Page 8 of Lethal Devotion
“I planned to ask before the vows,” I bite out. “Yes or no? It’s your funeral.”
She blinks rapidly. “I—” She shakes her head and pushes herself up from the pew suddenly. For a split second, our bodies are very close, nearly touching, before she takes a quick step to the side and turns to face me, crossing her arms over her chest. “You’re going to have to give me more of an explanation than this, Damian.” Her chin tilts up, that defiant look written all over her face. “What the fuck is going on? I got taken from work, told to get into a van, dragged to that warehouse with those men…” Her voice shakes, and for a split second, I think she’s going to start crying again, but she sucks in a breath and holds it back. “I need you to tell me?—”
“Those men who took you from the club tonight weren’t going to let you go home afterward,” I interrupt her. “They were going to keep you—and the other girls—there. Use you until their audience got bored, until they couldn’t make money off of you any longer and needed fresh meat.” My voice is harsh, and I can see her eyes widening, her face paling—but I press forward. It’s clear she needs to understand the gravity of this, of just how much danger she’s in. "And then they would have trafficked you, sold you to the highest bidder. When whoever that was finished with you, you would have disappeared, and no one would have ever found your body."
Her face has gone bone-white, and she looks as if she’s about to pass out. “They… you… how do you know this?”
“Because the men behind it are supposed to be allies of my boss. They double-crossed him. My men and I came to deal with it.”
She’s visibly shaking all over now. “So you stopped them.”
“I stopped them for now,” I clarify. “But they'll find you, and they'll kill you to make sure there are no witnesses left to what happened. You're the only girl who survived the shootout. You’re a loose end for them now. If you just go home, they’ll send someone to come and finish you off."
I see it hit her then, the danger that she’s facing. She shudders, her hands clenching into fists, her face bloodless as she stands there looking at me. I can see her thinking about the implications, about her choices—and realizing that she doesn’t have many left.
“How does marrying you protect me?” she whispers.
“I work for the most powerful Bratvapakhanin Miami." I raise an eyebrow, looking down at her. "Konstantin Abramov. The family that took you tonight just declared war on us. If you're my wife, you'll be under the protection of the Abramov Bratva. They won't touch you. And if they try, you’ll be safer with me—with the protection I can offer you, that Konstantin will extend to you, as my wife. If you want to live, this is your best and only option."
She stares at me for a long moment. “This is insane,” she whispers. “What if the other girls had survived? What would you have done then? You couldn’t marry them all?—”
“No,” I interrupt her. “But they didn’t survive. You did. I found you, and I needed to make a decision on how to keep you safe. This is my solution. Take it or leave it.”
She blinks rapidly. “Why? Why protect me?”
My jaw tightens. “Does it matter?”
“It matters to me.”
I let out a sharp breath, impatient with how long this is taking. “You’re innocent,” I say simply. “You don’t deserve what they were going to do to you. And you don’t deserve to die.” I pause, seeing her eyes narrow. “In my world,dikaya koshka, there is a great deal of harm. I have spilled plenty of blood, hurt countless others. But I can help you.”
“This is insane,” she repeats, and I shrug.
"Maybe. But it's the only way you're going to survive this."
Her lips press together, nearly as pale as the rest of her face. She looks toward the altar, where Father Martinez has retreated, and then back at me. "If I do this, if I marry you, what happens then?"
"Then you live."
“And if I say no?”
“Then you die. Not right now, but probably before the sun rises.Certainly before another day passes. It won’t take them long to find you.”
I can see the terror and confusion in her eyes. Her entire world has changed in a matter of hours, her perception of everything around her shifted dramatically. I feel a pang of sympathy for her. This would be hard for anyone, and she’s dealing with it better than most.
I think she knows it’s not really a choice. But I need her to say yes. I’m not sure that Father Martinez will conduct a ceremony with a bride who’s clearly being forced, no matter how much money we put in his coffers. And anyway, even if he would, I can’t drag the words out of her.
She swallows hard, glances toward the door, and then back up at me, as if she’s trying to determine just how truthful I’m being. Whatever it is that she sees in my face, she nods slowly, her face still white as a sheet.
“Okay,” she whispers. “I’ll marry you.”
3
SIENNA
The expression that crosses Damian’s face looks like relief. It doesn’t entirely make sense to me, but in this moment, I’m not sure it has to. What matters is that I survive this, and it seems like he’s offering me the only way to make that possible.
This feels like a nightmare. Like an incomprehensible nightmare that I haven’t woken up from yet. I’m tempted to pinch myself, but I know it wouldn’t matter. However much this feels like a horrible dream, it’s real.
