I raised my eyes and studied him through wet lashes.
He wasn’t lying.
“They had to use forceps,” he said, his gaze moving to a point somewhere behind me.“He was badly bruised.”
Could I have lived with the image that haunted his eyes? I was glad I hadn’t needed to find out. He had carried that alone. Whatever his reasons—and I knew his reasons—he had borne that so I didn’t have to.
My eyes welled again. I blinked until the gun came back into focus on the table between us. A small silver pistol in a restaurant in Chernograd. I was bound to this world—to the Bratva, to its violence, to the man across the table—through vows I hadn’t chosen and children I would die for.
“Sergei is gone,” he said, closing both hands around mine. His thumb moved over my rings, slow and deliberate—the gesture of a man reminding both of them of something.“But we are still searching for his son.”
I raised my head. Straightened my spine. Looked directly into those pale eyes.
“Aren’t you afraid I’ll shoot you?”
He chuckled—low, unhurried, his eyes dropping briefly to my chest before returning to my face.
“Afraid?” he said.“That would be foreplay.”
We stared at each other. Long enough for it to become something neither of us was willing to name.
“Don’t tempt me,” I muttered, and pulled my hand away from his.
“I will try not to antagonise you this time,” he said.
My head jerked up. He was busy snapping the case shut, his eyes down, as though the concession had been directed at the table rather than at me.
It wasn’t like Vadim to concede anything. To anyone.
How very irregular of him.
Dinner. A gun. And now this.
“Do you have cancer?” I blurted out.
His head stayed low but his eyes flicked up—staring at me through those dark lashes. Just like Runa’s. I swallowed.
“I mean—are you dying?”
I winced. That hadn’t sounded any better.
“Fuck it.” I slapped my hand on the table.“Why are you being nice to me all of a sudden?”
That got his full attention.
He looked at me the way he always had—steady, unhurried, giving nothing away—and after all this time I still couldn’t tell if he wanted to fuck me or kill me.
Some days I suspected both, in no particular order.
He raised his hand and clicked his fingers.
Someone rushed toward the table.
“Bring the car to the back entrance,” he snapped.
Never once did he take his eyes off mine.
Chapter 76
