Lev—that was his name!—held up three fingers. He told me in Russian that was how many men could stay with me. His men would all go.
“You have to give me your word—your word!—that you will not attack him,” I whispered into Brando’s ear and then pulled away to stare into his eyes.
He nodded once. I breathed more easily. I motioned for Uncle Tito and Livio to stay and waved back the rest. They were all live wires and extremely angry. They’d only feed into Brando’s need to draw blood.
“Put me down,mio angelo,” I said. “Please.”
He did, but reluctantly. I moved to stand in front of Lev.
“It has been a long time, Scarlett,” he said.
“It has. How have you been, Lev?”
He answered me with a lopsided grin. “You remember me.”
“Of course.”
“She has always been so polite.” He grinned at Brando, who refused to crack a smile. He turned back to me, unbothered. “Your husband?” he said in Russian.
“Yes,” I said.
Lev answered me in Russian, and when I refused to tell Brando what he said, he told Brando in English, “You should be proud.” He nodded toward me. “Your wife is not ordinary.”
“Tell me how you two know each other,” Brando said, his voice hard. He expected another Nick Lomas situation, but he was so wrong.
“Maja Resnick and I danced for his grandfather in Russia,” I said. “He was a boy. I was just a girl. We became friends after.”
Lev nodded at this. “She hit me in the face with ice.” He laughed and so did Livio, which eased a bit of tension in the room.
Lev said a few things about Nemours that I translated for the three men. The snippet from Lev’s group that I overheard earlier was true. Nemours was trying to sell my contract, what was left of it, to one of the three groups, but there were more to come. He wanted to start a bidding war over me. Lev said he was sent, along with his brothers, to investigate the situation.
Lev met Brando’s eye. “He is not a good man to be doing such things to Scarlett.”
“No,” Brando agreed, but he still hadn’t relaxed. He felt what Lev was. He had every right to be on edge. But Lev was my friend, just a friend.
“Your man knows what I do?” Lev said in his language.
“No,” I said. “But he senses what you are.”
Lev looked Brando up and down, clearly calculating. “I hear things about him. I am one of the best at what I do. I would have trouble with him.”
“Yes.” I nodded. “You would.”
He made a nodding motion with his head at Brando, and then he told him what he was in his language. Brando looked at me, not understanding.
“He’s an assassin,” I said, blowing out a huge breath after. “He’s one of the Seven Deadly Sins. His brothers are here with him.” Not blood brothers, but brothers in a government game that not everyone came out of alive. He had told me this when he was a child. What he was meant to do. His destiny had been as set as mine had been.
Lev walked over to his table and grabbed the bottle of vodka he had been enjoying. He offered it to us, but we all declined. He put the bottle to his lips, gulping it down. I thought that vodka was a good representation of Lev. He was there, strong and toxic, but no trace of him was left behind when he was through, except the destruction of your world.
His English could be halting, but it was clear enough to understand most of the time. “She tells you that my grandfather was in love with her grandmother?”
Brando rubbed at his bottom lip, shaking his head.
“No?” Lev gave me a look that was clear enough to read.Why not? “It is a good story.”
I didn’t tell Brando because I had no clue. I had only known that Maja Resnick had danced for her freedom. She pleased his grandfather so much with her dancing that he allowed her to go to America with his blessing.
Lev told Brando, Uncle Tito, and Livio that his grandfather had found my grandmother to be enchanting. One of the finest dancers he had ever seen.
