“Yeah.” My voice is shaky along with the rest of me, but I push off from the building and take a few cautious steps towards him. When I’m close enough, he briefly turns his head, running his eyes over me, reassuring himself that I’m okay. His green eyes soften when they meet mine, but then turn to ice when he turns back to the man.
“Do you recognize him?” he asks me.
I stare at the man, taking in his dark blond hair, the beard that’s grown long enough to look unkempt instead of stylish, and the eyes that are dark brown and wide with fear and anger. When his eyes dart over to meet mine, Valeri digs the knife in hard enough to draw blood.
“Don’t fucking look at her,” he growls. The man quickly looks away, but I see the way his hands are balled into fists, and I know how much he’s dying to lash out. There’s no way Valeri is going to let that happen. Even when he had a gun pointed at his back, it still felt like he was the one in control.
“No,” I say, “I’ve never seen him before.”
Valeri keeps the knife pressed firmly against his neck and says, “Grab my phone, baby. It’s in my back pocket. Text one of my brothers and let them know there’s one man and we’re in the alley by the library.”
Reaching my hand out, I slide my fingers into his back pocket to grab his phone, and because the man’s ass is my weakness, I can’t resist giving him a squeeze before I pull my hand away. He gives a soft laugh while I try to open his phone.
“What’s your passcode?”
“Your birthday.”
I smile and type it in. The chat thread immediately opens since he’d been texting Vasily when the guy first showed up. It’s all in Russian, so I hurry up and switch to the English keyboard and type out the quick message.
“Done,” I tell him after I hit send.
Thankfully, the response is in English so I can read it.We’re on our way, Evie.
“He said they’re on their way.” I slip his phone back in his pocket. “How’d he know it was me?”
He gives me a quick wink. “It was in English.” Putting his focus back on the man, he tells me, “Scoot back a bit, baby.”
I do as he says and take a couple of steps back. Satisfied I’m not in any danger, he releases the pressure on the knife just enough for the man to answer when he asks him his name.
“Steven,” the man says, and I can tell he’s trying to be gentle when he says it, not trusting that the knife won’t cut him again.
“Well, Steve, you really fucked up tonight coming after me while I’m with my girl, putting her in danger, threatening to take her with you, pointing a motherfucking gun at her and threatening to shoot her.”
The rage in Valeri’s voice takes me by surprise. Each word out of his mouth is harder and colder than the last, and if I was Steve, I’d be pissing myself.
“I was told she was Lyle’s,” Steve says, making my eyes widen in surprise while Valeri barks out a laugh.
“You’re fucking joking, right? Lyle, her dad’s fat fuck of a friend?”
Steve gets defensive and tries harder to talk his way out of this. “That’s what he told me, man. I wouldn’t have come after you if I’d known the truth.”
“Anyone with goddamn eyes can see that there’s no way in hell she would be with him.”
“I didn’t know,” Steve says, and I can tell by his tone that he’s getting pissed about the whole situation. “He just said that you and your brothers busted Jim’s hand and then took his daughter with you. He said that Evie’s his and that I was to get the little bitch back.”
The low growl coming from Valeri has goosebumps rising on my skin. His tone is gentle when he says, “Lapochka, turn around and don’t look back.”
He doesn’t have to ask me twice. I turn and face the other building, every instinct on high alert. I can sense them behind me, and because I know I’m not supposed to look back, it’s almost impossible not to. I fight the urge and keep my eyes glued to the old, dirty brick wall in front of me.
“You good, baby?”
“Yes,” I whisper.
As soon as he hears my answer, I hear something wet and fleshy and then Steve’s deep groan followed by a repeated gruesome squelching sound that I hope to never fucking hear again as long as I live, and then a heavy, dense thud that I can only assume is his body hitting the ground. I don’t turn around. Not when I hear Valeri breathing right behind me, not when I hear Russian being yelled and I know his brothers are here, and not even when Valeri whispers my name and presses his body against mine, wrapping an arm around my upper chest and kissing my temple. I see the blood on his hand. It’s smeared like he tried to quickly brush it away, but it’s there. The memory of the red stains I saw on his pants before I gave him a blowjob take on a whole new meaning.
“It’s okay, baby,” he whispers.
I recognize the voices around me even if I don’t understand the words being spoken. Vasily and Volodya are here, and they’ve brought Nikolai and Ilya. Valeri talks to them while his thumb caresses my collarbone and the curve of my neck. The touch is comforting, and I cling to it while my mind still refuses to process what just happened. My boyfriend just killed a man, and I stood here and listened to it. Just like seeing Valeri with that baseball bat, it’s impossible for me to grasp both sides of him. He’s terrifying when he’s in Bratva mode, but even when he was angry and seconds away from ending a man’s life, he still kept his voice gentle for me and waited until I was turned around so I wouldn’t have to live with that image in my head.
