me and cursed. “Not happy to see me?”
He grabbed his club, his fingers tight. “Was thinking about throwing this around four minutes ago but figured Bee would be mad if you came home with two black eyes.”
I grinned. “She’s seen worse.”
“Haven’t we all.” He sighed and slowly walked over to me, he was wearing black trousers and a black long sleeve shirt that looked a bit out of place on a golf course. Then again, the gun shoved in the back of the pants didn’t exactly help things.
“Your gun’s showing.” I pointed.
“I don’t play well with others.”
“And that extends to your golf retirement as well?”
His eyes narrowed. “I don’t believe we had a meeting today.”
“We didn’t.”
“And yet here we are.”
“Here we are.” I jumped into the golf cart. “I’ll drive.”
He sighed and got in on the other side while I drove us to the next hole. “I need you to be there when we tell Andrei.”
“We?”
“Yes, we.”
“Did you have a plan outside of just shocking the hell out of him?”
“No, I thought ripping the band-aid as aggressively as possible would be the best way to get myself shot so I decided to bring you in to soften him up.”
“Andrei doesn’t understand the word soften.”
“And you do?”
He barked out a laugh. “You’ve made your point.”
I slowed down to the next hole and stared ahead as the sun started to set. “He’s not going to take the news well.”
“You could always bring in Nikolai and Maya.”
“Thought about that, but then we’d be asking Nikolai to fess up and let her know he’s been working for Andrei ever since Alexander’s death.”
“Your point?”
“I think he’d like to stay married. You know, regular sex and all…”
Luca shrugged. “He will need family.”
“He has us,” I found myself saying even though half the time I wanted to shove him in front of the nearest semi. Something shifted today, though, something I didn’t expect.
He showed a bit of humanity.
Along with self-control I wasn’t sure I would have if someone had said something like that about Bee.
And by the looks of him, he still hadn’t slept with her.
He was too uptight.
“You done thinking in my golf cart?” Luca whispered, sarcasm dripping off every word.
I rolled my eyes. “I didn’t tell any of the guys.”
“It was your call to make.”
“Yeah, but what the fuck am I going to do when the Sinacore Family shows up for family dinner? You know they’ll move the entire family here. They’ll have no choice, not with Andrei and the others here, and you know what they’ll want.”
Luca sighed long and hard. “They’ll want to take the place of the De Langes.”
“They’ll have a right to.”
“We would once again be strong, five families strong,” Luca said more to himself than to me.
“And the De Langes will officially be exorcised.” Andrei would fight us on that, but of course he would, because unless he made her his in all the ways that matter, legal and physical, she had no protection.
And if the Sinacore family ever found out she was from the De Lange bloodline.
They’d kill him before letting him sully their blood.