“Papa, I told you there was nothing between us.” The words tumble from my mouth even though I know it’s a lie. My guilt won’t let me admit I lost myself in Evgeny’s spell, in the fairy tale I had created in my head. “I worked for him. That’s it. I was trying to save our house and the bookstore?—”
“You killed him. You killed your brother.”
My father jabs a finger at me, the movement sharp and angry. He might as well have punched me in the gut, the way his accusation knocks the wind from me.
“I tried to save Jordan!” I try to moderate my tone, but it comes out as a shout because I believe he’s right. “I did everything I could. I talked to him. I pleaded with him. I saved him over and over. I tried?—”
“You made a deal with the devil, Eva!” My father’s shout echoes through the room. “And now your brother is dead!”
I have no breath to reply. My father’s accusations have stolen every bit of air from my lungs. His eyes burn, his mouth twisted into a furious, terrifying grimace.
“From now on, you and I are strangers. We are not family. You are not my daughter.”
Before I can say anything, my father turns and storms out, slamming the door behind him.
The tears come, swift and ferocious, doubling me over until I can’t stand any longer and sink to my knees.
27
EVGENY
Iwatch the club floor on the security feed, bodies vibrating with the music in unnatural shades of black and blue. Everyone on the dance floor is lost in the moment, lost to the music, the alcohol, the drugs. The pounding bass reaches me only as a tremor through the soles of my shoes.
They’re lost in a way I wish I could be, lost enough to forget the pain I don’t believe will ever go away. Like the pain of my burn scars, it will be with me until the day I die. The pain of loss, of emptiness, of knowing what it is to hold someone and then lose them. The pain of knowing I had something I didn’t deserve, and that I lost it.
The mass shifts and sways like a flock of birds before sunset, rising, falling, rolling, undulating. I can’t help but remember the moment I met Eva on that same floor. Even then, crumpled against the wall where she’d fallen, in the dusty, strobing lights, blood trickling down the side of her face, she’d been beautiful.
She’d taken my breath away with her halo of dark hair, with the fire in her dark, almond-shaped eyes that looked at me withoutfear and met my gaze without flinching. Something inside me had responded to her blazing spirit.
I should have known then that my heart wasn’t mine anymore. More than that, once I knew she was a hacker, I should have had Dmitri deal with her, teach her a lesson that would keep her away from Bratva business and out of my life for good.
Even now, I wonder why I reacted the way I did, though I already know why. I’d forced people to work for me, whether to cover a debt or because I needed what they offered. But never once had I kept someone in my house. Dmitri had asked if I was mad, and I had been.
I still was.
I’d told myself it was anger, told myself it was her punishment, told myself I needed her under lock and key until she gave me what I wanted. Then I would be done with her. But I should have known. Ihadknown Eva was already under my skin, and I hadn’t been able to admit it. It was not who I was, and so I was safe.
Except now, Eva has done far more than work her way under my skin. In the months we’ve been together, she’s become an indelible part of me, of my life, in a way I know I will never be able to change. In a way, it feels like she ripped my heart out and took it with her that day. Except she left a piece of herself behind, a festering wound that will not close.
And now I feel incomplete without her. I will always feel incomplete. It’s an incontrovertible fact.
The door opens and closes, a softsnickI ignore.
Why did I think I could have a life with anyone, much less a woman like Eva? How had I, with a heart as sealed to the world as a steel door, ever begun to believe in a fairy tale as ridiculous as one in which I found a lasting love?
That was not, and never had been, my reality.
A glass of whiskey lands on the desk, neat, no garnish. Dmitri settles into the chair across from me. I’m in his chair, but he wouldn’t dare ask me to move. He knows his place.
I should have known mine.
Dmitri stays quiet, sipping his whiskey, and though I keep my gaze on the screens, I feel his stare burn the side of my neck.
“Do you have something to say?” It’s a growl I feel in the back of my throat, low and cautioning.
My second-in-command takes a deep breath, lets it out as a sigh, and shifts forward, pinning me with his gaze. “Look, Evgeny. You need to talk to Eva. Tell her the truth. I have evid?—”
“No.”
