Page 37 of Untouchable Queen
“Blyat,” I curse under my breath. “I’m on my way, but I won’t make it home until tomorrow.”
“I know. Just … hurry.”
“Yeah.”
“Something wrong?” Lucian asks as I hang up with Natasha.
Mild panic roils in my stomach as my sister’s anxiety echoes in my ears. It takes a lot to stress Natasha out, and if she’s at the end of her rope, that means I’ve let things get completely out of control. I never should have let Lucian take me on this trip—I definitely shouldn’t have let him talk me into staying longer.
Mad at myself that I didn’t put my foot down sooner, I turn to my Greek god of a husband, glaring up at his handsome face.“We need to go back to New York tonight. The men are fighting, and neither of us is there to put them back in their place.”
Lucian’s face turns serious, his hazel eyes suddenly intense. “Did something happen?”
“I don’t know what exactly. Natasha didn’t say, but she wouldn’t have asked me to come home if it weren’t urgent.”
With a curt nod, Lucian says, “Get dressed. I’ll have Dominic prepare the chopper.”
20
LUCIAN
“What happened exactly?” Tatiana presses her sister as we enter Nebo, following Natasha toward the back of the club.
It’s lit with the bright overhead lights rather than the atmospheric neon ones when the club is open, and it casts a harsh brilliance around the space. I haven’t been here since my meeting with Boris Sokolov over a year ago.
It feels odd to be walking into Russian territory without facing the third degree, though Tatiana’s men eye me and mine with open suspicion as we pass. Whatever took place in our absence has done nothing to help our alliance.
We went to check on the injured parties as soon as the plane landed. Both men were mortally wounded and Killian King’s sister, Quinn—the Irish Kings’ literal in-house nurse—may or may not be able to save their lives. She worked through the night to stabilize them in her infirmary at Killian’s house. When we went to see them there, the men were still unconscious, though they’d both made it through surgery—Tatiana’s man with a bullet wound through the chest, my man with two missingfingers and a cut across his stomach that would have bled out if Natasha hadn’t acted so fast and taken them to Quinn.
Now, we’re trying to get to the bottom of the matter because no one seems to be talking. All I know is the alliance I thought I could force into being has deteriorated further in just a week of our absence. I’m starting to see my ambitions to unite our families is going to be far trickier than I had anticipated. Because the Russians don’t want this, and my men aren’t helping the situation.
“I’m not sure who started it. Our men say his did, but his swear Andrei pulled the knife first,” Natasha says, her gray eyes flicking to Tatiana’s blue ones. “The men insist they want to speak with you about it. They’ve been pretty worked up since it happened, though Dima managed to get his men to back down long enough to raise the matter with you.”
“Where did this happen?” I ask.
Natasha’s eyes shift to me, cold dislike apparent on her face. Not that I can blame her. I set a trap for her, took her hostage, and coerced her sister into being my wife in exchange for her freedom—after I killed her parents. Not the best foundation for a relationship with my new sister-in-law. And from the glare she’s turned in my direction, I don’t doubt she’s contemplating fifty different ways she’d like to murder me. If I weren’t me, she’d probably get away with it. She’s New York’s most skilled assassin, after all. She’s the secret weapon that has kept her family in charge of Manhattan for years.
Though she eyes me with open distaste, Natasha keeps speaking to her sister as if I’m not there. “Our men crossed into Lucian’s territory for an approved shipment, but I guess they decided to stop at a bar in Queens, where it took place. I took the men to Killian’s because it was the closest medical aid I could get them without taking them to a hospital.”
“That was good. You did well,” Tatiana assures her sister, giving her palm a quick, subtle squeeze.
We cut the conversation short as we enter the room where Tatiana’s men are waiting. There’s seven of them, all looking restless as they carry on gruff, stinted conversations in Russian. But as soon as they spot Tatiana, they fall silent. Then their eyes shift to me and the men I brought with me. Immediately they bristle, their hands twitching toward the weapons stashed inside their clothes as they tense.
“Alright, what happened?” Tatiana asks, her voice cool and calm, though she spent the entire plane ride pacing up and down the aisle trying to manage her anxiety.
“We want blood,” her captain growls—Dima, I think Natasha called him. He steps forward his blond hair wild around his face, his thick beard twitching with fury. “That Italian bastard shot Andrei.”
“And why did he do that?” she presses, her tone growing sharper.
“We shouldn’t be speaking in front of this treacheroussnake,” Dima hisses, leaning closer to her and lowering his voice as he casts his eyes in my direction.
“Lucian is here to help resolve the problem. I asked him to join me—to hear your side of it before we speak to his men involved. So I would like you to tell me now, Dima.”
Is it just me, or is there a hint of a protective edge to Tatiana’s tone?I know it would be taken the wrong way, so I fight the urge to smirk, but if she is actually coming to my defense, maybe the vacation to Italy did thaw the ice between us just a touch.
Dima’s eyes shift in my direction once again, his gaze venomous. “They can’t be trusted. At the bar, we overheard them talking about the don’s plans.” He shakes his head. “Andrei did what he thought was right. He was defending the brotherhood.”
“So he started the fight?” she presses.
