But I couldn’t let myself break down. I sniffed back my tears for P.M.’s sake. “She needs medical attention, and I need your help getting her to my car!”
My tone was as urgent as it could get, but Artyom just stared back at me, his face stonier than the concrete beneath his feet.
And that was when one terrible memory came back to me.
Him waiting outside the hallway for me on Tuesday, just to say, “I still hate you… You will still be made to pay for crossing me.”
Yes, Tommy was cruel, but he wasn’t the only one on the Yolks who could claim that label.
What if Artyom Rustanov truly was the sociopath I’d accused him of being in the heat of the moment?
What if he would really go to any lengths to spite me? Even let an innocent dog die of her wounds in some creep’s backyard?
But I refused to be prideful. The stakes were too high.
“Please,” I begged, my voice cracking with emotion. “I’ll do anything if you help me. Anything.”
A long, terrible silence followed my plea.
Then he said, “Anything?”
Lydia
Anything?
I hesitated. Anythingwas a lot to promise a merciless hockey player who was on record as hating my guts.
But another pitiful whimper from P.M., lying half in and half out of her doghouse, was all it took to push me out of my indecision.
“Okay.” I swallowed a lump of fear I hadn’t realized was forming in my throat. “Anything.”
Artyom studied me for a short-but-still-incredibly-tense beat. Honestly, it was like getting stared down by a granite statue. Then he... pulled out his phone and started texting!
“Are you serious right now?” Outrage replaced my sense of dread as I watched him click away with his thumbs. “Are you going to help me or not?”
“Anything. You make this promise to me, and you will not break it,” he answered without looking up from his phone. His voice was as cold as the winter wind passing between us, andI couldn’t tell if he was asking me a question or delivering the terms of his ruthless ultimatum.
Either way…
“Yes, I promise you. Anything. Anything you want if you help me save this innocent?—”
“Alright, we have agreement.” Artyom stuffed his phone back in his coat pocket and closed the distance between us with a speed that didn’t match his large size.
“I am picking you up, and it will not feel good. But you are strong puppy, and you will survive,” he informed P.M. before scooping her out of her literal doghouse and ferrying her across the yard.
I couldn’t help but marvel at his prowess as he led the way through the back door into the small house. If he was this fast in the snow, I could only imagine his speed on the ice. No wonder it had been such a rout when he played that one team whose name I could no longer remember. Confession: despite my father owning the Minnesota Raptors, I remained a terrible hockey fan.
Speaking of hockey, though... I squinted as I followed him out of the front door. “Aren’t you supposed to be at a game right now? Did it end early or something? How did you—oh, hey, my car’s over there.”
I pointed toward my Mini Cooper when we reached the curb, but Artyom kept walking in the opposite direction. The next thing I knew, he was depositing P.M. in the back seat of his truck, an intimidating mix of black-on-black and gigantic.
I guess I’ll have to come back for my car, I decided as I scrambled into Artyom’s truck after P.M.
“Okay, the shelter isn’t open, so we’ll have to take her to my place,” I told Artyom after I settled into the back seat with P.M. “Just head down Highway East until you get to Oak and make a right. That’s where I live.”
In a rented house with a no-pets-allowed policy.
But the landlord would just have to make an exception. I had a few bandages and other supplies at home that I could use to tend to her until the shelter opened tomorrow.
