Page 33 of Fractured Ties

“Then why not tell me what people say?”

Kolya shrugged. “Maybe I don’t want you to know what people say about me. Maybe I don’t want you to hear it, too.”

Oh.

She wasn’t sure what to make of that, either.

Kolya quieted then and glanced down at the napping pup on the large armrest between them. Sumerki had curled himself into a tight ball of black fur, with only his short ears occasionally twitching to say he was still alive and heard their voices.

Lifting a hand from the wheel, Kolya placed it on top of the pup’s back and stroked Sumerki before leaving his palm to rest on the dog’s lower half. His hand was so large, and Sumerki so small, that it practically swallowed half of the pup whole.

The kind act—the fact he even remembered the quiet pup sleeping there—made Maya smile, but at the same time, her gaze was drawn to the ink coloring Kolya’s hand and fingers.

The upturned spider—an active thief in a life.

ОМУТ across his knuckles—her uncle had had that once before he’d died of lung cancer, and he’d laughed when she asked what it meant. Don’t ever try to run, girl, and you won’t have to learn. Her brother clarified later: it was designated to a man who was hard to get away from.

On his pointer finger, a dot inside a circle.

That one didn’t make sense to her.

“You’re not an orphan,” Maya said quietly. “You have a brother.”

She didn’t miss how Kolya’s fingers twitched—a sure sign he understood what she was referring to, and maybe that her forwardness had taken him off guard.

“And a sister,” Kolya muttered, “as fucking annoying as she is.”

“Why the orphan ring, then?”

“I’m not an orphan, but I do rely only on myself,” Kolya replied, “and it works both ways.”

“You’re missing some rings, aren’t you?”

“Or I haven’t earned them yet,” he countered easily. “Or maybe there’s some I don’t want at all.”

“You didn’t seem to have a problem with the ones you have.”

Kolya chuckled dryly. “They fit me.”

How would she know?

“Which ones don’t you want, then?”

She could tell just by the way Kolya’s brow dipped and his smirk melted away, that he wasn’t comfortable with that question. Still, he surprised her by answering.

“Ones my father would like for me to wear … eventually,” he said.

“I don’t understand.”

Kolya’s gaze drifted to her, but just as fast, moved back to the road in front of them. “You don’t even realize who you’re sitting beside, do you?”

Sure, she did.

A vor.

A criminal.

Killer.