Pants, is it?”
Roman didn’t deign to respond, but Evette didn’t seem to wait for one either. She held out her arm when Bonnie got close enough, wrapped it around her shoulder and guided her toward the backyard. “Sergei told us what happened last night. I take it Roman’s gone large-and-in-charge making sure there’s no repeat?”
“Something like that,” Bonnie murmured.
Cassie fell in on Bonnie’s other side. “You doing okay? Kir said one of them had a knife and that they ransacked your house.”
Roman might have been out of sight, but his footsteps were steady behind her, and his presence was unshakable.
The life you once knew has drastically changed.
You are not alone anymore.
Paired with the solidness of the women flanking her, a light and pleasant, yet utterly foreign sensation moved behind her sternum. Part of her wanted to rant a little more. To combat the powerlessness she wrestled with since waking up with some good old-fashioned bluster the way she normally would.
But that weird feeling took over and steered her words a different direction. “Well, I’m not dead. Or worse.” She kept walking even though she wanted to slow her steps and catch a glimpse at Roman’s face. “Not sure I could say that if Roman hadn’t been there.”
The comment had no sooner left her mouth than the facts and timing of the night before clicked together. She stopped dead in her tracks and faced Roman. “You know—you never said why you were there.”
“You are correct,” he said. “I did not. But you also did not ask.” He inclined his head toward Evette, a small but gentlemanly gesture that hinted at a bow. “If you’ll excuse me, I’ll see if Sergei needs anything before our friends arrive.”
And then he was gone.
Just ambled away into the heart of the poolside paradise beyond where Sergei, Kir and Emerson were already gathered amidst the outdoor furniture and three massive grills. Every time she’d seen Kir before he’d been decked out in one fine suit or another, but today, he was just as casual as Roman in jeans and a black T-shirt. That meant the last remaining man had to be the head honcho, Sergei. While he was fitted out in jeans, too, he wore a blue button-down with the sleeves rolled up to show his forearms and some serious tattoos. Kind of a businessman meets killer style that matched the intensity of his every move.
“He just totally stiffed me on an answer, didn’t he?” Bonnie said to the women without taking her eyes off the men.
Cassie sighed and crossed her arms, watching the lot of them the same way Bonnie and Evette did. “Pretty much. They’re sneaky that way.”
“But in a good way,” Evie added with a wistful affection in her voice.
The odd disclaimer yanked Bonnie’s attention away from the beefcake bonanza near the pool. “Not sure I can think of a scenario where sneaky’s paid off in my favor.”
Evie faced her and her gaze softened. “Me either until I met Sergei. Don’t get me wrong—Sergei doesn’t keep much from me, and I doubt Kir does with Cassie either—but if he thinks for a minute something he knows or has done might blow back on me, hell will freeze over before he shares it. At the end of the day, protecting me and Emerson comes first.”
“Seriously, though,” Cassie added. “You haven’t figured out why he was there?” Her smile when she said it looked genuine, and her eyes sparkled to match the cloudless day around them.
Bonnie checked Evie and found the same mirth-filled look on the other woman’s face. The same expression parents harbored on Christmas movies before their kids stumbled downstairs to find all the loot Santa had left behind.
“Oh, no,” Bonnie said, their meaning finally sinking in. “He wasn’t there for that. He’s a nice guy and was super decent considering I totally melted down on him after the fact, but he wasn’t there to go all Romeo on me.”
“Mmm hmm,” Cassie said, shifting her focus to Evie. “You should have seen him at the Dusty Dog when we stopped to visit. Bonnie was busy filling drink orders and totally missed it, but the way he was watching her, I halfway expected him to just pick her up and take her home with us.”
He kind of had done that—albeit several hours later and spawned by violence and blood. He really had been a hell of a hero. Ruthless. Powerful. And, in the end, heartbreakingly tender.
But even thinking in that direction would only lead