Fuck. Valid point.

“Slam. Dunk,” Alexei mutters.

Alexei is getting way too much pleasure from this. Shooting him a glare, I throw the blindfold at him. “This is your island. You want her blindfolded, do it yourself.”

He lowers his arms and walks to Ariana. She immediately stiffens, her body tensing. Instead of blindfolding her, Alexei tilts his head and locks eyes with her. “If you tell anyone where this island is –”

“Yeah-yeah,” Ariana interrupts him. “You’ll slice and dice me like yesterday’s salad and drown me in the lake.” She turns away from Alexei and shoots me an angry glare, and then walks to the front door, grumbling, “I’m so over this shit. I swear to God I’m going to end up killing one of them before this is all over. Blindfold me. Ha. Little too late for that, jerks. I know I’m somewhere on Lake Superior.”

Her grumbling fades away as she leaves the house, and then Alexei shakes his head at me. He places his hand on my shoulder. “I fucking love her. If you don’t marry her, I will.”

Taking a deep breath, I glance up at the ceiling and pray for strength, so I don’t punch my best friend. “Why the fuck do you keep pushing this?” Locking eyes with Alexei, I shake my head.

“In three days, we’ll kill her brother, probably in front of her. We’ll meet with the Bratva, and we’ll have to have a solid plan in place.” Alexei takes a step closer to me, his expression dead serious. “Ariana will never be able to return to her old life. They’ll keep coming after her.”

“You think I haven’t thought of that?” I ask, letting out a burst of incredulous laughter. “She’ll have enough money to get a custodian of her own.”

Alexei takes a step back and, wiping his thumb over his bottom lip, he stares at me. “Is that really what you want, Demitri?” He shakes his head. “No one knows you better than I do. I see the way you look at her. You’re a fucking hard man, yet you hover around her, ready to rip my head off for just looking at her.” Concern settles on his face. “You call her Malyshka.”

“So what? You call every woman you meet ‘little one’.”

A chuckle escapes him. “Yeah, but I don’t call them ‘baby’.” He steps right up to me. “You’ve never given a single fuck for a woman. You’ve fallen fucking hard and fast for Ariana. Why are you fighting it?”

“I’m not,” I bite the words out. Alexei just stares at me until I admit, “This isn’t about me. Over the past ten days, Ariana was kidnapped, lost her father, and learned her brother wants her dead. She’s barely holding on as is. Yes, I can take her and force her to marry me.” I shake my head. “I won’t do that to Ariana, so don’t even mention it to her.”

“So you’re just going to get her a custodian and wash your hands of her?” Alexei still keeps fucking pushing.