Page 218 of Marrying the Savage

Or everyone who mattered.

I go down the stairs. No one stops me.

The entrance hall is deserted except for one maid rushing across the far corridor with towels in her arms. She sees me and freezes, then looks away quickly and disappears through a service door.

My stomach tightens. I should go back.

I don’t.

I move through the house like a stranger, past the dining room, past the sitting room, toward the smaller corridor that leads to Damir’s study. My heart is thudding loudly now, not because of escape, but because something has cracked open and I don’t know what I’m walking into.

At the corner, a floorboard creaks behind me.

“Sofia.”

I turn. Grigori stands at the end of the corridor.

He’s not smiling.

His shirt is untucked on one side, his face pale, his hair disordered like he has been running his hands through it. In his right hand, held low against his thigh, is a gun.

The sight of it stops me cold.

“Don’t worry, darling,” he says, closing the distance with slow, quiet steps. “It’s just me.”

34

DAMIR

Maksim burns against my chest.

He’s on my lap in the back seat, wrapped in Irina’s coat because she pulled him out of bed without thinking to bring his own. His face is red, his hair damp at the temples, and every few seconds his body gives a small, weak shiver that makes Irina press both hands over her mouth like she can hold herself together that way.

“What happened?” I ask.

Irina is sitting opposite me, pale and shaking. “I don’t know. He was fine this morning. He had breakfast, played in his room, then suddenly he said he felt cold. I touched his forehead, and he was burning.”

“When?”

“Twenty minutes ago. Maybe less.”

“What did he eat?”

“Toast. Eggs. Some fruit. The same as always.”

“Who was with him?”

“His nanny. Then me.”

I look at Nikolai in the front passenger seat. “Where is Grigori?”

“I called him,” Nikolai says. “He said he will meet us at the hospital.”

Maksim shifts against me and makes a low sound.

I look down at him. “Maksim.”

His eyelids flutter, but he doesn’t properly wake.