Boris took my hand.
I needed the help and let him guide me up. Meanwhile, there was a lot going on in my head, but no time to analyze it all.
Boris continued to hold my hand as he led me to the war room and then opened the door.
I stepped inside.
Kaz stood in the center of the large space, swallowing up the room with his massive presence. His huge back had been to me.
As if he could sense me, he turned around. But he didn’t look at my face or smile. Instead, his attention went straight to Boris’s fingers wrapped around mine.
He glared. Those eyes were moving liquid, but so fucking cold.
A little tension left me.
Kaz.
Even with the anger on his face, my lion exuded a lethal beauty. He had the look of a high fashion editorial model—edgy, yet perfectly structured. Shoulders a mile wide. Dark hair cut with style. A sleek jaw.
His eyebrows were two dark slashes above thick-lashed eyes that glowed deep blue. In this moment, he lowered those brows and glared at Boris.
I took my fingers away from Boris’s hold.
“Emily, you’re awake.” Kaz placed his hands in his pockets and continued to watch Boris.
Pressure built in my chest as I walked forward. “What’s going on?”
Kaz kept his attention on Boris. “You should be in bed. You have to heal.”
“I won’t go back to bed, unless you’re in there with me.”
Finally, he directed his gaze to me. “I can’t right now.”
I crossed my arms. “Why not?”
“I have business.”
“No. You have war.”
Kazimir’s jaw twitched. His attention returned to Boris.
Silence thickened in the room.
I scanned the space.
Several people were inside.
“Hey, Em.” Max stood in the balcony doorway exhaling smoke and stamping out a joint. Worry creased his face. Max stepped inside but remained near the exit as if hoping to have somewhere to escape. That wasn’t a good sign. It meant that I wouldn’t like what was going on and that Max was participating.
I checked out the other men, who now had all of their gazes on me.
Pavel sat at the end of the table with his long black hair tied back into a ponytail. Pavel was Kaz’s cousin on his father’s side. Same age, they’d grown up together in Siberia. He wore a simple gray suit that clung to his fit body. However, tiny rubies pierced both of his ears. And that hair was sleek and shiny. Once Kaz told me that Pavel always traveled with two hair stylists. I damn sure could believe it.
The man from the airport was at the table too. I think Kaz had referred to him as King David. He was Bratva, but from the brotherhood’s Paris division. It showed. There was a designer finesse to David. Blue eyes. Blond hair—not cut short, but not as long as Pavel’s either. It waved down to his ears. He was young, probably close to my age. Somewhere in the early twenties. But the most intriguing part of him was the tattoos. Bible verses decorated the space under his chin and all over his neck.
Others sat at the table and were from his childhood days in Siberia. They’d been in his first gang along with Pavel—Abram, Roman, and Nikolay. I didn’t know much about them.
Abram had dark red hair, a pale complexion, and permanently scowling face. At Kaz’s party, he’d left without meeting me. Due to that, I found him rude and unworthy of my attention. Granted, his annoyance with me could have dealt with the fact that Kapotnya was part of his territory. And I had gone into it without his permission and recruited men and women. Today, he didn’t even look my way. Instead, he continued conversation with Roman—a skinny, tanned skin man, that I had barely met.
Nikolay nodded at me. At the party, he had looked like an evil sorcerer. He had worn a heavy black fur cloak around his shoulders along with a top hat. Meanwhile, his wife had been dressed in this sheer white dress with gossamer and feathers. She reminded me of a swan princess. Although they appeared passionately in love.
Today, he had on a simple dark blue suit—no cloak or top hat. He almost resembled a normal man, if not for the dark tattoos covering both of his hands. They were symbols of crosses all over his fingers and palm. Each cross was different in some way. Some were very small. Others somewhat big. Many had names or words written in them.
Nikolay was one of the few men in this room that hadn’t grown up with Kaz. They’d met at his stepfather’s funeral.
Five more Russians stood in the far back, looking like Kaz’s typical security and errand guys.
Everyone continued to remain silent.
I took in the space some more.
Who the hell is that? And what is his problem?
On the other side of the war room, a strange man sat in a chair. Chains clinked around his ankles. A plastic mask covered his face, but I could tell that whatever was under the shield was horrific. Scarred tissue and chewed flesh. He had a dog collar around his neck and a leash hanging from it.
What the fuck?
I spotted the massive table next the masked prisoner. It was a large scale model of Paris. The Eiffel tower was on the right. The Louvre on the left. Other attractions were there too—Notre Dame, Arc de Triomphe, and others. A blue glitter depiction of the Seine River moved along.
Slowly, I walked over to the model.
How long did I sleep? He got someone to put together a damn mini Paris?
I looked back at Kaz. “We should have a conversation.”
“We should.” Kaz’s expression softened. “Go to your room and lay down. I’ll be there shortly.”
“Go to my room?”
“Our bedroom.”
“You said my room.”
Kazimir expression shifted to a confused look. “It was a mistake.”
“Was it?”
A few men stirred at the table.
Why did he say, ‘my bedroom,’ instead of our bedroom. Am I going crazy?
For some reason, every word was important. Perhaps, I was feeling insecure, after this loss. Maybe, he found me guilty too and was mad. He had said my room like it wasn’t ours, like he was done with me, like I was now an annoying child to get rid of when I bothered him.
Get ahold of yourself.
With my arms still crossed, I took two steps his way. Anger covered my face. “We need to talk now.”
“There’s no time. We can talk later.” He stayed where he was. “Go to our bedroom and I’ll—”
“You should excuse your men. I want to talk now.”
His jaw twitched.
Noise came from behind me.
I turned that way. Three guys dragged a huge tv with wheels at the bottom. On it was footage of a massive building. I turned around and studied the tv screen.
Are you kidding me?
I leaned my head to the side to get a better look. “Is that the mall that we were just at yesterday?”
“We’ll talk later, mysh.”
Zahkar walked in with his phone to the side of his ear. “Kazimir, the bombs are in place.”
Zahkar stopped talking when he spotted me. Out of all the Bratva, Zahkar looked the most like a professor. Tortoise shell glasses. Classic leather watch. No diamonds or gold. No tattoos peeking up from his neck or wrists.
When I talked to him at the party he smoked from a cigar. Today, he had a wooden pipe in his other hand. A stream of smoke left the top.
I spun around and scowled at Kaz. “Did Zahkar just say bombs?”