I stiffened. “Excuse me?
Isaak chuckled softly, swirling his drink. “Didn’t mean it like that. Just…people are naturally drawn to him; he’s quite a charmer. A cold one at least. Yezhovs always are. But Matvey? He bends people without even touching them.”
I turned back to Matvey. He was speaking quietly with one of the older Yezhovs. He’d wrapped a cloth around his bleeding hand.
A part of me wondered if he’d even noticed I was talking to some other guy next to him. If he hadn’t, I wondered how he’d react to it, if he would see a need to put up his possessive act.
“You seem like you know a lot about my husband,” I said, almost wincing at how easily the wordhusbandrolled from my tongue.
“I’m a Yezhov myself. If anyone knows my family well enough, then it’s me. Matvey and I have been close since we were little,” Isaak explained, his tone dropping just a little. “But he’s loyal. Protective, even. He was the same with your sister, even though she was only his brother’s wife.”
The color drained from my cheeks. “You knew Yulia?”
Isaak’s eyes fluttered. He nodded. “She was…a sweet girl.” He smiled weakly. “Too sweet and soft for this world. I always thought she deserved better than what she got.”
Something in the way he expressed it sent a shiver up the back of my neck. I squinted a little, interested. “What do you mean?
His eyes held mine for a moment too long, then he looked away, as if deep in thought, and smiled at one of the guards who were beside the door.
“Never mind that I said that,” he finally said when he returned his attention to me, as if he hadn’t just dropped a bomb on me.
“I’m sorry,” I replied, ignoring his last sentence. “What did you actually mean by that?”
Isaak blinked. “Mean by what?
“That she deserved better than what she got.” I knew he wasn’t talking about Rurik cheating; to men in this world, that was normal. He had to be referring to something.
He cocked his head. “I’m saying her death could’ve been avoided if someone had not been careless with it.” He scoffed and lifted a glass of champagne from the table. “I’ve said too much.”
I stared at him intently, my heart racing. “Are you saying that her death wasn’t an accident?”
Isaak leaned back in his chair. “I didn’t say that.”
“But you implied it.”
He sipped his drink, taking his time. “I imply a lot of things, Mrs. Yezhov. That does not necessarily ensure that they are all true.”
Before I could go on, one of the older Bratva members called his name from across the room.
Isaak winked at me, rose to his feet, and walked away.
I sat there, frozen, my heart pounding and my mind wandering in all directions.
The room spun around me, laughter rising again as though nothing had happened.
But something had.
Somethingcertainlyhad.
Questions surged in my mind; they were sharp and unsettling. I couldn’t dismiss the thoughts in my head. I was certain I’d been right.
What if Yulia’s death was not only tragic? What if it was planned?
I needed to find out what happened the night she died.
***
The vehicle purred softly under us as we drove home, yet my mind screamed more forcibly than the car tires screeching on the gravel ground of the estate we’d just departed from.
