The way he studies me makes me wonder if he’s been waiting for a chance to repay old scores. Years back he set out to erase my father’s legacy, a slaughter Mom helped finish. They cut down a lot of men, but the Belov reach ran farther than Philly. Derek always knew why I left. I wonder if he’s been waiting for me to come home so he can finish what he started.
The fallout would be an entertaining show…if I didn’t care about who would get caught in the crossfire.
“You know how that goes,” I say at last.
“I’ve got something that’ll help with that.” Valentina’s voice slips under my skin, steadying the pulse I didn’t even realize was racing. “Come on.” She brushes past me, expecting me to follow.
Derek stiffens, and I savor it for a second before trailing after her. Whatever satisfaction I feel dies the moment two Dobermans appear in the doorway of her room, standing alert. No barking, no snarling, just waiting.
“Stand down,” she tells them. They obey instantly, but not before Derek’s low snicker carries from down the hall.
“You’ve got the hounds of hell guarding your room. I like it.”
She laughs, shutting the door behind us. “Hermes and Apollo. Graduation present from my dad…when I decided to move out.”
Yeah. That tracks.
“You’d know that…if you’d kept in touch,” she teases, tossing me a wink.
“Fair.”
And then it hits me. The silence without Derek, the weight of her in front of me. She’s not the girl I left behind. And suddenly, I know why I’ve been keeping my distance. Why she’s been in my head every damn day since the hospital.
She’s beautiful, yeah. But it’s more than that. I’m seeing her in a way I never have before, and it unsettles the hell out of me.
“You promised me a clean shirt,” I say, trying to shake off the strange energy between us.
“I lied.” A beat of silence, then she laughs and steps closer. “I mean, if you soak it real good and hit it with some peroxide, you might get those stains out.”
I cross my arms, one brow lifting. “You’re not even going to ask whose blood it is?”
She tilts her head. “Do I know them?”
“Doubtful.”
She shrugs. “Then it doesn’t matter as long as you’re the one standing here wearing their blood and not the other way around.”
If I ever doubted she was Derek Cain’s daughter…
And yet, my pulse kicks a little harder.
“That’s pretty cold, Val.”
Her smile fades. “The world is cold, Maksim. Sometimes the only way to survive is to be colder.”
“Who hurt you?” I tease.
But when she doesn’t answer right away, when her eyes slide past mine, and all traces of humor are gone, something hot stirs in my chest.
“Oh, you know, some asshole ran me over. Broke my leg.”
The lie is obvious. It’s a flimsy deflection, but I let it go. For now.
And suddenly I understand what my mother meant.
Protectiveness surges inside me, my hands restless with the urge to break someone open for hurting her.
Six
