Page 93 of Married with Blood
“He’s been my main stressor for years. I can handle it.”
I stroked my thumb over her lower lip. “No. That’s just it. You shouldn’t have to handle it. Not on your own. You have me now. You are my wife. And it is my duty to shoulder the responsibility offamilywith you. Your family. Mine. Ours. You are not alone anymore, Carina, and you will never be expected to stay tough like your father might have trained you to. You can lean on me, always.”
She nodded, resting against me.
“You are mine to protect,” I repeated, needing her to understand this completely. “You are a Volkov.”
“But I don’t want war,” she admitted. “I thought that if I could reach him and get through to him, the Cartel wouldn’t have to suffer with whatever he’s planning. I am only thinking ahead that when—not if—his plans fail, that the Cartel will have no one, not even me in the background anymore.”
Her reply both irked and impressed me. Adrik and I had just talked about this—that if Arturo wasn’t in charge anymore, a power vacuum would pose more complications. But it wouldn’t behercomplication. She should be content and safe here, at my side, preparing for our child and to continue as our strategist.
“You haven’t been there in the background since you married me,” I reminded her. “And there is no going back. You are a Volkov, and should there be any war, you will be protected as one of us.”
“I’m not suggesting that I go back. It’s just that I’ve been the only one to ever try to get him to see reason. I didn’t call him to overrule you or beat you to the punch. It’s just that he’s my brother and I had hoped that he would talk tome, his sister, before fighting with anyone else.”
I kissed her and framed her face. She had too big of a damn heart.
“I don’t want to see the Bratva targeted, but a part of who I used to be still struggles with letting go of the Cartel as well. They deserve better.”
No.Youdeserve better.
And if killing Arturo was what it took to give this woman peace for once in her life, I was wasting time delaying the inevitable.
32
CARINA
Maksim held me on his lap. He had every right to assume the worst of me, overhearing me talking to Arturo after he’d left. Just this morning, I told him that I hadn’t spoken with him since the day before the wedding.
I felt like a liar now, even though I had told the truth.
“I wasn’t trying to hide anything from you,” I confessed, sticking with the full honesty that I wanted him to know he could expect from me.
I knew it had to look bad, though, that I’d called my brother and tried to talk to him after Maksim had left the room for me to shower. He’d lingered though, for whatever reason that was. But I hadn’t intended for a single second to give him any room to doubt me.
“I suspected as much,” he said.
He wasn’t mad. But I worried that he should be. Arturo was an extremely difficult topic between us. I wasn’t so naïve to assume that he might be killed, and soon. My brother might meet hisdeath by the hands of my husband, and I had to try to come to terms with that, one way or another.
I hadn’t yet, though, and that was why as I sat on Maksim’s lap and accepted and embraced the security his strong body offered me, I felt like a liar. A fraud. Someone who didn’t deserve his goodness.
Because that was what he continued to show me.
“I never want you to think that I’d betray you,” I admitted, letting myself expose how vulnerable I was at the moment. How close I was to breaking down. “When I reached out to him, it was to hopefully get answers. Not because I feared you wouldn’t, but because I felt like I might be able to. I wanted to believe I could contribute to this situation and push us closer to knowing what to do.”
He kissed my cheek then sighed. “Carina, you always contribute.”
“But in this regard, I didn’t want to be some backseat spectator when I could potentially help as his sister, as the only one who’d ever been close enough to even partly get through to him.”
He shook his head, calm and still not mad, simply denying what I said. “I heard him, Carina. I heard his end of the call. You arenotgetting through to him.”
I frowned, hating to be put on the spot like this. Because he was right. Arturo had dismissed me as someone who “didn’t know anything”.
“I don’t think you ever will again.”
I had to give him credit for acknowledging that fact when I couldn’t.
“You’re not mad at me?”
