I’m dismissed almost as soon as I’m acknowledged, wasting no time as I make my way back to my car.
If Maksim’s already trying to get me away from her, I need to act fast.
Blair won’t like my plan. She’ll cry and try to find a way out of it, but she’ll fold. With time, maybe I could come up with a different plan, but I’m a selfish bastard, and I don’t want to. She can hate me and glare at me, threaten me with physical harm all she wants, but she’ll do as I say. At least in this.
I don’t realize how tightly I’m clenching my jaw until I walk into Alexei’s condo and see her on the couch, talking quietlywith Nadya with Niko curled up in her lap. As soon as she turns her soft smile toward me, all my worry and stress melts away.
Yeah, she’s going to fucking hate me even more than she already does for what I’m going to do to her. I can’t even find it in me to be upset about it. As long as it keeps her and Niko safe, she’ll say yes, and that’s all I need for now. I’ll deal with the rest of it when it comes.
***
I shift Niko’s weight onto my hip, and Blair’s eyes are soft as she takes him from my arms. She’s smiling gently, absently rubbing his back as she carries him. Something about the sight feels intimate, like I’m an intruder watching something I shouldn’t be privy to.
When she lays him in his bed, she’s careful to tuck the blankets around his shoulders. Kissing his forehead, she turns off the light, softly closing the door as she meets me in the hall. I wait, unwavering, while she eyes me warily.
“We need to talk.” I nod toward the stairs, and she follows me without a word, a dismal air following her like a cloak.
Guilt is a heavy weight on my chest, both for everything I’ve already done to her, and for everything I’m about to do.
But she needs this as much as I do.
I take a seat at the dining table, waiting for her to follow my lead, but she remains standing in the doorway, hands shoved into the pocket of her hoodie as if it can hide the way she’s twisting her hands together.
“Blair,” I prompt, and she blinks slowly, as if startled out of a fugue before slipping into the chair next to me. Her expression is closed off, distress is pouring off her in waves.
“How long do you think Maksim’s going to let me live?” Her voice is blank, eyes unflinching as she watches me under her lashes. “Or is that why you’re here? Did he ask you to take care of me?”
I freeze, unable to answer.
In horror, I watch as she nods to herself, apparently taking my silence as confirmation. “Right. Did you volunteer?”
“Blair.”
“Will you still look after Niko?” It’s only with that question that her voice begins to shake. Still, she holds her shoulders back, chin raised as her lips twist into a grimace, brows drawing together. “I’m sure Mila will want to raise him, but he’ll still need someone to guide him, and Daniil trusted you.”
“Blair,” I bite. “I’m not here to kill you,zolotse.If I have a say in it, no one will.”
“Oh.”
My jaw works while I take a deep breath. “Why the hell would you think I’d volunteer?” The word tastes dirty.
“When we met, you kidnapped me and threatened to kill me. And when you let me go, you continued to threaten my life. For months. It didn’t exactly make me feel warm and fuzzy inside.” She shrugs.
I want to tell her it was supposed to be Daniil’s job to lure her into our clutches and kidnap her, that he only changed his mind and told me to do it when he first saw her, but that won’t make her feel any better.
“Fear is a powerful motivator. I needed you. If I’d walked up to you and asked you to work with me, would you have? Or would you have turned around and run in the other direction?”
She doesn’t respond, but that’s an answer in and of itself.
“I know it doesn’t seem like it, but I never would have hurt you, no matter what I said.”
She shakes her head, still not answering me while I pinch the bridge of my nose. This isn’t how I imagined this conversation going.
“Regardless,” I continue, “you’re right that someone wants you dead. Either Maksim or Pavel, I don’t know which.” She goes stiff as a board at his name, like it’ll summon him. “I have a plan that’ll keep you safe. It’ll keep you around so you won’t have to worry about me or Mila looking after Niko because you’ll be there to do it yourself.”
“What do you need me to do?” she asks instantly, just like I knew she would. Her endless devotion to her son is incredible.
“You’re going to have to marry me.”
