He’s right. During my four years of celibacy, women have been throwing themselves at me. None of them even remotely caught my interest. They all want my body or they want what they think I am. None of them want to know me or have ever come close to caring about me, really. Women who meet a man like me, they’re usually looking for something—sex, money, status. There are no romantic fantasies.
“How do you feel about her?” Dmitri asks me. “Like, no bullshit. I mean, I know you two didn’t get together conventionally, but… well, you’ve had some time to get to know one another.”
I’m a little confused by the question. “What do you mean?”
He snickers. “Do you love her, Alexei?”
I feel like the answer to that is sitting on the back of my tongue. Like an automated response to any other question I’ve ever beenasked. And yet, I don’t understand it. I take a drag from the cigarette, considering for a few seconds.
The way she’s come to smile at me lately lifts my mood almost instantly. The sweet, floral scent in her hair, and the taste of her skin on my tongue. The light when it catches her sapphire eyes and the way they turn up when she laughs. How the sound of that makes me feel like freedom and bright, blue skies.
“Yes,” I say. “I do love her. Very much.”
“Does she know it?”
“I’ve never said it aloud before now… so I’d guess not.”
Dmitri sighs and takes another drag. Then he chuckles, his mouth turning up into a smile. “It’s funny how love finds even men like us sometimes. I guess there’s nowhere it can’t reach, is there?”
I smile at him and start to reply… and then the world explodes.
It happens so fast that I don’t even register it for a second. Dmitri’s face, smiling and bright in the shadows of the night around us. And in the next second, a pop rings out in the distance and in that very same second, the side of Dmitri’s face is splattered with red. His smile drops, and the light in his eyes winks out. Hot, gunpowder smelling liquid splashes my face. I react, stumbling away as he falls to the ground.
There’s no time to do anything because the next second, burning gun smoke embers fly past me, making holes in the screen door. I drop and reach for the gun in my belt, but it’s not there. It’s sitting somewhere up in the bedroom.
Glass breaks above me as I force my way back into the house to take cover. The bullets fly, breaking the windows and puttingholes in the wall. I dive behind the couch and suddenly, I hear shouting from the kitchen. Anya’s voice rings out as the sound of punches landing fills the room.
The bullets have stopped, so I run to the kitchen. Anya is standing toe to toe with a man twice her size. He already has one side of his face bruised all to hell. Another man stands in the door, gun in hand.
Anya hits the one in front of her with a skillet, snapping his neck to one side viciously before he falls with a hard thump to the floor. The second gunman goes to point his gun at me, but I grab his wrist, shoving it upward, then I punch him in the face. His nose cracks under my fist as he tumbles backward out into the night.
I turn just in time to see two more rush in. One goes for Anya, but she’s ready for him. She aims for his head with the skillet, but he flinches and she catches him in the arm. It still sends him flying sideways. She grabs a nearby butcher’s knife and sweeps it across his throat as he leans into the sink. Splashes of blood spurt from his throat as he gags and falls to the floor.
I charge the second, lowering my head and driving my shoulder into his midsection. I hit him hard and we both go tumbling back into the living room. I roll him, getting on top of him, and start pummeling his face in.
Then I’m grabbed from behind. A huge arm wraps itself around my throat and lifts me up to my feet. He only gets me up for a moment and slams me back down to the floor, then shoves his knee in my back to keep me down.
And then I hear screaming.Isabella.
I struggle to get up, but he grabs me by my hair, lifting my head up in time to see one of them coming down the stairs. He’s got Isabella over his shoulder. She’s wearing her nightshirt, but her bare ass is in the air as she flails.
“Jesus,” I hear one of them say. “You couldn’t get her decent?”
“Let me go!” she’s screaming. “Put me the fuck down!” The guy holding her is having a hard time with her. It looks like he’s going to drop her.
“Yeah, right,” he says. “See you in the car.”
And then, the hand holding my head forces it into the floor. My forehead smacks the wood and it’s lights out.
25
ISABELLA
“Itold you to pack her some clothes, you dumbass.” It’s the last thing I hear before the car door shuts. I recognize two of my father’s men—Georgie and Paul. George’s a broad-shouldered, wide-necked goon with deep-set eyes. Annie and I used to call him Baby Frankenstein when we were kids.
Paul is my dad’s right hand. He’s tall with dark hair cut super short and hooded eyes. I used to think that he could be hot if he ever got a nose job. He never did. His nose is flattened and curved at the bridge like he’s been punched one too many times in his face.
I can almost hear the conversation through the window, but I can’t really make out the words. I know Paul’s pretty pissed. The way he talks with his hands always tells how angry he is.
