Page 50 of Marrying the Savage

Christ. My wife is going to be a problem.

A magnificent one.

I carry her through the ruined church, over crushed flowers and broken glass, past women who stare and men who don’t dare raise their weapons. Cold air rushes in when my men open the doors.

Behind us, Sergei Antonov finally speaks. “Volodin.”

I stop at the top of the steps but don’t turn fully.

Sofia goes still in my arms.

Sergei’s voice is low now. Controlled again. That makes it more dangerous.

“This is not finished.”

I look back over my shoulder. “No,” I say. “It has just begun.”

Then I carry his niece—my wife—out into the cold morning before anyone in that church can remember how to stop me.

10

SOFIA

Damir Volodin carries me out of the church like this is not the most absurd thing to happen in the history of organized crime.

Which is impressive, really, because I’m wearing a wedding dress meant for another man, there is blood on my mouth, my former fiancé has just been shot in the leg, my uncle looks ready to start a war, and I have apparently married the most dangerous man in Moscow because I was trying to be petty with stationery.

This is why people say not to make decisions while emotional.

Or horny.

Or trapped in arranged marriages.

Honestly, the warning labels should be more specific.

“Put me down,” I say for the fourth time.

Damir doesn’t even glance at me. “No.”

“I have legs.”

“I noticed.”

My face heats before I can stop it, because the way he says it makes me very aware that he has noticed far more than my legs in the last hour.

I grip his shoulder harder. “You can’t just carry me around like luggage.”

“You are not luggage.”

“Wonderful. We’ve established I have basic human status.”

His mouth almost moves.

That is quickly becoming the most irritating thing about him. Damir Volodin doesn’t smile properly. He just lets the corner of his mouth threaten the idea, then takes it away before anyone can prove it happened.

One of his men—I think his name is Mikhail—opens the back door of a black car waiting at the bottom of the church steps.

Damir lowers me inside with surprising care, which somehow makes everything worse. I expect roughness. I expect command. I expect a man like him to toss me in and order the driver to leave. Instead, he sets me down as if the fact that he has abducted me from my own wedding doesn’t mean he has forgotten manners.