I shook my head. I couldn’t give in now. I couldn’t let him charm me out of sixteen years of anger now that we were face to face. He’d refused to help me when Conrad Jackson had ruined my life, and then he’d sent Eva to ruin me again. “Why did you send Eva to spy on me?”
Dmitri’s brow furrowed, deepening the scar that slashed down his cheek in a streak of white, as if no matter how much time he spent in the sun, it would never bronze to match the rest of his face.
“I didn’t,” he said. “She was a gift—an apology.”
“A gift who spied on me and reported our team’s every movement to Jed Carter. A poisoned apple that brought my whole team down when I took my revenge.”
Dmitri’s frown deepened. He stepped toward me and clasped my forearm, turning it so I could reluctantly do the same to his. “Sasha, I am a criminal, a murderer, and a thief, but I am no liar. I did not know that Carter owned his debts.”
He met my eyes with ease, hiding nothing. He never had. Dmitri was perfectly comfortable with the depraved acts he committed.
“No, you are not,” I said with a sigh, surprised to see tension leach out of my cousin’s shoulders. He wasn’t as confident as he seemed.
“Come,” he said. “It seems we have more to talk about than simply rekindling our friendship.”
Dmitri’s penthouse apartment was sparsely decorated, as if it were a hotel and not his home for the last decade, since he’d ascended to his place as Nikolai Berezin’s right hand. He’d never cared for fripperies or amassing physical items as a sign of wealth. The stark apartment suited him—raw power and nothing else.
He took a bottle of vodka from the fridge and poured each of us a glass. “Za tebya.” Cheers. I lifted my glass to his, holding his gaze as we both drank.
“I miss you,” he said finally, his voice gravelly with suppressed emotion. “Issuing you an ultimatum after everything that happened was a mistake.”
My eyes flew to his, but he stared into his drink, swirling the liquid in the glass without looking at me.
“Eva was supposed to be an uncomplicated apology—a way for you to take your revenge, find closure, and come back to me.”
“She has been anything but uncomplicated.”
Dmitri raised an eyebrow then walked to stand in front of the floor-to-ceiling windows that looked out over Yorkfield.
“Over the summer, she worked as a waitress at one of my restaurants,” he continued. “Dirt poor. Scumbag of a father. Shitty insurance through her school that doesn’t pay for anything, not even her surgery. And so fuckingdesperate to please. The kind of woman I’d feel sorry for, if her father hadn’t hurt the man I care about most in this world.”
My jaw clenched at his unsparing assessment of Eva—strong, beautiful, controlled Eva, who’d been through so fucking much and held herself together through sheer force of will. I was self-aware enough to realize I’d described her in similar terms but unwilling to examine why I hated Dmitri doing so.
“I put her in your path at Ana Costa’s wedding, hoping you’d accept the gift then,” he continued, “but you didn’t take the bait. So when I learned she was applying for jobs with the hockey program, I called in a favor with the athletic director.”
“With Dion?” Dmitri knew Dion?
“I made it my business to keep an eye on you,” my cousin said softly, “but I didn’t send her to spy on you.”
“Jed Carter did,” I answered flatly, “and that’s a really big fucking coincidence.”
“It is,” Dmitri murmured, rubbing over the scar on his forehead. He pulled out his phone and dialed.
“I need to know how much Conrad Jackson owes, and to whom.” He listened for a moment, his eyebrows flying up, then nodded. “Spasibo.” Thanks.
“Nikolai’s treasurer says Jackson owed the bratva two hundred grand, but Jed Carter bought that debt several months ago. He’ll have more information for me in the morning.”
I wondered when Dmitri’d become so close to the Pakhan that he could refer to Berezin by his first name. “How much debt does he have?”
“He’s a gambling addict and a drunk.”
“So he likely owes everyone.”
Dmitri frowned, as if disagreeing with my assessment. “I’ll find out.”
I scoffed. “At what cost?”
Dmitri looked up at me, hurt and vulnerability flashing across his expression then disappearing just as quickly. “Pick up the fucking phone when I call.”
