Please be okay, Max.
I don’t know what I’ll do if he dies because of my foolish plan. We finally started to trust each other, and look where that got us.
“Oh Kai, I’m so proud of you.” Dimitri cradles his broken arm with his good hand. His eyes shine, not with tears or pain, but joy.
Crazy bastard actuallyisproud.
I want to vomit all over his shoes.
“You got the locket, stole Max from Roman, and made it out of the blizzard…all to reach me. I’ve finally got everything I need.” His lumpy mess of a nose matches an already swelling eye. Blood drips from his chin to his collar.
In spite of his injuries, his expression stays psychopath-calm. The face of a man who’s won.
“Everything you need?” The question pops out before I can stop myself.
“Pavel, get the first aid kit.” Dimitri smiles at me. “Yes, what I need for Roman Kozlov to lose everything he thought he could keep safe. His wife, dead. His daughter, hating him. And soon, his Bratva will fall at our feet.”
Why…how…when… For fifteen years I trusted you, and now this?
I strain against my bindings, my voice breaking. “Why?”
“Because he killed my mother.” Dimitri waves for me to wait as Pavel comes back in with the kit.
As if I could speak after the bomb he dropped. Funny how he’s never once mentioned that vital fact in the last fifteen years.
I’ve never even known why he hated Roman so much. I just assumed he was doing what I wanted without any agenda of his own.
I’m so ignorant.
I gulp, my throat thick with the scent of Max’s and Dimitri’s blood. “What?”
He digs around in the med kit and fills a syringe one-handed, injecting it into his thigh before capping the needle andpacking everything away. Like self-administering hard narcotics while injured is just another skill in his repertoire.
He planned for this.
“Thirty-five years ago, Roman got a girl pregnant. He was what, sixteen? Then he just ditched her and never glanced back.”
I choke down bile and steel the quiver in my voice. “Last time I checked, having sex isn’t a crime.”
“But abandoning a pregnant woman should be.” He secures a makeshift sling around his arm. “Anyhow, the girl, Marina Sorokin, had the baby. Me.”
Oh my god.
Dimitri’s Roman’s son. Sorokin’s his mother’s last name. That means I’m…
My brain scrambles to keep up with the constantly shifting realities. If he’d just stop talking, maybe I could manage to absorb some of these unsettling details.
Unfortunately for me, he continues. “Roman couldn’t be tied down by a wife or child. He was on the up-and-up in the Bratva, and my mother was a complication. A nuisance. Dragging him down.” He peers at me, ensuring I understand. “So he killed her.”
Is he joking? Days ago, I would have believed the story without question, but now… “Dimitri, you?—”
“He left her!” Dimitri waves his fist like a fucking cartoon villain. “Abandoned her. She was fifteen years old and pregnant, with no money or help. She couldn’t provide for me. We barely had enough cash or food to survive.” He takes a shaky breath. “Eventually, she got sick. I watched her get weaker and weaker because she couldn’t afford a doctor. I was there when she died.”
Surely he’s not serious.
I suck in a slow inhale, in through my nose, out through my mouth.
And then I rememberDimitritaught me that. Rather than fade, the panic grows.
