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Twenty minutes and a cold shower later, I storm out of the tiny motel bathroom. “Look,” I say, tightening the towel around my wet body. “I get that you’re upset, but can’t we at least pretend to be friends?”
“I do not have friends.”
I arch an eyebrow. “You have my father.”
He laughs darkly. “Not anymore. I fucked his daughter.”
I wince at the bitterness in his tone. “I’m more than Niko Gaheris’s daughter, you know.”
“Right. You are also Ava Chernova’s daughter.” Shifting onto his back, he aims a scathing look at my towel and smirks. “You did this to me on purpose, and you expect me to fall for your shit again?”
I wish I could argue. Instead, I sink onto the edge of the mattress with a sigh. “I admit I wanted information out of you. But can you blame me? You walked into Seven demanding to see my parents, then asked a ‘random stripper’”—I curl my fingers into air quotes—“questions about me. Where I come from, that’s a threat.”
“There are other methods of persuasion than damning us both.”
My chest tightens. “That had nothing to do with you.”
“I disagree. What happened in that room had everything to do with me.”
“Yeah, after I lost focus. The sex wasn’t planned, Mik. I knew who you were. I also knew toying with you would be a direct hit to that pristine bubble my father keeps me in.” I close my eyes. “He took something of mine, so I wanted to return the favor.”
“And what did he take, Zasha? Your first car?”
My eyes pop open to find him on the mattress beside me, barely a breath away. “No. My first kill.” At his flat expression, I point to my cheek. “My boyfriend wasn’t one for talking things out. He preferred a more direct approach.”
Mik scrubs his hands up and down his face, then clenches them on top of his head as if trying to contain the violence demanding to be unleashed. “This man raised his hand to you?”
I snort. “Only once.”
Cursing, he drops his hands from his head and gently cups my face. I don’t dare breathe as his thumb traces the mottled bruise, his eyes trapping me in a stare so vicious I don’t know whether to run for my life or fall to my knees.
Swallowing hard, I force a smirk. “Tuck your crazy in, Iceman.”
“What?”
“You have murder flashing in your eyes. While appreciated, it’s unnecessary. My father got to him first.” Mik’s chest is rising and falling at an alarming rate, so I lower my hand to his shoulder. “The university’s campus is infested with over-privileged frat boys like him. Their CEO daddies bankroll the hush money for when the word ‘no’ exits their coked-up vocabulary.”
He lowers his eyes toward my legs. “Did that mudak touch…?”
I shake my head. “No. My father made an unannounced visit, saw my face, and within twenty minutes, a bullet tore through Evan’s skull.”
“I fail to see the problem.”
And that’s why we’ve ended up in this situation. My father, my mother, Mik… They all “fail to see the problem” because they’re so far removed from it.
They’ve lived so much life they’ve forgotten mine has just begun.
“The problem is that I didn’t need his help,” I say crisply. “I wanted to pull the trigger myself.”
The brief truce we forged disintegrates as Mik’s eyes glaze over, his hand dropping from my cheek. “You do not want that on your conscience, lisichka. Once you claim a life, there is no going back.”
“I don’t want to go back. Why can’t anyone see that? My father claims he doesn’t want blood on my hands, but my parents trade in death using that same blood as currency. This is my legacy, my body, and my life, and they are mine to defend.”
“I understand that. But I also understand Niko’s rage, lisichka.” Those icy eyes melt, shadows consuming him. “If this mudak were still alive, I would kill him myself for raising his hand to you.”
I barely know this man. We had one frenzied moment together based on lies and deception. It can’t end well for us. I’ve never been skilled at denying myself what I want, but I know my value, and I’ll never beg a man to want me back.
“I’m fine.” I rise to my feet. “You can quit acting like you care.”
