Chapter 69
He was a cruel man to her. Took her to the breaking point, though newer beyond it. He loved playing with her too much to completely break her.
I still have the scar on my eyebrow from the one time I threw him off of her. I was taller, wenger fin I’d ever been before. Trained. And angry.
Still, I was only fourteen. So, as trained as I was, as big, as angry, I was also sampid. So when I saor Kanga backhand her so hard that she fell against the table and cracked her head on the edge.
I saw nothing but him as my enemy.
I felt nothing but pure, unadulterated rage.
The one lesson I learned from my father that day was to never allow my emotions to overrun my logic. If I let my heart get in the way, I’ll miss the knife coming for my back.
The one lesson he learned that day?
My little brother and sister don’t care how big my enemy is. My enemy is their enemy, and they do not hold back when it comes to protecting their big brother. They may have cowered in the corner while our mother screamed for them to run.
But when I hit the floor, they turned into demons.
Kostya never raised a hand against our mother after that night. He also lost half the sight in his left eye and walked with a permanent limp. He’d do his best to fake it, to pretend like he didn’t need a cane, but his men knew.
Everyone knew.
“You’re not like him,” Sofiya offers, her voice quiet.
“I look like him.” I rub a hand over my jaw. “And sometimes, I… Blyat‘. I catch myself sounding like him. Making the same decisions as him.”
Mak shrugs a shoulder. “There you go. You catch yourself. And you stop yourself. Yeah, you’re brutal sometimes, but anyone can see you’re nothing like the bastard.”
“And what happens when I get married? If I get married?”
Sofi scoffs. “Do you have a harem of women we don’t know about?” I squint at her. “Fuck, no.”
Chapter 69
“Do you plan on entertaining women in and out of a revolving door?” “Absolutely not.”
“So what’s the problem?” they ask in unison. Fucking hell, I wish I had a drink in my hand.
I also wish my siblings weren’t so goddamn perceptive.
“If I marry Daphne…” I sigh and try again. “If I marry her, I’ll have everything I’ve been so sure I didn’t want or need. I’ll have my wife, my daughter, my own family. Shit, maybe even a few more kids.”
Makari’s looking at me with his soft eyes and sympathetic smile. “Again, Pash… what’s the problem?”
My teeth clench. I don’t want to say it out loud. “What does she get if she marries me? Aside from my name, my money, and everything this Bratva has, what else is there? What if I’m just as bad to her as Kostya was to Mama, and I don’t even realize it?”
“You can’t beat yourself up over shit that hasn’t happened, and probably never will. And if it does…” He glances at Sofi, who nods in agreement. “… we’ll be right there to kick your ass. We happen to adore Daphne. You really think we’d let you raise a hand against her?”
I clap a hand on his shoulder as a sign of gratitude, but I’m all talked out. Sharing my feelings is fucking exhausting.
I wipe my hands on my pants and head to the car. But when I get there, I stop.
My reflection glints under security lamps in the darkened window of the driver’s side door. A man with a shadowed jaw, a furrowed brow, a stormy gaze, frowns back at me.
I know that man. I’ve fought him, and every time I did, I lost.
For a fleeting moment, his left eye clouds over and the scar from my brow changes places to the top of his cheekbone. He scowls at me. Weak, I hear my father’s reflection snarl in my ear. You’re weak and pathetic. Letting a woman get under your skin? You’ll be the end of everything I built. Be a man and grow the fuck up.
I blink. The illusion vanishes.
The scar shifts back into its proper place; the eye clears.
But nothing changes the fact that when I see my reflection, it’s not me who I see.
And when I think about everything I am doing for the Bratva, everything I’ve done for Daphne, my stomach sinks to recognize one horrifying truth.
Kostya Chekhov would have done the exact same things.
Chapter 70
DAPHNE
I don’t know what sort of “business” Pasha does in the middle of the night. I’m not sure I want to know.
What I do know is that, whatever it is, it compels him to come home and sit on the bed next to me for a while
He never says anything Never touches me. He just sits there, assumes I’m sleeping, and stares off into the
dark.
Last night was one of those nights. He sat down next to me, sighed, and gazed at the wall for a while. I didn’t say anything, too afraid to break whatever spell had him bewitched. Then he got up, went into the
bathroom, and took a shower before heading off to sleep on the couch.
This morning, he insisted on taking me to work himself. No special occasion, and my guards were perfectly capable of doing it themselves. But Pasha calmly stated this was happening, ushered me into the car an hour earlier than I usually leave, and took us to the drive–thru for a vitamín smoothie and pastry.
He seemed on edge. I asked him about it, but he just forced a smile and shook his head.
“It’s nothing,” he said. “Really.”
“Is it anything I did?”
He turned to look at me. “No. Why would you think that?” I shrugged. “I don’t know. I just worry.”
“Don’t. You’re fine. We’re fine.” He sighed. “I just have this feeling that something’s up.”
I get what he means. Sometimes, I feel like something bad is going to happen. That someone is about to ruin things right when it’s all been so wonderful.
I feel that almost every day.
It’s sitting in my stomach while I sip down the last of my smoothie. That feeling of foreboding, like someone is about to walk into my office and break some terrible news.
Or–as it turns out to happen–Conrad’s face appearing in the doorway. “Hey, NayNay!”
Oh, dear Lord… I try not to choke on the straw and set the cup down. “Um, hey there. Are you looking for Todd? Or Keith?”
Conrad shakes his head, still grinning. “I’m here to see you.”
