The Marriage (Darkest Lies Trilogy Book 3), Bethany-Kris [books for 8th graders txt] 📗

woman who would like to be relieved from her position while she holds it for us.”

Right.

The other bit he couldn’t quite wrap his head around.

Roman couldn’t help but wonder if this was all a trick. If Maxim hadn’t spoken to Demyan, and given him the whole story ... well, most of it—then they wouldn’t even have been here.

Now they had no choice.

The responsibility of ruined Chicago bratva was on them.

“Whatever we decide to do here tonight,” his father told him as their car parked in front of a three-level home that had seen better days despite its grandeur, “we’ll have to do it fast.”

Roman didn’t care. At this point, he just wanted it to be over.

As the Avdonin crew walked into the house, the men who stood watching the front door did so with their weapons hidden from view. There was going to be no war tonight. They even nodded at the New York boss as he passed, though he didn’t make eye contact.

It was over.

Roman was growing more anxious by the minute, his questions about what had happened in this house going unanswered as a woman with a black fur coat draped over her shoulders directed them to an office. The door was already open, and Roman could see who waited within.

“The famous Cherie?” he heard his father ask as Roman met his wife’s gaze inside the room.

“One in the same. I took good care of her, made sure she had everything she needed. No one touched her, of course.”

“Things are starting to make a bit more sense,” Demyan noted.

Roman didn’t hear what they said then because he’d stepped inside the room. A bloody, white dress sat draped over a chair in the corner, and on top of the ruined fabric rested a knife. The dried, brownish stains on the blade and smeared on the dress made Roman hesitate in his step.

He heard Karine’s breath hitch when he stopped. He wondered if it was Cherie that had supplied Karine with the clean, black bodycon dress that showed off her curves and made her seem older—sexy, confident—where she sat waiting at the desk.

“What did you do?” he asked.

It would have been a violent death, and he bet the bandages on her hands and fingers told the tale of just how much. Karine fidgeted with her hands before hiding them under the desk.

She didn’t hesitate to answer him. “Everything I needed to.”

What could he say to that?

He knew she wasn’t wrong.

To send his daughter into the eye of the storm? To face the monster she had been running away from?

Karine slowly stood up.

Roman couldn’t look away from those big eyes of hers, clear like an ocean and dragging him under like waves. “I asked you to trust me.”

“And I did.”

“How can you say that? You didn’t stay—”

“I didn’t want to be there, and this was my one chance,” she told him. “It was the only one I had left to make sure he was gone for good. Me, I did that.”

But it could have killed her.

He bet she took the risk, knowing that.

Roman found that hard to swallow.

Goddamn.

He still loved her for it, though.

“I know this has been a lot,” Karine said suddenly, dropping his gaze.

Roman couldn’t help it—he barked out a laugh at that. Here she was, trying to calm his overworked ass. He could get used to that, though.

Karine smiled, then, and Roman forgot about the rest. All his unanswered questions, and that bloody dress and knife. Even the house they currently stood in, the bodies that were apparently rotting somewhere, and the people watching them.

None of it mattered but her.

He moved for her, and she couldn’t even be bothered to come around the desk, instead climbing over top of it to reach him faster. He pulled her off the desk, and she wrapped her legs around his waist. Her breasts pressed to his chest, her breaths heavy, as he took her mouth with his for a kiss he was sure would leave her feeling bruised.

She didn’t seem to mind.

Clung to him closer.

In the background, he could hear the woman named Cherie making conversation with his father, wanting to iron out all the details of her business. Maxim had made some specific promises to her, and she expected Demyan was going to keep his end of the bargain.

Roman pulled away from his panting, grinning wife when he heard his father reply, “Let me say hello to my daughter-in-law properly first, then we’ll do business. Family first.”

Karine hadn’t looked away from Roman’s eyes.

Yeah.

Family first.

*

They had a mess to clean.

A big one.

Demyan told Roman he would handle it—gave his son the night to do what he wanted before they’d have to gather for direction. Roman didn’t need to be told twice by his father.

He wasn’t staying there.

Didn’t bother to check on the bodies before he left, or the mingling men ready to take orders from his father the second they stepped out of the office.

Karine remained quiet, happy to disengage from the people as long as Roman was there for her to shrink into. As he led her away from the house and the things that had transpired within it, he realized Karine was still very much who she was, no matter what she did that might seem different.

Roman let her stew in her silence and thoughts as he navigated unknown roads, and the car’s GPS, to get them to a hotel in the city. ID and a credit card with no limit nabbed them a decent penthouse suite for a week, and Roman didn’t even concern himself with the bill.

It was only once he had his wife stripped naked, sitting on the edge of the bathtub filling with hot, bubbly water that she spoke.

“My hands hurt again.”

He passed the bandages a glance. “You were alone with him?”

“I had to be. It was the easiest way to get inside the house. We only had to be in. He trusted Cherie; as long as he didn’t hurt the girls too bad, she