if they were trying to get to her to hold her for ransom.”
“Or use her as a bargaining chip to get Sergei to agree to their demands,” Cris interjected.
I gave a curt nod. “A lot of things still don’t add up with that theory, though.”
Like why they would have waited until the day I showed up to make their move.
Unless…the wedding ceremony had expedited their plan.
Everything had happened so quickly, it may have taken the enemy by surprise. Hell, the meeting with Sergei himself had come out of nowhere. I’d been trying to court him for months about buying some of his shares, but he hadn’t been very responsive. Up until last week, when he’d called me out of nowhere, wanting to negotiate a deal. I’d been so surprised and eager, I hadn’t considered the reasons behind his abrupt turnaround.
And if the Voiny were behind the attack, they would have known the day of the wedding was their last opportunity to get to Lexi before I took her away.
“Maybe Ace will have found something by Sunday,” Cris said as he stabbed out his cigar.
Christ, I hoped so. I needed answers.
But more than that, I needed to figure out how to deal with my new wife.
And how to deal with the reality that I wanted to fuck her raw on every single surface in my goddamn house.
The first night in my new prison—er, house—was pleasantly uneventful.
I made myself a sandwich for dinner and ate it while snuggled up on the living room couch, where I stared out the windows at the New York skyline. Then I went for a swim in the pool, followed by a dip in the jacuzzi. And let me tell you, that jacuzzi was choice. After I was relaxed to the point of almost falling asleep and drowning myself, I shuffled off to bed and promptly went into a coma. I hadn’t realized how jet-lagged I was.
Not a bad way to spend the evening, I had to admit.
When I woke up the next morning, I was beyond shocked to see it was almost eleven. I rarely ever slept past eight, thanks to my annoying internal alarm clock. Assuming Nico had left for work hours ago, I didn’t bother righting my appearance before going downstairs. I simply dragged myself out of bed and slipped on my favorite thick winter socks that I wore year-round. Not only were my feet perpetually cold, warm temperatures in Russia never lasted very long. Nor in England, for that matter. I was used to dressing for cooler temperatures throughout the entire year.
Glancing out the windows to see another sunny September day, I concluded that fall in Brooklyn might not be too bad. Much warmer than in Moscow. I might actually get to experience autumn, rather than just barreling straight through the season into winter.
I trudged downstairs toward the kitchen, my hankering for a caffeine fix driving me. If Nico didn’t have any tea in his cupboards, I was signing those annulments papers today. That’s all I had to say.
I crossed the threshold to the kitchen, rubbing my groggy eyes, and stopped on a dime.
“Good morning.”
Bloody. Hell.
Nico stood mere feet away, shirtless.
And he was magnificent.
All dusky skin and rippled muscles.
I felt the ridiculous impulse to rub my eyes, like they did in cartoons, to make sure I wasn’t dreaming. Because this exact scenario held eerie similarities to an erotic dream I had the night before—about him.
He grinned knowingly as he tipped his head back to drink from an aluminum water bottle. His defined torso was slick with sweat, his black training shorts riding low on his V-framed hipbones. His abs were rigid and compact, a clearly outlined six-pack proudly displayed. The sparse chest hair between his pecs and below his navel was dark, adding to his brawny appeal. There was a black tattoo on his left pec that looked like some kind of family crest. He also had a line of text tattooed on his right side, stretching from hip to rib, though I couldn’t read what it said.
In short, my husband was a stud.
Even his man bun looked like perfection. The hair at the nape of his neck and around his temples was matted with sweat, yet it only added to the appeal. I was starting to think he only grew his hair out and threw it up like that out of pure laziness.
And my hair looked like a wild animal had made a nest in it.