Page 60 of In Her Blood
Otto followed her around a corner. “None of that was your fault.”
She scoffed. “If I’d kept my mouth shut, our guys wouldn’t be scraping their brothers off the ground right now.”
“Trigger-happy assholes are always looking for an excuse, Lina. We both know they were sent to provoke you.”
Ivan’s lifeless face flashed through her mind’s eye and her throat constricted. “I need—”
“Ms. Nikolaev?” an unfamiliar man asked, stepping partially in front of them from a room they’d nearly passed. He looked to be closer to her own age, in his mid-twenties, with short-cut brown hair and a day’s growth on his jaw. He bent his head briefly before meeting her gaze, and a swirl of pain sprinkled with something like gratitude shone out at her.
The raw emotion in his eyes choked her. It felt like looking into a mirror.
His jaw ticked for a second as he struggled with his words before he said, “I heard … I heard what you did for Uncle Ivan, at the end.”
Uncle?That explained some of the pain in the young man’s eyes, she supposed. Perhaps theirs had been a good relationship.
“He always wanted to keep the clan strong,” Ivan’s nephew continued. “He had his … reservations about you, but I think that was just him being a bit too old-fashioned.” He gave a shake of his head, his face briefly contorting. “When we heard your accusation of Pyotr on Friday, that he might have hired those Morozov bastards, Uncle Ivan pulled a bunch of us aside and announced that he was going to launch his own investigation.”
Evelina’s eyes widened. It hadn’t even occurred to her that someone else in the clan might feel so motivated. She’d felt so isolated against Pyotr from the start, like everyone else was blindsided by him, that she had come to view everyone not openly with her as more than likely in league with him.
Still, the grieving man continued his quiet speech, as if he felt an explanation were necessary. “He was uncertain, maybe uncomfortable, about accepting a woman as pakhan. But he adamantly refused to accept any pakhan who would turn to our enemies, let alone for something as underhanded as assassinating a relative. He viewed that as both betrayal and cowardice, unbecoming of the bloodline let alone the name. So, he made it clear that the results of his investigation would determine which of you he gave his support to.”
And sometime in the following forty-eight hours, that man had died. Not only died, but been viciously slain. Evelina had to fight not to gape.
Nothing quite screamed “I’m guilty!” like slaughtering a man who would happily announce one’s innocence.
Ivan’s nephew raised his head a bit higher, nostrils flaring with a hard-drawn breath, and slammed his fist to his chest. “I don’t see any way to see this situation other than that Uncle Ivan found proof you spoke the truth, and for that, as well as for the way you defended his legacy today, I would like to pledge my fealty to you!”
Bozhe moy.This wasn’t how she’d wanted to win anything. But she couldn’t afford to turn it away.
A tear rolled down his cheek, but he ignored it. “I don’t speak for everyone,” he said, as if admitting a sin. “I’m not qualified to”—his voice cracked—“replace my uncle. But I’m sure I’m not the only one who feels this way.”
For a moment, her own tears threatened to resurface as she watched this man she didn’t really know struggle with his emotions. She recognized his grief. She sympathized with it. But she was done breaking, so she pushed the feeling aside and found a smile. “What’s your name?”
He blinked once and his stance softened marginally. “Pasha, ma’am.”
Evelina reached out and laid a hand on his shoulder. “I’m so sorry for what happened to your uncle, Pasha. Please take some time to process and heal from your loss.” Her hand fell away. “If you, or any of your uncle’s men, wish to support me, I’m happy to have you. And please know that I fully respectyour uncle’s desire to uncover the truth—I would have respected it, regardless.”
Pasha smiled for a moment and bobbed his head. “I appreciate that, ma’am.”
She really was trying to come around on that word, but hearing it from someone basically her age still kind of made her want to snap.Probably that’s something I’ll need to work on now.Evelina kept the thought to herself. “Why don’t you go home for the day? Spend it with family or friends, without worrying about catching a stray bullet, hm? And the men from Ivan’s crew who had the misfortune of seeing him outside … tell them to take the day, too.”
Pasha thanked her again before disappearing back into the room he’d rushed out of previously.
Evelina held her breath for a beat before forcing her feet forward. But Pasha’s words lingered in her mind.
Viktor had done exactly as she’d expected and immediately sworn loyalty to the closest available male heir. Artem had shocked the crap out of her by being wonderfully open-minded and genuinely likable, offering and delivering his support to her. Ivan had taken a tactical approach, apparently, and decided to learn more about both of them via independent investigation, in order to determine which potential heir he viewed as better for the clan. And Grigoriy—she still had no damn clue.
Evelina stopped walking again and turned enough to catch Otto’s gaze. “I need to get in touch with Grigoriy.”
Another scream ripped through the halls as soon as the words were past her lips.
Evelina groaned before she could catch herself.
She didn’t have to work too hard to locate the source, or cause, of the newest scream. And once again, she determined she would have preferred it to be a mouse. For a strange moment, as she stared at the angry orange flame licking across the ceiling, she thought another severed head might even have been better.
Around her, staff shouted at each other in a semi-coordinated effort to douse the flame that had burst to life in the front sitting space. But it wouldn’t be easy. It’d caught the throw rug as well as the drapery and leapt from those fabrics onto the wooden beams some designer had thought were too beautiful to remove.
Someone rushed in from the foyer, but it took Evelina another moment to hear her name.
