Yule Tied Up (Verona Falls University: Christmas Story)

8. Dom

CHAPTER 8

Dom

I almost jump out of my skin at Mack’s scream.

“What the fuck?” I frown at her.

She’s staring past me, and I whip around, seeing nothing but the wall and the small window.

I turn back to her. “What is it?”

“The window.” She jabs with her finger, while grabbing the towel with her other hand and trying to cover herself and Kirill. “A face! I saw a face.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes!”

I go to the window and cup my hand against the side of my face and press my nose to the glass, trying to see outside. The glass is icy cold, and it’s almost impossible to see beyond it. It’s so dark out there, the only thing visible is the snow falling.

I yank the blind down, annoyed I didn’t think of that before we started this, but not worried.

“We’re miles away from anywhere.” I turn back from the window. “It’s over four miles to the nearest house. I saw on Google maps before we came, and no one is walking four miles in this weather. It must have been a trick of the light.”

“There was a face,” she insists. “I saw it.”

“Will it make you feel better if we check? With the snow falling this heavily, if someone was there, they’ll have left prints.”

She presses her knuckles to her lips. “Yes, please. I need to know one way or another.”

Tino is already shoving his boots on, and I go and join him by the door.

“Kirill,” I say, “help Mack clean up and dress. She’ll feel safer that way, and we’ll go check outside.”

Kirill nods then stands and picks Mack up bridal style. He covers her with the towel before striding into the bedroom with her in his arms.

I turn to Tino. “It was most likely just a reflection, or maybe a light from somewhere.”

Tino nods, but his face is tense.

We both bundle back into our coats. It’s too cold outside to risk going out without them. We’re only doing this for Mackenzie. Neither of us is expecting to actually find anything. There’s a flashlight by the door, and I grab it as we march outside. The snow is coming down thick and fast now. I shine the flashlight and see no one around. I aim it at the trees, the powerful beam illuminating them.

Nothing.

We make our way around to the back of the house where the window is located. The trees encroach close to the cabin, the branches heavy with snow and hanging over the roof. Maybe some of the snow fell and Mackenzie caught the movement out of the corner of her eye and her brain morphed it into a face.

There’s been a dump of fresh snow, and I can’t see any footsteps. If someone had been standing directly beneath the window, they’d be obvious.

I let out a sigh. “Think our Duchess has been imagining things.”

“It’s understandable that she’s a bit freaked out being out here,” Tino says. “You know, after what happened before.”

I twist my lips and nod. “Being apart from our daughter is probably making her anxious as well, even if she doesn’t realize it on a conscious level.”

He grins. “At least that gives us an excuse to take her mind off things.”

He just got his rocks off, but he’s already thinking about fucking again.

“Yeah,” I agree, “let’s go and put her mind at rest.”

We both want to get back into the warmth and be near our girl again.

We get back into the cabin and strip off our outside clothes. The thunder of the shower comes from the bathroom, and there’s no sign of Kirill, so he must be in there with her. I wouldn’t blame him if he’s naked and under the water.

I lightly knock on the door, but I don’t wait for anyone to call ‘come in.’ To my surprise, Kirill is actually giving Mackenzie some space and is perched on a stool. He’s dressed again. His size dwarfs the piece of furniture, his knees practically up around his ears.

He gets to his feet. “Find anything?”

Mackenzie’s head pops around the side of the shower curtain. “Were there footprints?”

I shake my head. “Nope, nothing. I don’t know what you saw, Mack, but there was no sign.”

She closes her eyes and shakes her head at herself. “Shit. I can’t believe I was imagining things. I’m so sorry, guys.”

“You don’t have anything to be sorry for,” I tell her.

“Yeah, I do. I completely ruined the mood.”

“It’s dark, and we’re out in the middle of nowhere. Perhaps we should have considered that it would be kinda strange being all the way out here. A place in town would have been better.”

Kirill snorts. “Yeah, right. You think someone would have rented us a place? You saw how they looked at us in the markets. It was like they’d never seen three men with a pretty girl before.”

“That asshole at the high striker wouldn’t even sell us tickets,” Tino grouches from behind me, clearly still not over us being turned away.

I don’t think it’s that we were with Mackenzie that got us all the looks. We do make for three imposing figures. “Maybe people thought we were out to cause trouble?”

We’re supposed to head back to the Christmas market in the morning, but now I’m wondering if it might be a better idea to just stay here. After all, we have everything we need.

“Let me get out of the shower, and then we can snuggle up on the couch in front of the fire,” Mackenzie says. “And we’ll pull down all the blinds, so my imagination can’t get the better of me again.”

I smile at her. “Sounds good.”

Kirill grabs her a towel and wraps her up as she steps out. Her skin is soft and pink from the hot water. She seems far more relaxed than she was when she went in, so that’s a good thing.

I step out of the bathroom, and Kirill guides her toward the bedroom, no doubt planning on helping her get dressed.

He throws me a wink as he passes. Son of a bitch. Maybe he’s planning on keeping her completely undressed.

But a few moments later, she appears in a pair of red pajamas with snowflakes on them. Her blonde hair is tied up in a high ponytail, her face free from makeup. She looks cute as hell. In her hands, she has a couple of bags.

Kirill emerges from the bedroom behind her. He clearly didn’t get his way.

“I almost forgot.” She brandishes the bags. “I bought us all something.”

I narrow my eyes at her, suspicious. “What?”

“You have to look for yourselves.” She hands us one each.

Frowning, I shove my hand into the bag. My fingers come into contact with a soft, velour material, and I tighten my grip and pull out the item. Red with snowflakes all over them.

“Oh, no.” I shake my head. “Absolutely not.”

She claps and jumps up and down. “Yes, you have to! It’s Christmas.”

I turn to Kirill and Tino, who are also holding sets of matching pajamas. Tino looks like he’s just been given a turd in a shoebox, and Kirill like he found his favorite pet dead.

Tino holds out the set beseechingly. “You can’t do this to us, Kenzie. We’re from some of the most powerful crime families in the world. We cannot be seen wearing matching Christmas pajamas.”

She laughs. “But that’s the beauty of it. No one is going to see you.”

She seems so happy at the prospect of us all being in matching Christmas pajamas that I already know none of us are going to say no, no matter how fucking ridiculous we all might look.

I point at the other two. “This is something we take to the grave.”

Kirill thins his lips. “We will never speak of it again.”

“What happens at the cabin, stays at the cabin,” Tino agrees.

“Fuck,” I mutter.

I’m halfway to the bedroom to get changed when the sound rings out.

Bang.

Bang.

Bang.

Loud. More like someone hit the door with a damn tree than knocked on it with a fist.

Shit. I raise my eyes to stare at Tino, who is frozen like me, and the bangs come again, but this time the door moves with the force of them.