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He leans in the kitchen doorway, his perfect physique only thinly veiled by a fitted black t-shirt and blue jeans. Much more formal than usual, but perhaps he’s realized he doesn’t need to wear a suit twenty-four hours a day.
I’m still not sure if he doesn’t sleep in one when he’s alone.
“Every Thursday is an occasion,” he says, the corners of his eyes crinkling in a warm smile.
Damn, I’ve missed that look. It’s enough to warm my entire house.
“But you’re in an unusually good mood,” I say, squinting my eyes at him. “What’s the deal?”
He shrugs. “You know what, I wasn’t going to talk about it, but I see you’ve noticed that I wasn’t feeling so great this past week.”
“Should I have said something?” I ask, only now realizing that my silence about his mood may not have been the right move. Men are so complicated, and the ones I’ve dated would rather die than admit they had feelings at all.
“You’ve done nothing wrong,” Avraam says, leaving the doorway and walking into the kitchen. His head nearly scrapes the ceiling. “I’ve been the one causing issues, and I apologize. I guess I owe you an explanation.”
This is shockingly mature, and I’m not sure I’m willing to believe him until he actually tells me what’s been going on.
“Do you want to eat first, or…?” I ask, looking toward the cold pot of ramen on the stove.
“It can wait,” he replies, sitting down at the table and touching one of the roses.
Curious, I slide into the chair perpendicular to him, not wanting to lose his face in the sea of roses if I sat across from him. I place my hands on the table and lace my fingers together, leaning forward to smell his cologne mixed with the roses.
I almost forget he has something to say, it smells so good.
“So, I have other family,” he begins. “It’s not just me.”
I nod. Family wasn’t something I dared ask him about. I figured if anyone was still present in his life, I would’ve heard about them already. There’s plenty I could say about my own family, but I don’t have much of a connection to them anymore. It’s not worth it to bring them up unless this relationship goes somewhere serious.
Avraam opens his mouth to speak, but then his eyebrows come together in a frown, and he looks toward the kitchen window. A deep rumble from outside shakes the table, the sound of an engine idling in front of the house.
Who is that?
Before I can pose the question, glass shatters and the sickening pop of bullets nearly tears my eardrums open. Avraam leaps over the table, tackling me to the ground as the roses explode into crimson confetti.
A celebration of death.
Blood rushes to my head as Avraam pins me to the ground, his weight suffocating me as the shooting continues. I struggle against him, but he uses his body to cover my completely. For a moment, I imagine he’s the one trying to kill me, but as the shooting stops, I realize he’s saving my life.
I gasp for air as he jumps off, but he’s not nearly as stunned as I am. He reaches into the back of his pants, pulling out a gun and dashing to the window. I’d be running the opposite direction if I were him, but he seems not to care for his safety.
Tires screech as a car flees the scene, but Avraam isn’t ready to let them leave. He fires blindly out the window, yelling in Russian as he empties the entire magazine into the front yard.
“What the fuck is going on?” I say, my voice shaking as I climb to my feet.
“Someone wants me dead,” he growls, flinging his empty pistol to the floor. It slides through the rose petals and disappears under the table. “And I think I know who it is.”
17
Avraam
Idon’t want to believe that my own brother would put a hit on me, but I can’t imagine who else it would be. He’s the only one who knows that I’m in town, other than a few people that work under me and Kimberly.
None of those people have connections to drive-by shooters except for Damien.
That bastard. I thought I could trust him, but a lifetime of crime has twisted him into a sorry excuse for a human being.
I guess Bartek was right, then. A man’s word means nothing out here anymore.
