Page 95 of The Brutal Arrangement

“Call Damon,” I insisted.

“You need to shut up before I make you shut up,” the guard to my right growled.

I tensed, feeling like I’d throw up at the panic attack that hit me. My heart raced too fast. My head was spinning, dizzying me with fear. Vaguely aware of my fingers trembling and my knees shaking as I backed up to plaster myself against the wall of the elevator, I forced a swallow down my dry throat and focused on steadying my breaths.

Someone had to understand. Everyone was aware of Grigory’s limitations. Even Anastasia was, but I saw how little she’d ever trusted me or wanted me around.

Someone in this building had to contact Damon. They had to. My baby depended on it.

We rode down through the floors of the building, and with every inch we sank toward the basement where Damon earned the honor of being called the Demon, I prayed that no other soldier or enforcer would be waiting there to harm me in his absence.

36

DAMON

Ihung up from the call with the guard from the security team.

John frowned, watching me as I put my phone back into my pocket.

It was weird to be questioned about Lucy’s phones like that. She hadn’t touched that old one and had shown no interest in it at all.

Even if she had hinted at wanting to keep it since I presented her the new one with the new number, she could still be trusted.

We’d gotten closer. We’d talked and shared too much for me to have an inkling of doubt about her.

And if I thought about it deeply enough, I was convinced that we loved each other. I felt the care and affection she gave me. Every day, she made me feel complete with her at my side. And while I struggled to verbalize my emotions or let them stay within me for long instead of denying them and being numb, what I felt for her had accumulated so quickly into what had to be love.

“What’s up?” John asked, so used to working with me on this hunt for Nik that he could probably read me well.

“I’m not sure,” I replied, grateful that he was inquiring. It would help to have someone else’s opinion about Anton calling Lucy and stirring up trouble like this.

He stepped closer while the other men waited a few feet away, on alert and looking out for trouble.

“Anton Kozlov called Lucy. Her old phone, not the one you gave her.”

He furrowed his brow and nodded, listening instead of reacting. This man was one of the best.

“He said that he wanted his maid back and that he sent her to us to spy on us. But her time was up because they wouldn’t want to keep her.”

John narrowed his eyes, glancing up at me as if he was expecting a punchline to a joke. “What the fuck?”

I nodded. “Yeah. My thoughts exactly. What the fuck?”

“That’s not…” He shook his head, rejecting this like I was. “That’s not true. He didn’t send Lucy here. From all I’ve gotten from the men who could spy on them, Anton has been in Greece and unaware that Lucy took Katerina’s spot as the bride. He’s clueless.”

“Unless he’s returned and he can see that Katerina hasn’t married anyone.”

“Yeah, maybe he’s back. But…” He rubbed the back of his neck, perplexed and pissed off like I was.

“But why make up this bullshit that he sent her to us to spy on us?”

He shrugged. “Maybe to stir up shit like this? Maybe he’s counting on her phone and calls being tracked so that he could sow this seed of doubt and try to make her look like a traitor or a liar.”

I growled, not even seeing this hallway anymore. In my mind’s eye, I was taken back to the memory of being held hostage with my brothers for almost two months. Then, worse, the memories of being beaten and led out to that courtyard where we’d be shot, execution style.

“Sounds really fucking familiar,” I said.

“Like Beatrice?” he guessed.

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