“Boneless,” I say. “In fact, I can give you a preview…”
I don’t getthat chance because she manages to be the cool head. We both know it’ll end up with her staying.
Something I’m both fine with and aware of the risks that come with it. Like Demyan’s wrath.
Demyan doesn’t scare me. I know him too well. And while I know he’s deadly, I can hold my own. Besides, it’s not going to come to death blows. If for some reason he went for it, I’d lay down my life rather than take his.
Alina would get over me more than she’d get over me killing her brother.
Not that it would come to that.
The driving force beneath all of this is love.
Friendship, brotherhood, and a mutual love for Alina.
Which is why he’d never kill me.
Alina.
He wouldn’t want her in pain, either.
So we’re stuck in this loop, him and me, of vitriol and his resentment, and the revelation that he finds me lacking when it comes to her. Of pain and not knowing how to get out of this.
Maybe before the baby, I could have walked from Alina.
If she’d let me.
But the thing is, we never expected this reciprocal love.
I am scared though.
Of making the mess worse. Of pushing Demyan too fast, too hard into a corner. Of Alina getting caught in the crosshairs of a war I don’t want, a war I’m trying to prevent.
So I don’t push her to stay as much as I’d like to.
Last night was a victory, and I’ll feed on that.
We linger at the door, but I’m glad that Svetlana hurries up with a cloth bag of containers, shattering the moment of no one willing to be the first to step away.
“For Albert.” Svetlana’s eyes narrow. “Who knows if he is cared for at the Yegorov house?”
She may as well have called Magda names and hurled insults in her perfectly polite Russian.
I bite my lip as Alina keeps a straight face. Albert, though, can smell what’s in the bag and dances in a circle beneath it, whining.
“Thank you,” Alina says. “I think he’s very excited.”
Svetlana nods, pets Albert, and then hurries off.
I look through the door where Gus and Zoltan stand talking. Gus sees me and opens the door for Alina.
I kiss her once more and send her and Albert out the door.
The moment she and Albert drive off with Gus, the bodyguard following them, my phone starts to buzz.
I pull it from my pocket and sigh, hitting answer. “What is it now, Demyan?”
His fury crackles down the phone to my ear.
