“Sorry, little brother, I got to her as soon as I could.”
“It’s not your fault. I should’ve known better than to come here. Thanks for getting rid of her.”
“Of course. She wasn’t pleased about it,” he says with a small laugh, “but she’s gone now.”
I sigh and run my hand through my hair before checking my watch again. She’s been gone too long, and I don’t like it.
“I’m going to go check on her.”
“Holler if you need me,” he says, motioning for the bartender to bring him a drink.
I walk down the hall, and a chill runs down my spine when I hear a voice that I hoped like hell I’d never hear again.
“Is that my shirt you’re wearing?” Lisa lets out a harsh laugh that’s like nails on a fucking chalkboard. “It is. I recognize the small stain on the side. I donated that to Goodwill. Oh my god, is that where you buy your clothes?”
I’m almost to the door when I hear Lisa add, “Valeri is mine, so you’d better stay the fuck away from him. Like he’d ever want you anyway. That’s probably why he called me up last night. He’s bored with you already and wanted a good fuck."
By the time I throw the door open, I’m so pissed I can barely think. My eyes immediately find Evie, and the look on her face breaks my damn heart. She’s pressed in the corner, tears running down her face, cheeks red with embarrassment, and she’s refusing to look at me. I cross the distance and pull her into my arms.
“Valeri,” Lisa starts to say, but I wrap my arms tighter around Evie and give her a look that cuts her words off and has her clamping her goddamn mouth shut. Too little, too late.
“Tell her the fucking truth,” I growl at her, using every ounce of willpower I possess to keep my temper in check. If she were a man, she’d be bleeding out on the goddamn floor right now.
“What do you mean?”
“Tell her the goddam truth! Did I call you last night? Have I ever fucking called you?”
She thinks about lying, I can see it so clearly on her face, but she wisely decides against it. “No,” she mutters.
“You were a mistake I made several weeks ago,” I tell her, “and you’ve been chasing after me ever since. I don’t know how to make it any clearer to you. I don’t want you. It was a mistake, one I will never repeat, and I have no desire to ever see you again. But you already know all this, don’t you?” I cup Evie’s head, keeping her pressed tightly against me, feeling her body shake and hating how upset she is. I kiss the top of her head and caress her back.
“You crossed the line when you came in here and hurt my girlfriend.” I lift my head and yell for Volodya.
Seconds later, he enters the bathroom. I keep my eyes on Lisa, letting her see how fucking pissed I am. “Take this bitch and get her the fuck out of here. She’s banned from the club. She’s fucking banned from every damn place we own.”
“Valeri, you can’t do that!” she yells at me, stomping one of her high-heeled feet down.
I ignore her tantrum and switch to Russian. “Make sure she understands I’m serious.”
Volodya smiles and grabs her arm. When she tries to jerk it away, he tightens his fingers and says, “Don’t fucking test me. I should be out there with my gorgeous wife, and instead I’m stuck kicking your sorry ass out of here.”
“Don’t ban me,” she whines.
“You shouldn’t have fucked with my little brother or his girlfriend,” he says, hauling her ass out of the bathroom.
Turning to Evie, I cup her cheek and try to tilt her face to mine, but she fights me, keeping her head ducked down.
“Please don’t hide yourself from me,lapochka.”
“I should never have come here,” she whispers. “I don’t know what the hell I was thinking. I let myself forget the truth.”
“What truth?”
She finally meets my eyes, and the pain in them is like a knife to the gut. “The truth that I don’t belong here, and I don’t belong with you.” She shakes her head and goes to push her glasses up out of habit, but they’re not there, and it only makes her give a frustrated sigh.
“I want my glasses and my coveralls, because that’s who I am, and I never should’ve let myself forget that. I don’t belong on the arm of the man who apparently every woman in here has fucked. I belong in the library, cleaning up after women like her,” she says, angrily waving a hand at where Lisa had been standing. “Women who know they can just drop their shit on the floor because someone like me will always be waiting to pick it up. Women who donate their stained clothes because they know that someone like me will come along and buy it, knowing the only way I’m going to get a shirt this expensive is if I buy it used and dirtied.”
She’s crying by the time she finishes, and there are so many things that I want to say, but all that can wait. I pick her up and hold her while she cries, wetting my neck with her tears and shaking against me until I can’t stand it, because if I hear her cry for one more second, I’m going to burn the whole goddamn world down to make it stop.
