Page 49 of The Enemy of My Enemy: Pt. 2

“Aurora thought that Darya would feel more comfortable talking with me elsewhere,” he answered, shrugging.“Your wife thought that Darya would be more forthcoming without my presence.”

“Or else my wife needed you out of the room to hatch a fucking plan to go after the sonofabitch who ordered her attack,” I fired back.“Did you ever think of that?”

His back immediately straightened.“I already told you, the sister and the niece don’t know anything about what Armen had been up to.”

My head dropped as I ran my fingers through my hair, ready to lose it.“Jesus Christ, Kasimir.”

“What?”

I looked back up at him, and truth be told, it was hard to blame him for underestimating Aurora when I’d been doing the same thing since the day that we’d gotten married.Perhaps it was years of having people obeying you without question that was the problem.From the moment that my father had first given me a position of power in the bratva, I hadn’t ever had to explain myself, except to him.Any direction that I’d ever been given had been exacted to my satisfaction.

Then I’d gotten married.

I’d gotten married to someone who didn’t care who I was, what I said, or what I thought.I’d gone and married a woman who had a more impressive kill list than I did, and wasn’t that about a bitch.I’d gone and married a woman who didn’t care if she lived or died, and even in my world, that was a rarity.Most people cared when it came down to it, but Aurora kept staring down the barrel of a gun like God was waiting to welcome her on the other side of it.

“You’re underestimating my wife, and I’d give you shit for that if I wasn’t guilty of the same thing,” I told him.“There was a reason why she wanted time alone with Darya, and it wasn’t to make the woman feel more comfortable.”

“Why do you think that?”

“Because my wife is fucking missing!”I yelled, frustration getting the best of me.

“Okay, calm down,” he muttered as he walked over to the bar.“You need a drink.”

“I need to find my fucking wife,” I countered.

Stopping, Kasimir looked over at me.“Why?”

That question had my head rearing back a bit.“Why?”

“Viktor, in the short time that Aurora has come to be a part of our family, we’ve learned that she can speak a million different languages, can bring down a man three-times her size, has a photographic memory, can fight off four grown men trying to kill her, and she ran her father’s gambling empire before marrying you,” he said, reciting the accomplishments that we knew so far, minus how I was the only one who knew that Aurora was Astaroth.“Why are you worried about her?”

“Well, even if we leave out the part where I’m in love with her, she’s my wife,” I drawled out, letting the sarcasm drip from each word.“Why wouldn’t I be worried about her?”

“Oh, it’s okay to be worried about her, but why are you mad that she’s off doing what she does?”he clarified.“If anyone’s proven that they can take care of themselves, it’s that woman.”

“And maybe I’d be fine with her handling her business if she’d tell me what she was up to,” I pointed out.“It’s about trust.”

“There’s only one way that you’ll ever get a woman like Aurora Marchetti to trust you, and that’s if you trust her first,” he said, echoing Roman’s advice.“Until you do that, your wife is going to be your wife in name only.”

“She’s more than just my wife in name only,” I said, making it clear that I had all of Aurora.

“Men know better than most that sex doesn’t mean shit,” he snorted.“Quit confusing your wife with other women.”

“There won’t ever be any threat of that happening, ever,” I replied seriously.

Giving me a pointed look, Kasimir said, “In our world, trust outweighs love, and it’s time you start accepting that, big brother.”

It really did suck whenever Kasimir was right.