A Reputation For Revenge(121)

Victor started fighting dirty. He tried to knee Nikos in the groin, to trip him. When Nikos blocked him, he stumbled back to the fireplace and grabbed a sharp iron poker.

“I’ll stab you like a pig, you Greek bastard,” he panted, swinging the poker at Nikos’s face.

He blocked it with his right arm, but Anna heard the crunch of bone and saw the way Nikos’s right hand hung at a strange angle.

Victor had broken his wrist. She trembled with fury. She started to run at Victor, to fight him two to one, but Nikos stopped her with a hard glance.

With his left hand he wrenched the poker away and threw Victor to the floor. He held him to the ground with one hand against his neck. Anna watched in horror as he tightened his grip.

“How does it feel to be vulnerable?” Nikos demanded.

“Nikos, let him go,” Anna sobbed.

“Why? Do you think he would have let you go?” he demanded, not looking at her. “Did he ever show mercy to anyone weaker? Why should I let him live after what he’s done to you?”

Slowly she put her hands against his shoulders, feeling the hard tension of his muscles. “Do it for us. Please, my love, let him go so we can go back to our son.”

Abruptly, he released his choke hold on the other man and rose to his feet. She had one brief vision of his face, and she thought she saw tears in his eyes as, without a word, he took her in his arms and held her tightly.#p#分页标题#e#

Nikos looked down at her as he held her tenderly to his chest. His dark eyes were shining.

“Thank you, agape mou,” he whispered, brushing her cheek softly with his hand. “Thank you for trying to take that bullet. There weren’t any bullets, but you didn’t know that. You...you saved me. In so many ways.”

“And you started early,” a man said from the doorway in heavily accented English. Anna looked up to see a man in a Russian police uniform, with half a dozen policemen behind him. “We missed it.”

“I couldn’t wait, Yuri.” Nikos jerked his head toward Victor, still stretched out on the floor. “There he is.”

The man called Yuri smiled. “You said you were calling in a favor. I wish I had to pay more favors like this. We’ve wanted Sinistyn a long time, but he was untouchable. Now, with your testimony and influence, he won’t see the sun again for a long time.” The policeman looked with concern at Nikos’s wrist. “My friend, you are hurt.”

“It’s nothing—”

“It’s his wrist. I think it’s broken. We need a doctor right away,” Anna said, then looked up anxiously at the face of the man she loved. “Please, Nikos. I need you to be well.”

“All right,” he muttered. “Get the doctor.”

Turning away from the policeman, he sank into a nearby chair and pulled her into his lap. “Anna, before the doctor starts filling me with drugs, I have to tell you something. I should have told you this a long time ago, but I was too stupid to see it and too stubborn to admit it—even to myself. I really do love you.”

“Nikos, I love—”

“Please let me finish, while I can still get this out.” He took a deep breath. “You saved me. From a life that was empty. I was stupid to prevent you from working, or doing anything else that brings you joy. If it makes you happy, I want you to work. As my secretary, as vice-president, as any damn thing you want.”

Tears filled her eyes even as she gave him a mischievous smile. “I think I’d make a good CEO.”

“Cocky.” He returned her grin. “You always were the only one who could stand up to me. I need that in my life. Someone to keep me in my place.”

As she looked into his handsome face she barely heard the noises of the swarming police, or Victor’s whining complaints as they took him away.

“Your place is with me.” She cupped his jaw, rough with dark stubble, in her hands. “As long as we’re together, anyplace in the world is my home. But there’s something that I have to ask you. Something I’ve never said before to anyone.” He’d called her cocky, but what she wanted to ask him now terrified her. She took a deep breath. “Nikos, will you marry me?”

For his answer, his smile lit his face from within, his dark eyes shining at her with hope and love. “I thought you’d never ask.”

* * *

“I told you we should have gotten married at the drive-thru chapel in Vegas,” Anna whispered when she reached the end of the aisle.

“And miss all this? Never,” he whispered back with a wink.

As the priest began to speak the words that would bind them together for all time Nikos knew he should pay attention, but all he could do was look at his bride. Beneath the hot Greek sun, on the edge of a rocky cliff overlooking the Aegean Sea, they were surrounded by flowers and a small audience of people who loved them. It was a simple wedding, plain by some standards, but he knew in his heart it was what Anna wanted.