She forced herself to talk so that voice wouldn’t. “I’m supposed to get married tomorrow. Do you realize that?”
Roman said nothing, but his narrowing eyes while he continued to stare straight ahead said he was listening. That didn’t mean he liked what he heard.
“I don’t think you truly understand what that means. They’re going to come looking for me,” Karine said, the steady stream of her thoughts tumbling out in fast sentences she couldn’t control. “It’s not like they’ll sit back and file a missing persons report with the cops or something.”
A dark cast washed over Roman’s face while he acted as though the feverishness of her rambling wasn’t concerning. He was so good at doing that, she’d noticed.
Already.
It only urged her to continue.
“Dima expects his bride to show up, to get what he wants, and if he doesn’t—”
“The wedding isn’t going to happen,” Roman interjected, the calm in his tone belying the coldness that settled in his gaze. “Not too many people know about it, anyway. I don’t think most of the Yazov bratva even knows, only those involved directly within the city limits. They had only just started delivering the invitations. By hand, mind you. There’s time for them to make a decision that doesn’t include returning you.”
But not likely.
Karine wasn’t dumb.
A mess, yes.
Dazed, at times.
Not stupid, though.
“Everything was set up,” she whispered, picking at her fingernails to soften the sound of her own voice saying things she hated. “We were going to exchange vows in the rose garden. The wedding dress was picked out for me, I didn’t even have to think about it. Masha was going to do my makeup.”
Karine spoke mechanically, aware of how she sounded but unable to stop repeating everything that she had been told by others. Her father. Dima. Even by Masha. Over and over again.
She had spent a lot of time preparing herself for her marriage to Dima. There was no real choice presented to her, she couldn’t stop the wedding—it was out of her hands.
Karine had already been sworn to Dima, and there was no escape from that. No matter how far she ran.
“I’m going to say it again,” Roman said, turning to meet her gaze with a clenched jaw and expressionless. “Know it will be the last time I say it, Karine. There will be no wedding tomorrow. You’re not marrying that motherfucker. Not ever.”
She swore every muscle in his body tightened and coiled in the seat next to hers—like a snake ready to spring. If the conviction he spoke with couldn’t convince her, his anger that flared at the suggestion certainly might.
Karine sucked in a sharp breath, shaking her head as she told him, “I don’t know what you’re doing, I don’t understand it at all.”
Roman didn’t even blink when he replied, “Neither do I.”
• • •
“Why did you do this?” Karine asked, well-aware that some time had passed since she last said a word. Within the city limits, everything was new to her. Each building, every block ... she tried to take it all in, and Roman said nothing while she did so. She’d never been anywhere but Chicago. Yet, even there, she hadn’t done much exploring of her own city. At Roman’s questioning glance, she added with a shrug, “Take me, I mean?”
It was a question that wouldn’t leave her alone—the problem was that she could come up with a million answers of her own, and none of them were good. He didn’t answer straightaway, but he didn’t seem like he was trying to come up with something just to say it, either.
Was he ignoring her—changing his mind about bringing her with him, maybe?
She couldn’t decipher this man. His mind was a place she couldn’t reach, but she suspected it was nothing like her own. Her belief that he wouldn’t hurt her, not for as long as he assumed responsibility for her, did nothing to assuage the other questions she had.
Like what if he woke up tomorrow morning, and decided he didn’t want to deal with her anymore?
It was then, as she tried to avoid his gaze that kept slipping her way, that she noticed the bruising on his wrists. The blackened-blue marks were too fresh. She’d been thinking he kept holding tight to the wheel because he was angry—those grimaces and hard stare was further proof—but suddenly, she didn’t think that was the case at all.
Karine couldn’t help but ponder if those bruises were in anyway connected to what caused him to walk into her bedroom in the middle of the night, and take them away. She had a feeling he wouldn’t tell her even if she asked him.
“I don’t remember any protests when I suggested this plan last night,” Roman replied, arching a brow her way as he rolled onto a bridge behind a line of taxi cabs.
She didn’t miss it.
How careful he was—how he posed each word as to not suggest something that might set Karine off. He clearly hadn’t forgotten that breakdown in her bedroom the night they spent together.
Karine chest tightened all the same—she didn’t have the words, or maybe the vocabulary, to explain to him how overwhelmed she was. At everything, constantly. He didn’t make it better, even if he might sometimes make it easier. He had offered an opportunity that couldn’t be refused, but now she wanted to know the truth.
What did it actually mean?
Before she could ask; Roman continued speaking. “You could ask me about your father, about—what he’s done or is going to do. You could ask anything, Karine, but what you do is question my intentions. What makes you think I had a choice in any of this—that even this car that isn’t mine is somehow part of my plan?”
He didn’t look at her while he spoke that time, but she was suddenly grateful for that. Not even the obsessive, undeniable attraction she
