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It hits me all at once that Yasha has been friends with Ivan for years. They are close. He’s his best friend and his second in command.
He probably knows things.
Jorden slaps the back of his headrest, jostling the seat. “Pipe down up there. We don’t want to hear anything from the help.”
“Says the waitress,” Yasha mumbles, earning another slap to the headrest from Jorden.
I wave her off. “It’s okay. Actually… Yasha?”
He’s been trying to talk to me the entire drive, but as soon as I address him, he tenses. “What?”
“What do you know about Katerina?”
“Me?” he asks nervously. “Oh, um…not much. Nothing.”
“Which is it?” Jorden bites. “Not much or nothing?”
God, I love her. I don’t have it in me to fight right now, but Jorden is in a take-no-prisoners kind of mood.
Yasha sighs. “I know her family is… They’re the fucking worst. Katerina was raised like a horse for breeding.”
“I can relate,” I mumble.
Yasha doesn’t hear me and keeps talking. “Ivan and her family have never gotten along. It was always tense because he didn’t like the way they did things. They still don’t see eye to eye on most things.”
“Why did they get engaged in the first place if their families didn’t get along?” The words are out of my mouth before the likely answer comes to me. “Did he…did he love her?”
The knife twists in my gut.Ivan in love.What a sight that would be. What an experience to be on the receiving side of that.
“Ivan and I are close, but we aren’tthatclose. We don’t talk about love.”
Jorden clicks her tongue in disappointment. “Classic men. God forbid you show your emotions.”
Yasha sits up and looks at her in the rearview mirror. “I express my emotions just fine, thanks. I’m not afraid to bare myself to the world.”
Jorden rolls her eyes again, but I notice the blush creeping up her cheeks.
Yasha pulls down a narrow alley and then into the private parking garage beneath the building. The pillars are crumbling and covered in layers of graffiti. Trash overflows in the trash cans and litters the cracked cement. But there’s a guard waiting at the back door with a gun strapped to his hip.
As Jorden gets out of the car, she wiggles her fingers at the man and grins. “Hi, Leon.”
Yasha looks between the two of them and frowns. I know exactly what Jorden is doing, even if Yasha doesn’t.
My friend loops her arm through mine and pulls me towards the door, saying loudly, “You’re going to love it here, Cora. So many handsome men hanging around to help you get over this little hurdle.”
Then Leon leads us wordlessly into the building as the door closes on Yasha.
74
CORA
Despite all Jorden’s smiling and flouncing, Leon doesn’t say a word to her all the way up the elevator. When we reach her door, he assures us the apartment has been swept and tells Jorden to call if she needs anything.
“What about a backrub?” she hollers after him.
Leon doesn’t answer.
“No sense of humor,” she grumbles.
