“Where are these accusations even coming from?” Lydia started to ask. Then suddenly she said, “No, Paul, don’t!”
Yom’s heart dropped to his feet when she cut off again, this time with a choking gasp.
But nothing compared to what happened inside his body when he reached the main part of the restroom. There was Lydia, her dress torn, her strapless bra exposed, pressed against the tile wall beside the towel dispenser. Paul’s forearm wedged against her throat.
Paul. Lydia. The toilets. The entire world suddenly blanked out.
“Yom! Yom! Oh my God, please stop.”
Some unknown amount of time later, Yom dimly registered that he was now kneeling on the floor. Paul lay beneath him, head lolling, face a bloody mess, his straight patrician nose jagged and broken. Somewhere in the distance, Yom sensed Lydia trying to get his attention.
But he couldn’t respond.
He had gone to his bad place. The dark, cold Rustanov place that his Uncle Alexei warned him to avoid when it came to this entitledgandon, Paul Carrington.
It didn’t matter that Paul was barely conscious.
The world had turned the same color as his motherland’s former flag.
Yom would kill him….
“Yom!”
Kill him for touching her… For hurting her.
“Yom, no!”
How many times? How many times had this worthlesssukatouched her? Hurt her?
Yom punched the heap of dog shit beneath him again. No more lolling. He—no, thisublyudokdid not deserve respectful pronouns.Itpassed out cold.
“Oh my God, Yom, you have to stop.”
Dark, ugly thoughts dropped down like hammers and sickles inside Yom’s head as he raised his fist to end Paul Carrington’s life with another blow.
But something snagged his arm before he could mete out that final justice.
Nyet, not something. Someone. He looked up from the soon-to-be carcass to find Lydia pulling back on his arm with all her weight.
“Please, please stop!” she pleaded, tears streaming down her face.
And that was what—the only thing that could have—stilled his fist. Not her small weight pulling on his arm. Not her pleas for this worthlessublyudok’s life.
Her tears.
He wanted to kill Paul. But not as much as he didn’t want to hurt her.
He lowered his arm and rose to his feet, leaving the blond male crumpled on the ground.
Somewhere in the foreground, Lydia bent down to check theublyudok’s pulse. He must have still had one. Her next wordswere, “Oh, thank God,” before she quickly pulled her phone out of a wristlet clutch Yom hadn’t noticed before.
He was still alive.
Yom had failed to do his job—to truly protect her. Paul should be dead. Yom should be calmly phoning Suro Nakamura, his Uncle Alexei’s best friend, who was often called upon by the Rustanovs for “clean up.” Suro lived in Chicago with his American wife and family.
“Hi, Dad. You told me to call you, not the police, the next time Paul…”
Lydia’s words faded.
