Page 90 of The Marriage

Roman wasn’t wrong.

“Dima wants to meet with you,” Chet said on the phone as Roman checked the windows, scanning the property. He had moved into the room across the hall to survey the front of the house as the man added, “Your father has refused to sit with him, so he will settle for meeting you instead. For now as this is his last attempt at peace.”

Peace?

Since when had Dima shown any concern for someone’s peace?

At the moment, Roman was fairly certainly Dima didn’t have eyes or hands on Karine. Gut instinct told him that, more than anything else. Dima might not get him closer to her, if anything, and he wasn’t going to entertain the asshole if it could be helped.

Not if Karine wasn’t safe ...

It was clear the guy had a sick plan for her. Roman’s mind was just creative enough to torture him with possibilities. He wouldn’t inadvertently walk his wife into a lion’s den.

“You can tell him to go fuck himself. Nobody from the Avdonin family will ever talk to that piece of shit. He’s a dead man walk—”

“Your best friend was just the start of it,” Chet interrupted smoothly, seemingly unbothered by Roman’s rant. “Dima wants what he wants. He has nothing to lose. You have everything, see. I hear your mother likes roses ...” Giddy laughter followed before the man said, “The choice is yours—but don’t take too long to think. I’ll call again with details.”

The call hung up as fast as it had come in, and just like when it did, Roman was left staring at the screen.

His messenger was gone.

The only thing he was left with was a choice.

*

Demyan poured vodka in two shot glasses and walked over to his son with both in his hands. “Do it on his terms, then. If he’s made a threat on your mother—”

“You can’t be serious,” Roman replied.

“It’s not exactly like he can kill you in broad daylight, either. And he is looking for exactly this reaction from you and the rest of our family,” Demyan added, shrugging as he fell into chair behind his desk. He’d come home from a lunch with Roman’s mother the second his son called about the message from Dima.

Down the hall, he could hear his mother talking to his grandmother—Viviana. Nobody liked being moved to safe places when bad stuff went down because of their association to the mob, but that was the life they had all chosen. Sometimes, the only thing they could do was bicker amongst themselves about it.

Roman tried to ignore his mother’s conversation to deal with the one at hand with his father.

Demyan hadn’t missed a beat. “He doesn’t like being ignored, and that’s what we’ve been doing so far. He feels like we aren’t treating him with the respect he deserves.”

“He deserves to die.”

“Does he?” Demyan passed his son a look. “You’ve only said some. I didn’t want to ask for more than you were willing to tell me about her ... and him.”

Roman swallowed hard, refusing to meet his father’s gaze and instead fixing his own on the window and the view outside. “He’s mad.”

“As in—”

“What does it matter?”

There were things Roman didn’t want to repeat. He knew Karine wished the same, but she’d never be released from her memories.

“Exactly the reason why we need to take his threats seriously. Before he does something that lands us all in jail for a spell. We don’t know where Karine is right now. We don’t know what Maxim is planning, either. The only thing we can do is give in to Dima’s demands. Or at least make him believe we are, and if you think about it ... we do have the upper hand.”

“Christ. How so?”

“We know something he doesn’t realize we know.”

Roman fell into the chair in the corner of his father’s office with his head in his hands, trying to make sense of his current state.

If he went in for a meeting with Dima—he wasn’t sure how he could walk away from there without ending the man; without making him suffer.