"Save me?"
"An innocent. You should have been left out of the war, especially when we heard the news of your pregnancy."
"Who is we?"
"We… everyone in the community in which your husband lived. You must not realize the power that he had… has." He smirked.
"No. I, pretty much, live a bottle. So why does all this change now? Why are you hear, Dorian?"
He slipped on the shirt and grabbed a seat. "Has Dmitry returned? Is coming back to the Vory? I need to know." He sat in the chair backwards and leaned his body against it.
"I don't know. He seemed differently lately, but not that different. I thought that he was done with all of that."
"Understand, I would have been happy to stay away from him for the rest of my life, but his son made the best offer. My clients would not refuse. I know once Dmitry sees me, a war will begin again. And while I am no coward, I assure you that, I feel compelled to try to stop this before it starts. However, once it starts, he leaves me no choice."
Royal looked him in his chestnut colored eyes and listened as he told her about the deal, about his old dealings with Dmitry through Ivan, about the botched assassination attempts and about the bombs he placed inside of Dmitry's restaurant in Memphis to kill the entire Medlov crime family three years prior.
Royal was flabbergasted. She sat petrified, unable to speak.
"I don't why I am telling you all of this. I guess for me, I thought God would punish me because of what happened to you. But now I see you and you are alive and I feel compelled to fix this, only I'm not sure how," Dorian explained.
"I know how," Royal said finally in whisper. She looked up at him. "I'll get to Sochi tomorrow. If you agree to form a truce with my family and my sons crime family… " She shook her head in disgust and cringed. "Then I can persuade the two of them to let bygones be bygones, and we all walk away from this with no more to do with each other."
"I'm not sure such a truce would hold. Your outlook seems more optimistic than things really work."
"It's better to try than to knowingly allow bloodshed again, isn't it? Dmitry would never go back on his word, if he promised me or anyone. He's not that type of man."
"Didn't he promise you? He's gone back the Vor-for all we know, for good."
"It was to save Anatoly. I know it. I just do. He doesn't want that anymore. He wants us."
"Okay." He shook his head. "Okay. Yeah. If you are in Sochi with him tomorrow, and you can make them agree to a truce, then I'll do it. But it has to be after the deal is completed. Otherwise, my clients will kill us all. If you don't show, I'm sorry. I can only say that I tried."
"I understand." She stood up. "Thank you."
"For what?"
"For giving us a chance to live again. For not doing what Ivan did to us."
He smiled. "I have only one request. And I know it's selfish but… "
"Okay," she stepped closer to him.
"As a signal to let me know that you are still on my side, wear the dress that I bought."
She looked over at the dress bag. "It's awfully formal."
"So is the place that were meeting. You'll fit in perfectly."
"And it's at that hotel you were telling me about?"
"Yes. There will be a ticket waiting for you under the name Royal Stone."
Royal smiled. It felt good to hear that name again.
He reached out for her hand and kissed it. She did not pull away. She was enchanted by his kindness, grateful for it. He stood back up and looked down into her warm eyes. He could see why Dmitry had left his life for her. She was completely undeniable.
"Please, go," he whispered. "I can't control myself much longer."
Royal smiled and turned to grab the dress bag and jewelry. "Well, thank you again for being such a gentleman," she said in a low voice.
He saw her out and closed the door, aching to have her right then.
Chapter 17
By the time that Royal left Dorian's hotel room, she didn't feel like going back to the boutique. She was mentally exhausted from the thought of having to save her entire family, broken-hearted by her husband's deceitful little secret and confused by her immediate attraction to her husband's arch enemy. Overall, it had been one hell of a morning, so she decided to catch a cab to the condo in town and rest there for a while.
No one would know the difference, but at least she could get a plan in place to get to Sochi without Dmitry knowing.
The clouds had begun to blot out the sun, and the winds started to pick up. It was about to rain. Just what she needed. Raising her hand, she hailed a taxi and hurriedly got out of the weather.
When she got to her condo, she paid the driver and ran out of the rain up to the gate and punched in the code.
As soon as she opened the front door to her home, she knew someone else had been there. She pulled the gun
