Page 149 of The Darkness is Calling

His attention isn’t only about my physical needs and the desire that constantly smolders between us, the attraction almost palpable. More than that, he shows me he thinks even about the details connected to the romantic side of a marriage.

And that also has to do with the subject of the honeymoon, which Artem insists on bringing up when he sees me skeptical about it a few days later.

“Why do you think we won’t go on a honeymoon?”

“Because we didn’t have a typical wedding,” I say with a shrug. “And things are a little uncertain right now.”

He abandons the laptop he works on almost all the time, when he isn’t on the phone or between my legs – making me scream with pleasure – and looks at me with a serious face.

For two days, he hasn’t left my side, because he holds his meetings over the phone while his brothers scout the territory. And now he’s sitting in the armchair across from me, his laptop left on the low table, wearing a pair of black-framed glasses on his nose. The same pair that made me feel like I was melting when I first saw him wearing them yesterday.

What surprises me is that even now, although he’s home, he’s wearing suit trousers and a black shirt, as if he’s preparing to leave at any moment. Compared to him, I’m dressed in a T-shirt and a pair of jeans.

“You’re upset,” he observes, lacing his fingers over his crossed legs with the patience of a true leader.

“You think?” I say, a little ironic.

“I thought you’d calmed down.”

“Why would you think that?”

He pretends to think for a moment. “Your moans of pleasure?”

“Sex has nothing to do with it.”

His eyes narrow slightly. “More precisely, what are you unhappy about, Ekaterina?”

The tension is audible in my voice when I answer, gesturing with my hands at everything around us.

“Everything. Is this how my life will be from now on? Locked inside the house?”

“It’s only for a while, until we eliminate the danger.”

“This is Bratva, Artem. There will always be some danger that will turn me into a prisoner in a golden cage. That’s why I wanted out of this world.”

He sees my frustration taking the shape of anger with every thought spinning through my head since I woke up. We are being hunted by enemies we barely know, and every person around us could be a threat or a traitor.

I can’t even go to the gallery, and the only contact I have with Oksana is through messages, on an app that can’t reveal my location.

“Things won’t always be this tense, Katya.”

“Yes, they will, Artem,” I say, sadness in my voice. “I can’t go to the gallery, I can’t go out for coffee, I can’t do anything because I’m not allowed to leave this house. It’s worse than when I was in Moscow. At least then I could see my friends, even if I had an army of bodyguards after me.”

A shadow falls over his face, and I don’t understand what it is until he speaks, disappointment threading his voice. “I thought you were happy with me.”

“Why? Because you saved me from a false marriage and forced me into one just like it?”

Regret strikes me before I even finish saying the sentence, then goes straight to my heart, making me realize how unfair I’m being.

Maybe I don’t like this situation, but I know very well that a huge part of me is a thousand times happier today than I was a few days ago, when deep down I wished Artem would be the one waiting for me at the altar.

My hidden wish came true, so why can’t I get over the fact that he forced this wedding? Just because he didn’t ask for my consent and took what he wanted, regardless of what my answer might have been? Because he put innocent people’s lives in danger, people who won’t easily get over what happened that day, when so many were killed before their eyes?

Yes. I suppose that Pakhan attitude is what still upsets me and reminds me of how my mother was treated, like a beautiful accessory with one role only: to take care of the children.

I see his body tense and his hands curl into fists. In his eyes, dangerous shadows mingle with a pain that echoes inside my own heart.

“If you’re that unhappy, then I’ll annul the wedding as soon as Prescott is eliminated.”