by Katee Robert
“Answer the question.”
A sliver of alarm went through her. She spent a moment debating continuing to push for answers but finally said, “No, Papa wouldn’t have called them in, even if it was an emergency. Especially not in this situation involving me. My father has done several things over the years that pisses them off, including naming me his heir instead of marrying me off to one of his men so they can lead the family. They would be only too happy to use this as proof I’m not suitable.” Her parents had always supported her as heir and trained her as such from the time she was a teenager. Jovan was like Dante’s uncle, like Rose’s grandparents, in how he viewed anyone who wasn’t a man. As in, they weren’t suitable to lead.
Dante drummed his fingers on the steering wheel. “They are not allies, then.”
“They’re family.”
He shot her a look. “You’re not naive enough to think blood ties will protect you if they decide you’re more trouble than you’re worth.”
No, she wasn’t. She’d played a very careful game for her entire adult life. Entertaining her “cousins” from Russia when they came to visit with obvious agendas while never agreeing to anything. She’d gotten very good at dancing on the knife-edge between too strong to fuck with versus being too much a pain in the ass to be allowed to live. Her family in Russia was always hungry for more. More power, more territory, more money. It aggravated them to no end that her father eventually settled into something resembling peace with the scattering of other families in NYC and the surrounding area instead of crushing them beneath his heel in a bloody war.
Somehow, in all of this, she hadn’t considered that they’d get involved.
Foolish. So fucking foolish.
She let her head drop back against the seat. “Damn it, I didn’t expect them to move so fast.” It wouldn’t matter that she’d made the right call—and she was certain she’d made the right call—the day of the wedding by getting in that trunk. It wouldn’t even matter if she’d made no calls at all and Dante had overpowered her. She’d disappeared with the enemy, put their alliance with the Capparellis in jeopardy, and had been missing for days. Of course, they would use that opportunity to their advantage. “Fuck.”
The trees opened up the tiniest bit as they came to a stop sign at what appeared to be a highway. Dante looked at her. “Are they a danger to you?”
“Da.” No reason to lie. She’d be gone before it mattered, and even if she didn’t manage to escape, he’d figure it out eventually. “They aren’t my biggest fans, and if in the course of this whole clusterfuck, I somehow died and Sasha became the next heir, they’d have a better chance of convincing my parents to marry her off to someone of their choosing.” Sasha wasn’t built like Rose and their other sisters. She was softer. A brutal husband would break something fragile inside her that she might never recover from. Anya and Lorelei would make sure he never had a chance to do it again, but that wouldn’t save Sasha after the fact.
“Rose.” From the way he said her name, it wasn’t the first time. Dante waited patiently for her to drag herself out of her dark thoughts and look at him. “They won’t touch you.”
“I wouldn’t be in this position if it weren’t for you.” Not the truth, not really. If not this, then something else would have happened to give them the excuse to go after her. She just thought she had more time, more space to build up the walls to keep herself and the people she cared about safe.
“They won’t touch you,” he repeated.
She had no business feeling warmth from his assertion. Even if the fairy tale in this man’s head came to reality, even if he was as formidable as his reputation, in the end, Dante was only one man. He couldn’t protect her from the full might of the Russian Romanovs if they decided to take advantage of her being outside the relative safety of New York. “Do they know where we are?”
She half expected him to brush off her question like he had in the past. Instead, Dante pulled onto the highway. “Si. Not our specific location, but they’re in the area.”
Her breath whooshed out. “Dante, you have to let me go. If your uncle wants me dead and they’re sniffing around… You’re outmanned and outgunned. Eventually they’ll find you—find us—and then it’s all over. They’ll kill both of us and make it look like it’s your fault and…” And then the people she loved would pay the price.
What was the fucking point of all this power if all it did was paint a target on her forehead? Her parents claimed it served to keep their family safe, but if she were a civilian, she wouldn’t have to deal with shit like this. Rose didn’t spend much time worrying about what her life would have been like if she were born into a different family because, ultimately, it didn’t matter. Her circumstances were what they were, and she mostly loved her life.
Just not when it seemed like everyone and their dog was gunning for her.
Dante didn’t look at her, but his body had gone tense at her statement. “All the more reason for you to agree to my terms.”
“That’s not possible and you know it. You are one man, Dante. No matter how good you are, they’re better. Marrying you would just make it worse.”
“That’s not a no.”
She opened her mouth to tell him no but couldn’t make her lips form the word. Dante was not for her. He couldn’t be for her. It didn’t matter that she was starting to believe him about their connection being real even before they were honest with each other. It didn’t matter if he fucked like a dream and seemed to enjoy her at her most monstrous. It didn’t matter that he’d most likely burn the entire world down for her if she set that as her condition for marrying him.
It didn’t matter what she wanted.
She closed her eyes. Okay, fine, she wanted Dante. She even liked the way they circled each other, neither willing to pull their punches. She liked that he was the perfect combination of Jackson Smith and Dante Verducci. She liked how they fit in so many ways.
But he wasn’t for her. He couldn’t be. Even if they could get the situation figured out with the Russian Romanovs, her family would never accept Dante. The Capparellis would never accept her marrying a Verducci, either. The implications for following what her heart may or may not want…
No. The cost was too high.
“It’s a no, Dante,” she said softly. “It has to be.”
He didn’t say anything the rest of the drive. It wasn’t an angry silence, though. His body language remained loose and easy and his expression contemplative. It made her want to push him, to poke and poke and poke until he snapped. To ask him if he was actually that easily dissuaded, even though the act of asking would give away far more than she could afford. This was what she had to want, after all. Him to back off.
She watched the road signs but couldn’t dredge up any happiness when she realized they were in California. What did it matter now? This had to end, and end immediately.
The town Dante drove them to was barely large enough to have a Walgreens. He parked at the back of the lot and turned to look at her. “I need you to stay in here.”
“But—”
“Rose.” Rose. Not Rosa. Not amata. That, more than anything, made her stop protesting and look at him. He held her gaze. “I will go and get the meds for you. The Russians were spotted in the next town over, so they might not be here, but we can’t risk it.” He paused. “If you run, I can’t protect you.”
“I wouldn’t need protection if you hadn’t interfered!”
“Si.” He shrugged. “But it happened and now we deal with the consequences. There is nothing stopping them from gunning you down in the street if you try to run. Stay in the car. Please.”
He could be lying. He probably was. If that were the case, why bring her at all? He could have kept her locked up in the cabin and returned with the medication. Yes, it would mean a few more hours before she could get the dose, but ultimately it wasn’t Dante paying the price of their recklessness.
She nodded slowly. “I’ll stay.” Even Rose co
uldn’t tell if she was lying or not.
For a moment, it seemed like Dante might change his mind, but he turned off the car. “Lock up behind me.” Then he was gone, striding toward the building.
She watched him disappear through the doors. A not-insignificant part of her wanted to stay right there in the car. She could tell herself she had no choice because she needed Plan B, and then she’d have no choice but to go back to the cabin, and then she’d have no choice to keep fucking Dante and hiding from all the problems waiting for her.
That was the thing, though.
She did have a choice.
She couldn’t let her selfishness hurt any of the people she cared about. It still took more determination than she could have anticipated to pull the door handle and step out of the SUV. Late-afternoon heat made her cardigan almost unnecessary, and she looked around, temporarily disorientated. Rose’s gaze landed on an old Latina lady pushing her cart, and she hurried over. “Ma’am? Do you have a phone I could use?”
The woman flinched but then peered at Rose. “I haven’t seen you around here before. You in trouble?”
No reason to pussyfoot around it. “Yes.”
“Don’t steal my phone.” She dug it out of a truly massive purse and handed it over.
Rose stared at it for a long moment. It was one of those flip phones that had been designed to look like the old ones from the mid-2000s. She held her breath and dialed her sister. Not Lorelei this time. She needed Anya.
“Romanov here,” her sister barked into the phone.
“Anya?”
Instantly, her sister went on high alert. “Rose? Is that you? Where are you?”
“I’m at a Walgreens in…” She held the phone away from her face and looked at the old woman, who was watching her suspiciously. “Ma’am, what town is this?”
“Cedarville.”
The name meant nothing to her, but when she repeated it to her sister, Anya cursed. “They were just through there yesterday. Hold on.” She didn’t bother to hold the phone away as she started issuing commands. “Call Uncle Jude. She’s in Cedarville.” A few seconds later, she came back on the line. “Can you stay where you are for fifteen minutes or so? Grady is on his way.”
She had a dozen questions about what their extended family was doing in the area, but it would have to wait. “No, I can’t stay here that long, and I have to give this phone back.”
“Fuck. Okay.” Her voice went muffled. “Give me your fucking phone, Vasily. No, I don’t have time to argue. Give it here.” A pause. “Okay, if you go to the street the Walgreens is on and head north, there’s a bunch of shops and shit. Go to secondhand motherhood store or whatever the fuck Moms and Me is and hide there. Grady will be there in ten.”
“Okay.” She ignored the guilt threatening to swallow her whole and hung up. This was the only way. Honestly, this was preferable, because if she set things to right, maybe she could divert her family from a quest for vengeance and calling for Dante’s head. He wouldn’t thank her for it, but it was better than the alternative.
“Thanks for letting me borrow the phone.” She looked up and froze. The old woman wasn’t looking at Rose. She was looking at something over Rose’s left shoulder, her expression terrified. Fuck, Dante must be back already. She handed the phone back and started to turn. “I can explain…”
Rose trailed off.
It wasn’t Dante standing behind her, violence written across his face. It was a man she’d only seen in pictures, one of the people her father had warned her about as active threats to her existence. He was a lean, dark-haired guy with a remarkably normal face considering his reputation. Just handsome enough to be utterly forgettable, at least until a person looked into his empty gray eyes. She numbly passed the phone back to the old woman and stood there as she rushed into her car and practically left half her tires on the pavement peeling out of the parking spot.
I thought he’d be taller. She pressed her hand to her mouth to keep the words inside.
“You know who I am.” His thick Russian accent should have felt familiar, but she couldn’t see past the threat.
“Da,” she answered in Russian. “I know who you are. The Mad Wolf.” The one their Russian extended family sent when the situation had gotten messy and they wanted to make an example of the offending parties.
Casimir Romanov.
Chapter 16
Dante made it in and out of the store in record time, the small box with the Plan B tucked safely into his jacket. The few people in the aisles had all seemed remarkably normal, but that didn’t stop him from keeping his head on a swivel. His odds of finding Rose still sitting in the SUV were about fifty-fifty. She seemed to take the stakes seriously, and she would want these damn pills, but she was also resourceful and loyal to her family. She might put herself at risk to try to escape.
He didn’t run back to the vehicle, but he moved quickly, scanning the parking lot all the while. Dante was a few cars away when he caught movement out of the corner of his eye. Too fast to be a normal shopper. He pivoted and headed in that direction, following the instincts that had kept him alive more than once.
Then he heard the quiet Russian cursing and started to run.
He veered around a box truck in time to see a dark-haired white man grab Rose by the throat and slam her into the ground. Dante crossed the space between them in the blink of an eye, moving so fast, he barely registered the decision to take the first step before he had his gun pressed to the stranger’s temple. “Release my woman. Now.”
“Ah, the Italian.” The accent confirmed what Dante already expected. This was one of the Russian Romanovs. The man didn’t look at him. He just kept gripping Rose’s throat like he wanted nothing more than to crush her. He could do it. He could easily do it before Dante pulled the trigger.
True fear licked through Dante, but he forced any trace of it out of his voice. “Take your hand off her neck. Next time I ask, it won’t be so nicely.”
The Russian seemed to consider that for a moment and slowly eased his hands off Rose. He didn’t move from where he had her pinned to the ground. She coughed, the sound raspy and painful. The sensitive skin of her neck was bright red; it would bruise later. But she was alive, and that was all that mattered. Rose didn’t rub her throat. She just glared at both of them. “Dante Verducci, meet Casimir Romanov.”
Fury washed through him, overwhelming his fear. He’d heard of the Mad Wolf. Who hadn’t? He was the fucking boogeyman of the underworld, the man mafia parents scared their children with before putting them to bed. He was the reason Lorenzo had never tried to fully remove Kirill Romanov and his family from LA. The Russian Romanovs might be distant cousins, but they took that sort of thing seriously. The last family that tried had been wiped off the face of the earth.
The fact he was here, going after Rose instead of Dante, was a bad sign. It meant her suspicions were correct and Jovan’s people were only too happy to use this as an excuse to remove the thorn in their side and teach Dmitri Romanov a lesson in one blow. “I don’t give a fuck who he is. I’m going to take great joy in skinning him alive before I crush his throat like he tried to do to you.”
Casimir gave a dry chuckle that sounded like someone had already done damage to his vocal cords. “You will try.” He shrugged, apparently unconcerned about the threat of Dante blowing his brains out. “You will fail.”
Dante didn’t dare look away, even to check to see if they were drawing attention. “Up.”
Casimir rose slowly. He was a few inches shorter than Dante and built leaner. Much like Dante himself, he was dressed in a nondescript pair of jeans and a plain black T-shirt. Nothing to mark him out of place the way an expensive suit would. Nothing to draw attention to him at all… Except for the fact he was attempting to murder Rose in the parking lot of a fucking Walgreens.
If Dante shot him here, there would be questions. The Russians didn’t give a fuck about that because they would catch the next flight out of California and nev
er return to this area. They didn’t need local connections to smooth things over or money to grease palms. Dante did. More than that, he only had connections in LA. They wouldn’t extend to this little town in Northern California.
They had to make this go away, but they needed to do it quietly. He spared Rose a glance as she struggled to her feet. “Your head?”
She touched it gingerly and winced. “I’m fine.”
She sure as fuck wasn’t fine, but he wouldn’t be able to tell the extent of the damage until they were alone and he could check her over. “The SUV, Rose. Now.”
“Okay.” She nodded slowly and started limping in that direction. Fucking limping.
Dante grabbed Casimir by his throat and drove him back several steps to slam him against a nearby box van. “You have bad luck, friend. You should have stayed in Russia, but now you’re destined for an unmarked grave on foreign soil.”
The man’s lips curled, just a little, and something feral lit up his gray eyes. “Nyet, I do not think so, Dante Verducci.” His gaze flicked over Dante’s shoulder and even though he damn well knew better, he twisted to look.
A black sedan flew down the main street, going far too fast, and slammed on their brakes in the middle of the street. He caught sight of a large dark-haired white man behind the wheel, and then Casimir punched him in the stomach and Dante had to focus on the danger closest to him. The Russian moved too fucking quickly, slamming into him and bearing them both to the ground. The gun went flying beneath a nearby car. Damn it.
Dante tried to flip them, but for being a relatively small guy, Casimir managed to keep him pinned. And then he started punching, methodically wailing on Dante’s face and head. Dante got his arms up as best he could, but his head rang. The stranger in the car had better be one of Rose’s many relatives because if it was another Russian Romanov, they were in deep shit.
