I was ready to fall at her feet in worship. “After all of that…”
“I’ll see you in Seattle.”
I let go of the shaky breath I’d been holding, and then I was jerking her towel from her body and tossing her onto the bed as my own towel dropped to the floor.
She smiled against my mouth.
It was going to be okay.
We were going to be okay.
I pulled the covers up around her body and held her close.
She fell asleep in my arms, exhausted.
When midnight struck, I kissed her on the cheek, put on my clothes, and made my way back down the stairs.
I should have known he would be sitting there.
Glock in one hand.
Serrated knife in the other.
The kitchen light was dim over his head as he tapped the knife against his thigh like he was counting the seconds until he could slit my throat.
“Chase.” I gritted my teeth and pulled out a chair and sat.
Luc and Ash weren’t going to save me from this one.
I was in this alone.
And if he wanted blood.
He would get blood.
“How is she?” He didn’t look up, just kept tapping his knife against his thigh. Shit.
How to answer? Satisfied? Smiling? Fucking delicious? “She’s better.”
“That’s not what I asked.” Slowly he lifted his head, cold blue eyes locked onto me. “How. Is. She?”
“Strong,” I said in a clipped voice. “Beautiful.” I crossed my arms. “Claimed, and no longer yours.”
He jumped to his feet, kicking his chair back in the process, chest heaving.
I tilted my head. “Are we doing this here? Now? How much of my blood do you think you need to spill to feel better about all of this? She’s legally bound to me, and you can’t do shit about it.”
“You little shit!” Chase spat. “Do you know what you’ve done? You’ve taken everything from her! Everything I’ve built! Her life was not supposed to go in this direction! She had a plan, she had—”
I held up my hand. “You mean you had a plan, and I ruined it.”
He gritted his teeth. “You gave her no fucking choice!”
“I saved your fucking life! Not to mention your family!” I roared, jumping to my feet and gripping his shirt with my right hand, knowing he had his gun trained on me, and the knife was at my throat. “You would be dead if I didn’t do what I did. So maybe stop with the theatrics and the yelling and say thank you. Then again, you don’t have a humble bone in your body!”
He sneered. “Humility gets you killed, you know this just as much as I do, Petrov.”
“I can’t help what I am, Chase, but I do love her, more than anything, because, at the end of the day, I was the one willing to make the sacrifice to have her, and sometimes I wonder if you would do the same. Or is your precious career more important? Your connections? What people think? I didn’t steal her, I protected her when you couldn’t. I didn’t destroy her future, I made sure she fucking had one.”
I let go of him.
Slowly he lowered the knife, his eyes haunted.
The gun clattered to the floor, and then he slumped into his chair, resting his head in his hands like he was broken. “She’s my baby.”
“And now she’s mine,” I whispered. “But that doesn’t make her any less yours; she’s still Abandonato through and through, as proven when she tried to beat the shit out of me earlier today.”
He lifted his head and smiled. “Violet’s too tame for that.”
“Tell that to my throat after getting punched.”
His grin widened. “Good girl, I taught her that.”
“Yeah, it felt like it.”
He looked away. “I didn’t want you for her.”
It stung, but I knew the truth. “Sometimes I don’t even want me for her. She’s too good for me for this life.”
He nodded and then pulled out another knife.
Great. My nerves were already shot. People didn’t just talk back to Chase and live to tell about it. Already I knew I wasn’t going to escape out something broken and was bracing for the pain.
Shock rippled through me when he sliced across his hand and held it out. “My loyalty…” He lifted his head, voice firm. “To the new Petrov boss.”
He handed me the knife with his other hand.
The knife was sharp, and I felt little more than a quick sting as I made the same cut the bosses always made when showing fealty to the other bosses. I waited for the blood to well along the thin line, and then I shook his hand, our blood mixing, our loyalty no longer divided.
Out of all of the men that I now called equals, out of all the powerful men, I didn’t expect Chase to be the first to humble himself and show me his allegiance.
Then again, I hadn’t expected him not to kill me.