Zinaida clutches at the end of Janella’s braid, eagerly cooing, and I can’t watch.
“That, they do,” Trifon agrees, turning to steal a piece of bacon off his wife’s plate.
I’m frozen in place when he catches my eye across the room. My stomach flips when he nods, tacking on what is unquestionable approval.
Trifon.The big, bad head of the Yuri bratva, who countless men are ready to shit their pants in front of. Even he isn’t immune to Janella.
She’s slotted in like a missing puzzle piece. Not as loud or brash as the rest of us, but innately capable of holding her own. Weathered to resilience—and somehow no less a kind soul for it.
Her words from last night still ring in my ear—What’re you going to do with all your free time now that I can save myself?
Every argument I’d bound her to me withers away a little more with each passing day.
I don’t fucking know.
What will any of us do? What use does she have of us, now that she can take care of herself? Now that she doesn’t need me, as per her own admission.
“Who took a shit in your coffee,bratan?” Leonid croons in my ear, slinging an arm around my shoulder and shoving a fucking mimosa into my hand. “You’re brooding.”
“Am not.”
I’m not getting away with that elementary response, and I goddamn know it.
“Are too,” Leo counters, eyeing the view I’m facing like he can just figure the truth out that way.
He probably can.
“Trouble in paradise?” he guesses.
“What’re the chances of you dropping this if I ask nicely?”
“The same as if you ask like a dick,” he answers, imperturbable. He drags me over to the table, shoving me into the seat beside him. You couldn’t tell he fucked up his ankle none too long ago. But that’s my brother. “Might as well tell me. Or she probably will.”
His gaze returns to Janella across the table. Amusement glimmers in his eyes.
I give him a look that could peel paint. “I’m not in the fucking mood, Leonid.”
Before I look away from him, I can see the shock registering. There’s too much going on inside me for there to be any room left for guilt. I shove out of my chair and stomp over to the coffee.
Maybe I’ll make it an Irish one.
***
The car ride home is silent.
I’m not unaware of how the tables have turned.
Janella lasts longer than I would have. We’re already out of the elevator and down the hallway when she stops outside her bedroom door and stares after me. Her eyes burrow holes into my back.
She doesn’t let me go.
“Okay, nope,” she decides out loud. “We’re not doing this. What the hell is your problem? Are we seriously back to this?”
My shoulders lock, absorbing the impact of her words, striking my back like pebbles. Each one has my teeth grinding together until my jaw aches. I take another step away from her.
Let me go,I think.Don’t.
Her boots stomp up behind me. She’s half my size, but alive with wrath. She shoves her whole weight into me. And that’s it. Just like that. I feel the tether on my control snap. I turn and skewer her with a look.
