Page 75 of Bride of Vengeance
"That might be the sexiest thing you've ever said."
"More than when I tell you you're mine?"
"It's a close second."
She kisses me, soft and sweet this time. "We're going to win, Mikhail. We're going to beat Harrison, clear our names, and give our baby a normal life."
"Normal?"
"Okay, maybe that’s a big word for us. But free. Safe."
"That's all I want."
In forty-one hours, we face Harrison. We risk everything on a plan that requires her to be bait and me to let her.
But right now, in this bed, with my ring on her finger and our child in her womb, I allow myself to feel for as little while that we're invincible.
Chapter fifteen
The Plan
Mikhail
The warehouse in Brooklyn looks abandoned from the outside—broken windows, graffiti-covered walls, the kind of place the city forgot existed. Inside, it's been transformed into a command center. Alexei's people worked through the night setting up surveillance equipment, computers, and enough firepower to start a small war.
"This is excessive," Mariana says, but I can see she's impressed.
"It’s necessary." I guide her to the main table where building schematics are spread out. "Harrison chose the location—the federal building downtown, conference room on the fifteenth floor. He thinks he's in control."
"He is in control. It's his territory."
"Territory can be compromised." Mila appears from behind a bank of monitors, waving a USB drive. "I've got every camera, every security feed, even the private elevator Harrison uses. We'll see everything."
"That's… impressive," Mariana points out.
"We will not spare any resources or alternatives now," Alexei says, entering with coffee that smells expensive even from across the room. "Not when the future and survival of our family is at stake."
I watch my wife—wife, the word still feels foreign—study the building plans. She's wearing all black today, her hair pulled back, looking every inch the federal agent despite being a fugitive. The only sign of our marriage is the simple gold band on her finger, which she unconsciously twists when she's thinking.
"Harrison will have backup," she says. "Do we know anything about that yet?"
"Six men," I confirm. "Boris has been watching. They arrive separately, take positions throughout the building. Standard federal protection detail."
"Can you get past them?"
"I could kill them all in under three minutes."
She looks at me sharply. "No killing."
"I said I could, not that I would." I move behind her, close enough to smell her shampoo. "Though if any of them touch you—"
"They won't." She leans back against me slightly, and I have to fight the urge to pull her away from all this, lock her somewhere safe until it's over. "I'll be wired?"
"Audio and video," Mila confirms. "Latest tech, basically undetectable. We'll hear everything."
"And if Harrison finds it?"
"Then we go to Plan B," I say.
