Page 99 of The Brutal Arrangement

“What?” I squeezed Damon’s fingers. “No. That can’t be true. I don’t use that phone. I don’t even know where it is. I don’t have any?—”

He kissed me softly, silencing my instant ramble of panic. Calmer with just his lips against mine, I let myself lean on his presence and slow my breaths.

“He had to have come home and realized that Katerina tricked him, that she didn’t marry anyone,” Damon told Maxim. “Anton has to be stirring up nonsense.”

He nodded, and Saul narrowed his eyes. “Just like when Beatrice caused so many rumors and sowed doubt.”

“Exactly,” Maxim growled. He raked his hand through his hair, looking at me and frowning. “You’re okay? No one hurt you?”

I shook my head, ready to be open about the experience to help these brothers know what to do next. “Grigory almost hit me, but your grandmother stopped him.”

Damon huffed a bitter laugh and scowled at someone behind me. As I turned, I gasped at the sight of Anastasia sporting the start of a nasty contusion on her face.

“So you’d stop him from hitting her,” Damon growled, “but you can’t try to stop him from ordering her to be killed?”

Sloane shook her head, crossing her arms and looking like a badass punk off the streets. “What the actual fuck, Ana?”

“Don’t take that bratty tone with me,” she warned.

Sloane doubled down, jamming her finger at her face. “No. This isn’t the time for you to school me about manners and any other irrelevant bullshit. How could you? How the fuck could you not stop crazy-ass Grigory from ordering Lucy to be taken anywhere?”

“Sloane.” Anastasia tilted her head to the side, as if she had to remain proper and regal to be a figure of authority over her. “Watch your?—”

“No,” Sloane sassed, unafraid and fired up. “You watch it.” She pointed and jutted one hip out. “You watch it, Ana. Lucy and I aren’t going anywhere because we love these men. And unlike you, we will always stand with them and support them. Not question them and nag. How thefuckcould you not stand up for Lucy?” She flung her arms out. “Comeon! She’s not calling anyone. She’s not spying on anyone. She’s naïve. Innocent. Sweet.”

“Enough,” Maxim told her, tugging her out of his grandmother’s face.

I smiled, fearing I wouldn’t be able to hold back my tears of joy that this woman was my friend. One hundred percent,absolutely, positively, my friend. She didn’t just have my back. She was shouting out in my defense.

“No. I’ve had enough of her acting like some uppity woman. Screw getting your approval, Ana. Shame on you for not believing Lucy isn’t a spy.”

“I wasn’t…” Anastasia shook her head and glanced at me, trite and dismayed. “I wasn’t going to let anything happen. I was going to call you and?—”

“No, Grandmother.” Maxim shook his head. “There’s nogoing toabout it. The second Grigory acted like that, you should’ve had help on the way. Lucy is Damon’s wife. She’s pregnant with his child. She is part of this family, just like Sloane will be, regardless of your opinions about it.”

Ana blinked, jerking back to look at me. “Pregnant?”

I huffed a weak laugh at her surprise. Of all the things that went down today, that was what she’d react the most to?

I nodded, catching Sloane’s attention in time to see her rolling her eyes.

“And after today, when you let guards take her down to the dungeon, I bet she’ll be smart enough to never let you see their child,” Sloane muttered darkly.

“No. Stop.” I shook my head, glad that everyone was in agreement that Grigory was a liability that we all needed to watch closer. “No more fighting. Grigory wasn’t himself when that happened. And I’m not surprised that Anton would call and leave lies on a message the way he did. He’s the sort of person to want to cause trouble. To spite others. I wasn’t near him forlong, but I saw how cruel he was. Unlike you.” I looked at each of them, all these people who’d rushed to protect me.

My family.

I’d found them in the unlikeliest way, but I never wanted to be anywhere else.

“Unlike you, who care about your own.”

Damon hugged me, cradling me against him until I could rest my cheek against his chest. He kissed the top of my head, sighing. “Including you, Lucy. You will always be included in this family as one of us.”

I closed my eyes and took his vow to heart.

38

DAMON

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