Uncle Aleksei Series

Chapter27

“A drink.” The older guy laughs. “Right. Good idea.”

A warning sound blares in my ears, and I lunge sideways, trying to get away from the brothers, but once again Carter snags my arm, keeping me from leaving. “Not so fast.”

I react on instinct, bunching my fist the way Aleksei taught me. Remembering not to tuck my thumb. Before Carter can draw me back toward him and his brother, I rear back and deck him. Blood squirts from his nose and he howls, furious. Seeing my chance to escape, I turn to run at the rapt crowd, but Carter grabs my hair from behind —

I’m suddenly free, falling forward onto my knees.

There’s a loud snap. A scream.

And I turn to find Aleksei — my Aleksei is here — holding Carter’s clearly broken arm. He tosses it, still attached to its owner, aside, just in time to receive the attack from Carter’s brother. The malice and retribution in my husband’s eyes should scare me, but it doesn’t. It makes me come to my feet and glory in the sight of him wielding a pair of brass knuckles and knocking several teeth out of the frat guy’s head. Without so much as a flinch.

“Georgina,” says Aleksei, a blistering chill in his tone. “Are you harmed?”

“No,” I breathe.

“Did anyone beside these two children lay a fucking finger on you?” he rasps. “A prompt answer, wife.”

“No. No. Let’s go home.”

“Not quite yet.” He wraps a hand around each brother’s neck, lifting them off the ground. Holding them suspended in the air as the roomful of people gasp and back away. “There won’t always be witnesses.”

With those five lethal words, Aleksei slams their heads together and leaves them in an unconscious heap on the ground, blood streaming from ears, noses, mouths. Then he calmly stoops down and collects my packets.

“I love you,” I whisper, needing to be held. “I’m sorry.”

When Aleksei straightens and looks at me, I realize he’s the furthest thing from calm.

He’s murderous. And I’ll never get to go to college now.

My thirst for blood has not been remotely satisfied.

Hunger for violence pumps in my veins, rage chokes me and turns my knuckles white on the steering wheel. They touched my angel. They grabbed her. Every time I remember what I witnessed, wrath screams inside my skull again and the cycle starts anew.

When I walked into the party, I could not find Georgina. Already I’d hit a dead end at the orientation hall and was about to return home in my borrowed car, thinking Georgina must be headed back, until I overhead some young men discussing the party. My skin prickled, and I never deny an instinct. Georgina is curious. If given the chance, she would appease that nature.

I saw those boys putting chemicals in a drink and was resolving to teach them a lesson, when I found out the drink was for my wife.

My teeth bare themselves at the road and I can’t keep my ear – piercing bellow inside. Georgina flinches in the passenger seat and curls in on herself, whimpering softly, tears wetting her cheeks. There’s nothing I can do about seeing to her comfort yet. She will never know the panic and rage that burned me alive when hands — hands that weren’t mine — touched her skin. In a way that was meant to be harmful. My worst fucking nightmare come to life.

From the corner of my eye, I watch Georgina swipe at her tears, and my chest seizes. “How did you drive without your car?”

“You say that with irritation. As if you’re not glad I came.”

“No. I just needed to ask you something to test if you’re speaking to me.” My righteous anger weakens somewhat in the face of such sweetness. “Of course I’m glad you came, Aleksei. You rescued me.” She blows out a breath. “You were right all along to keep me inside where it’s safe. So was my father. I don’t know anything about the world. I was…I was stupid to think it would be easy. Or that I could do it alone.”

At this point, she’s making it very difficult to be mad. I still plan to murder the boys who laid hands on my wife — no one will miss them — but that is now a separate concern. Georgina is my main one. And I’ve never heard her sound defeated in the entire time I’ve known her.