Page 211 of Marrying the Savage

“Enough—”

Grigori doesn’t stop. “Now, despite everything, she got you back, and she thinks you’re all wrapped around her finger.”

“Enough—” I repeat.

“Even now, I’m certain she’s thinking of ways to manipulate you,” Grigori sneers. “God knows what she’s up to.”

“Enough,” I say so loudly that Grigori visibly flinches and so do the rest of them.

Kirill is the first one to speak up after. “That is what Sergei would want if he meant to weaken you.”

Mikhail is silent.

I look at him. “You agree?”

“I agree the pattern exists,” he says. “I don’t agree we know what it means.”

“That is not an answer.”

“It’s the only honest one.”

Grigori’s voice is lower when he speaks again. “I think Sergei failed to control you at the church, so he may be using Sofia to finish what he could not.”

The room feels colder. This is the worst part. I can’t dismiss his words as just lies, because now that he’s put it in front of me, it’s like the fog through which I couldn’t see earlier has lifted.

Sofia at the wedding, choosing me with blood on the floor.

Sofia in my house, arguing, disarming rooms without trying, making even Maksim ask for her.

Sofia in my bed.

Sofia standing by the piano, hand near her abdomen, telling me she is pregnant.

I grip the edge of the desk. No one speaks.

Grigori says, “Damir.”

I look up.

He hesitates.

Then he says the rest. “She’s been manipulating you all along. You have to be careful.”

Anton mutters something under his breath.

Nikolai, still near the door, says nothing, but his face has changed.

Everyone is thinking the same thing.

Grigori rises. “What are you going to do?”

I look at the envelope again. Then at the men in my study.

They are waiting for the Pakhan.

The Pakhan should order surveillance, detainment, pressure, answers. The husband wants to go back to the music room and undo the look on Sofia’s face when I walked out.

The father⁠—