Tamara leads the way back into the main house, opening and closing doors in silence, leaving me alone with my thoughts, and Gianna in my arms.
After the twins left the dining room to carry out my orders, I sat back down in my seat, drank black coffee, sweet, and replayed the conversation between me and Gianna in my head.
Had I expected Gianna Sedric to be a meek slip of a woman who would take one look at me and promise to do whatever I asked? Was that really what I wanted? I needed to stick to the plan. Hold her here, spoil her for any other man, and then release her back into the wild like an uncaged animal.
What I hadn’t expected was for her to swallow the bait and turn the game around on me. What did she grow up on, fucking Russian roulette?
She’d caused me to break my own goddamned rules. I’d shown weakness the instant she turned the seductive charm on me like a teenager yet to pop his first cherry. I’d taken my eye off the ball, and she’d snuck right in there as if she’d known all along about my intentions for her.
But it was the bruise on her jaw that had spurred me into action.
She lied about how she got it. I knew that she was lying, and rather than coerce the truth out of her, I let it slide. First sign of weakness, and she’d jumped on it with both hands like a passenger leaving a sinking ship.
She was covering for someone, and the only person who’d been alone with her since she landed was Ivana. Was she afraid of Ivana? The woman could be intimidating—hell, she even worried me sometimes with the intensity of her reactions—but that wasn’t it. She wasn’t protecting Ivana either. Which meant that those bruises were between Gianna and Ivana, and she wanted to inflict payback in her own way and in her own time.
But women like Ivana only understand violence. I’d warned her to back off; I’d disrespected her position in front of the printzessa; then I’d given her the perfect opportunity to release her embarrassment onto my captive.
Once the truth hit, I ran down to the basement, my feet barely touching the staircase. I didn’t consider how it would look when I stopped them from carrying out my own orders. My thoughts, as muddled as they were, were solely for Gianna’s welfare. Dead, she was as good as useless to me. I might as well pin a target on my back and hand myself over to Xander Amory with my hands above my head.
But when I saw her plunging backwards into the freezing water, something came untethered inside me. I barely registered Ivana sprawling face forwards on top of her. My vision was clouded red. I saw Gianna’s face disappearing under the water’s surface, and I reacted to save her.
My asset.
The pawn in my game to take down Xander Amory and his Sicilian mob.
Now, carrying her back into the house with her body curled against mine like a sleeping child, I feel more like her protector than her captor, and I don’t understand how this has happened. Was this her intention? She knew exactly what she was doing when she licked my fingers, but my knowledge of the way women’s minds work is limited to my relationship with Elena, and Elena would’ve seduced the Pope to get what she wanted.
Still, something tells me this is not the case with Gianna.
Or does she have me so fooled that I will believe whatever she wants me to believe?
I stop outside a guest room on the upper level of the house and wait for Tamara to open the door. She does, but not before her eyebrows disappear questioningly beneath her soft bangs first.
I follow her inside, still carrying my cargo in my arms.
The room is painted in shades of cerulean and turquoise, just like Gianna’s eyes, and I realize too late the reason why I must’ve been drawn to this guest bedroom rather than any other. With daylight pouring through the window, it is warm and inviting, not exactly what I’d had in mind for my prisoner when I sealed her fate a couple of days earlier.
Without prompting, Tamara pulls back the comforter and stands aside while I settle Gianna onto the bed. The instant her body leaves mine, she seems to go into shock, trembling so violently I can hear her teeth chattering. I drag her wet clothes from her and pull the comforter up to her chin and tuck it around her. But it isn’t enough.
“Fetch me coffee,” I bark at Tamara. “Plenty of sugar.”
The door closes softly behind her.
Gianna’s eyes are closed. Her lips are tinged with blue, and her cheeks are pale, her veins visible beneath the surface like tiny meandering rivers making the bruises on her jaw look like an unearthly poison taking over her body. Another rush of anger fills me—not at Ivana this time, but at myself. Why does it affect me so badly to see her like this when I’m the asshole who wanted her broken?
“Gianna.” I place my hand on top of the comforter, and she instinctively leans into it, wrapping her body around my arm without opening her eyes.
Her cheeks feel like ice when I place my knuckles against them, but her forehead is burning up. She’s feverish, thanks to me. Violent shivers seem to rock her body in waves.
So, I do the only thing I can think of doing while I wait for Tamara to return: I lay beside her on the bed, pull the comforter over us both, and transfer my body heat to her.
I wrap my arms around Gianna and rub her the way a mother might rub a child wrapped in a towel to get them dry, and gradually, the shivering subsides. The pink slowly returns to her cheeks and lips, and her breathing regulates. Gianna tucks her knees up to her chest, instinctively keeping the heat in her core, and I can’t help smiling at how fragile she looks, like a newborn baby.
I’m still lying beside her on the bed, the comforter pulled up to our chins, when Tamara returns with a pot of steaming coffee, and two small jugs of cream and sugar.
She hesitates inside the doorway when she sees us. All kinds of emotions dance across her face, and something I’m not quick enough to catch flickers in her eyes before she blinks it away. Jealousy? Sergei stopped teasing me long ago about Tamara’s crush on me when I told him that, to me, she will always be the little kid I discovered in a stinking container. But my mother has hinted on several occasions that she worries the young woman’s affection for me will be her undoing.
I don’t want Tamara to love me. She is too important to me for our relationship to be destroyed by misplaced affection. So, making sure that Gianna remains under the covers, I ease my bulky frame off the bed and take the tray from Tamara.
“Why didn’t you stop her?” I demand.
“I tried.” She shrugs. “She was simply carrying out your orders, Pakhan.”
“My orders were to see that she understood the lesson.”
Her gaze slides to the bed and the pale face on the pillow, stringy-damp hair fanned out around her like a halo. “She understands.”
Tamara might not always agree with her sister’s methods, but she will always have Ivana’s back. Even if it means choosing her twin over me. And I would not have it any other way. I give loyalty to my people, and I demand loyalty in return because without it, we are nothing.
I take her words on board and nod once to confirm that I understand also. “No one touches Gianna without my knowledge. No one harms her. No one so much as fucking looks at her the wrong way or they will have me to answer to. Including Ivana. Do you understand?”
“Yes, Pakhan.” Tamara peers down at the coffee pot. “Do you want me to stay with her?”
“No. I will stay a while.”
“But, Pakhan, the next shipment is due later today.”
“I canceled it. What is one shipment when I have a war to win?”
Tamara goes to walk away and falters with her hand on the doorknob. “Do you know what lesson you were trying to teach the printzessa?”
Her voice is steady, calm, but laced with something else that I cannot quite place. She would never normally dare to question my orders. It seems that Gianna’s presence is affecting her too, and I don’t know if this makes me feel glad or uneasy.
“Yes. Do you?”
“You wanted to show her who is in control.”
Something icy settles inside my gut, turning circles like a dog trying to get comfortable. “And you think I failed?”
“It is not for me to say.”
She turns away from me again, but before she can leave, I set the tray down on the nightstand and grab her arm, spinning her back around to face me.
“Speak.”
Tamara lowers her gaze to my hand on her arm. “When was the last time you laid a hand on me?”
It’s an easy question to answer. “Never.”
“So, why is it different now that she is here?”
The question unnerves me. “Nothing has changed.”
“Don’t you see?” She holds my gaze, searching my eyes as if she wants to see what’s going on inside my head. “Everything has changed.”
I release her arm. “You have no idea what you are talking about. I have secured the asset as planned. Nothing more.”
“So long as you and the asset both believe this to be true, then we have nothing to worry about, huh?”
I shake my head. “Stop talking in riddles and say what you want to say.”
“Alright, Pakhan.” Tamara takes a deep breath as if psyching herself up for the punchline.
I might rule with a combination of fear and loyalty, but not with the twins. Never with the twins. I don’t want them to fear me, I’m their savior. If they fear me, they will be able to walk away from me, and that means that my enemies will be able to buy them and encourage them on their way.
“Don’t get too attached, is all I’m saying. One day very soon, you will hand her over to Xander or Seamus, and then what?”
The thought of Gianna and Seamus together makes my flesh crawl. It opens up something twisted and rotten inside me and makes me want to put my fist through a wall. He is not the man for her; she deserves so much better than the Irish pank.
“Then we will be exactly where we want to be.” I pick up the tray and turn my back on Tamara, dismissing her from the room.
