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Rodion holds up his hands and edges towards the door. Timofey moves with him, maintaining his position between me and his hitman.
Just before Rodion walks through the open garage door, he turns back to me. “In case no one has told you, you ought to start updating your will. The women Timofey loves have a bad habit of turning up dead.”
I should be focused on the “dead” part. That’s the important piece of the puzzle. Still, my heart and mind are snagged on the idea that Timofey has been in love. There have been women in his life that were close to him. Women who knew him maybe as well or even better than I do.
Those kinds of thoughts are still muddying the waters of my mind when Rodion leaves and I see Timofey lunge for the nearest car.
He digs around in the glove box for a few seconds. When he stands up, there is a gun in his hand.
“Timofey,” I gasp, reaching for his wrist. “No!”
He shakes me off and stomps towards the garage door. He’s moving like he can’t even hear me. Like I’m not even here.
“Timofey!” I move in front of him and plant two useless hands on his chest.
He keeps walking, plowing me backward.
I wrap an arm around his waist and raise my other hand to touch his face. “Timofey. Don’t do this. Please.”
And there it is. He looks down at me.
I keep talking, trying to use the moment wisely. “You don’t want to do this right now,” I tell him. “Don’t let him get a rise out of you.”
His blue eyes are impossibly dark. They narrow to slits. “I’m not doing this because he goaded me into it. He disrespected me. I have to answer in kind.”
“He thought you sent someone to kill him!”
“And I told him I didn’t,” Timofey growls.
“Just like he told you he didn’t kill Emily.” The woman’s name is bitter on my tongue. I hate bringing her up now when I’m still flushed from what just happened on the hood of the car. I want to be the one who brings him back to himself, not this mysterious woman he once loved. Still, I’m desperate enough to use whatever cards I have at my disposal.
He shakes his head. “It’s not the same.”
“Maybe not,” I concede. “But shouldn’t you figure out who tried to kill him? Maybe that will be important.”
Timofey stares after Rodion’s dark figure disappearing down the drive. His grip on the gun loosens and his arm goes slack.
My body sags in relief. “Thank you.”
“It wasn’t for you,” he snaps. “Now simply isn’t the right time to kill him.”
“So… you’re going to kill him later?” I ask.
Timofey turns to me, and I almost don’t recognize him. For a few blissful minutes, I felt cared for in his hands. Now, he looks at me like he doesn’t even know me.
“Whether I do or not, that is Bratva business.Mybusiness.” He replaces the gun in the glove compartment and turns towards the door. “It has nothing to do with you.”
66
TIMOFEY
I should have fucked Piper in a linen closet.
Or the tool shed out back.
Or one of the countless, identical, anonymous guest rooms in the east wing of the house.
The point is, it should have been somewhere random. Somewhere I never go. A room where I’d never have to walk in and imagine her naked in front of me, confident and wet and willing. A place where the imprint of her curves wouldn’t be left on the hood of one of my favorite cars.
