“I’ll be out all day today,” I tell them both. “No one in or out without my say-so. Do you understand?”
Alona likes to pretend she doesn’t understand English, but she nods with a scowl when I eye her.
Eva nods too, but I catch a quiver at her mouth and a suspicious shine in her eyes. I ignore it and turn toward my office, lifting the cup to my lips.
I don’t want to know. I don’t want to care. I try to tell myself that Eva and I are only enjoying one another’s bodies. That’s all.
Except, despite myself, I stop, turn back, and pin her with a stare.
Reading my intentions, Eva swipes the back of her hand across her eyes and sniffs. “It’s nothing. I’m fine.”
Was she expecting me to ask her to stay? To come back to my room for the night?
She notices I’m still looking at her and adds, “Really, it’s not your problem. It’s mine.”
Behind Eva, Alona meets my eyes and tips her head down. I follow her gaze to the burner phone I gave Eva, clutched in her white-knuckled hands.
As we all stand there, her phone rings, piercing the silence. Eva looks down at it and sends it to voicemail, her cheeks red and her jaw clenched so tightly I can see the veins in her neck.
So it’s not about me.
“Tell me what’s going on.”
My look brooks no argument, and Eva finally gives up with a deep sigh that lifts her shoulders expressively.
“It’s my brother, Jordan. He’s in trouble again, and he’s barely been home. My father keeps calling, asking me to find him and drag him back to take care of whatever trouble he’s in, and Marco told me Jordan stole money out of his wallet the other day. Marco is also having trouble with a professor who isn’t treating him fairly, and even complaining to the dean hasn’t fixed anything. Even worse, tuition is going up next semester, Katie is crying about missing me, and my father barely made any money this month.”
The truth comes out in a tumbled rush, each word bumping into the next. By the end of it, I can hear the tears in her voice again, though she swallows hard to keep them back. But the lines at the corners of her eyes have deepened, and from how red and puffy her eyes are, Eva was crying more than she’s let on.
Alona catches my eye again and nods, letting me know I have the story now and understand the unspoken.
Eva is right. None of this is my problem. She’s not with her family because she fucked with the Kucherov Bratva, and this is her punishment.
Even if she had done it to save her father’s bookstore. To keep her family together.
“Vasya will take you to them today. You can visit, but you will return at the end of the day. Vasya will make sure of it, so don’t try anything. My warnings still stand. Is that understood?”
I skewer her not just with a promise but with a warning in my glare. Eva doesn’t seem to notice.
“What?” she finally chokes out.
“I said you can visit your family, take care of things. But open your mouth about the reality of your situation, try to get away, and Vasya will tell me. Youwillcome back.”
“I—”
I don’t give her time to finish her thought or express her disbelief. Instead, I turn on my heel and flee, wondering what the hell has gotten into me.
15
EVA
Something is burning in the kitchen. Marco is yelling from the dining room about the smell without going to check because he’s working on a paper. Jordan is on the couch with his big headphones over his ears, and his hood pulled over his head, forgetting he has something cooking, now burning, in the kitchen. The TV is on full blast for my dad, whose hearing has been going for years, although he refuses to admit it. And Katie is upstairs, calling for me because she needs help with her homework.
I nearly burst out laughing at the look on Vasya’s face. I doubt this was what he had imagined when Evgeny ordered him to accompany me home.
“And I thought a room full of Russian gangsters was bad,” he whispered when we first arrived, taking in what passed for a typical day for me.
I flash him a grin before calling up the stairs, “Get started, Katie, and I’ll be there in a few minutes. Keep trying by yourself until I get there, okay? That’s how you learn.”
