don’t need to do that. You’ve already done so much for her and for me.”
“You’re my wife, Erin.” He traced her lower lip with his thumb, letting it linger on the swollen edge and feeling another flare of anger that someone had dared to touch her. “I’ll do whatever is necessary to keep you safe. I swore to you after the kidnapping this shit would never happen again—but here we are.”
“This isn’t your fault.”
“It is.”
“How?”
“If I was still in, no one would ever think to come after you.”
“If you were still in,” she emphasized to let him know that she understood that he meant the mafia, “we wouldn’t be together. You would have never have let me get close to you.”
She was right. He wouldn’t have. He would have helped her with Ruby and then sent her on her way. He would have watched after her from afar and fantasized about what sort of life he might have with a girl like her.
“Maybe it’s a scam,” she offered, dragging him away from those maudlin thoughts. “Maybe what happened today is someone trying to set up a blackmail type scenario to get money out of us.”
“Do you think your sister would be in on something like that?” He thought Ruby absolutely would try to fuck him that way, but he wasn’t sure that she would have allowed someone to hurt Erin like this. Throughout her time in jail, Ruby had shown actual remorse for the way she had put Erin in danger.
“No,” Erin answered immediately. “Whatever her faults—and she has a lot—she would never do something like this for money. She would come straight out and ask.”
“It’s no secret that she’s related to us,” he reasoned. “If someone she met on the inside thinks they can use her connection to us to get money, they might try it. People do crazy shit for cash.”
“That’s true,” she agreed. A moment later, she said, “Or...”
“Or?” He pulled back so he could look down at her. “What are you thinking?”
“What if someone is trying to drive a wedge between us? What if someone wants to poison us against Ruby? Or turn me against you by using my sister? Maybe something really bad is coming, and they want us vulnerable.”
He started to dismiss her worries, but experience made him reconsider. His past was murky and dark, filled with terrible misdeeds and crimes. Ruby’s past wasn’t quite as bad as his, but she had pissed off a lot of people in the Houston underworld. There was no shortage of bad characters who wanted to hurt him or Ruby. Hurting Erin was the easiest way to accomplish that.
Erin’s small hand touched his jaw, drawing his attention back to her. She smiled up at him. “Take me home?”
Nodding, he lowered his head and claimed her mouth in a gentle kiss. Once he had her safely at home, he would start calling in favors and markers until he got the names of the assholes who had hurt her. After that—all bets were off.
Chapter Three
“I’m fine!” I protested as Vivian fussed around me, tucking a blanket around my waist after handing me a cup of my favorite cinnamon spice tea. She had arrived on my doorstep almost as soon as we had and immediately started mothering me. If ever there was a woman born to nurture, it was Vivian. “If anyone needs to rest, it’s you.”
She followed my gaze to her baby bump. “I’m getting so much rest I’m going stir crazy. Nikolai has been impossible the last few days.”
“He just wants everything to be perfect,” Lena piped up from her spot by the fire. She had taken a very fussy Sophia (CHECK) from a harried Benny and played with her on the fluffy white rug there. “With everything that’s happened this year, our guys are on edge.” She made a silly face at Sophia who giggled gleefully and made silly baby sounds. “Yuri barely lets me out of his sight when we’re here. I have more freedom to roam when we’re back in Russia.”
“Dimitri added more cameras to our house.” Benny enjoyed her cup of tea while kicked back on the chair closest to her daughter. “He put in more at the bakery, too. He basically has eyes on me and Sophia day and night.”
“Sounds like the plot to a psycho husband thriller on Lifetime,” Lena remarked.
“I think it sounds like a loving father and husband doing his best to keep his family safe,” Vivian insisted before shooting Lena