4. Evelyn
4
EVELYN
“ W hat the fuck do you want?”
I blurt it out without thinking, the minute I hear crunching glass and turn to see a man in a dark suit standing in the doorway of my now-ruined shop. I can’t see his features at first, and my stomach tightens, my nerves on edge for another confrontation. He doesn’t look anything like the Crow who came and threatened me earlier this evening, but what do I know about these kinds of people? Maybe he’s the boss, here to tie up loose ends. Here to see his lackeys’ handiwork. And the grief and anger surging through me is too strong to think about what I say before the words leave my lips.
And then he steps into the light, and I realize his features are familiar. In the fog of everything happening in the moment, it takes me a second to place him, but then it hits me.
Dimitri . The man I danced with last year at the Met.
He looks taken aback by the sharpness in my voice, his eyes widening briefly.
“I came to see what happened. And if I can offer any help, Evelyn?—”
“You remember my name?” Something jolts through me, a feeling I don’t want right now, hearing him say my name in his rough-edged Russian accent.
I don’t know why he’s here, and I don’t want to deal with this right now. All I want is to burst into tears, and I’m holding them back with all the effort I have, so that I can try to survey the damage and come up with some kind of plan.
But I have no idea what plan could possibly fix this. I’m going to have to give Angela’s check back to her, I think nonsensically, looking at the scraps of fabric on the floor. Her dress is ruined, burned, like everything else here. And I won’t be able to make her anything else in time.
I’m not sure I’m going to be making anything ever again.
“Of course I remember your name. How could I forget?” The man sounds almost amused, which just pisses me off more. He’s looking at the ruin of everything I’ve built in my life, and he’s wondering why I don’t recognize him.
“What do you want?,” I ask flatly, irritation coloring my tone.
“You nearly fell on the ice outside, before a party at the Met. I caught you.” He gives me a lopsided smile. “And then we danced. I asked for your number, but you turned me down.”
“Why the walk down memory lane? That doesn’t answer my original question,” I tell him tartly, crossing my arms over my chest. “What do you want?”
“To see what happened.” He takes a step further into the store, more of the broken glass crunching under his fine leather dress shoes with a sound that makes me want to scream, and for the first time I notice the man behind him.
He screams security . He’s all muscle, filling out his black suit in a way that makes it clear he had to have it specially made, with a thick neck and broad shoulders, his hair cut in a militaristic buzz. His ice-blue eyes are scanning the building, but not taking in the damage. It’s as if he’s looking for someone.
“You’ve seen it,” I say crisply. “If that’s all, then you can go. You and your goon.” I feel more sure than ever that the man in front of me has something to do with this, and my anger is masking a fine thread of fear that’s starting to wind its way through me. I thought I could stand up to the punk who came into my store earlier, but this man is something more. I can feel it, his physical presence taking up more than just the space he’s in, and it makes my stomach twist uncomfortably.
The one with the buzz cut looks entirely unaffected at being called a goon , but the other man chuckles. “We’re off on the wrong foot this time, I see,” he says calmly, taking another step towards me. I tense, fighting off the urge to flinch back and away from him. I don’t want him to see that I’m afraid, but I’m also unsure of why he’s here, or what he wants from me. “Let’s try this again.” He steps forward, extending a hand. “Dimitri Yashkov. And I’m here because I wanted to see what the extent of damage was to your shop.”
The memory of that night rushes back, suddenly at the forefront of my mind—his arm around me, keeping me from falling on the ice, the feeling of his hand splayed over my velvet dress, pressed against my spine, the scent of his cologne. As he moves closer, I can smell it again, juniper woods mixed in with the charred scent of my store’s burned interior, and I swallow hard, once again fighting the urge to back away.
I felt that this man was a danger to me when we met, for all that he saved me from falling. And now I feel that all over again.
“How did you know about my shop?” The words stick in my throat. “Are you with that gang? The Crows?” Another memory comes back to me from that night, of me asking him what he did for a living. I’m in upper management. The double meaning of that suddenly seems clear. “Do you run the Crows?”
Dimitri laughs, a clear, cold sound that sends a shudder down my spine. “No,” he says flatly. “I have no affiliation with them, other than the fact that they’re a thorn in my side. And I know about your shop because I make it a point to know what’s going on in the territory that I’m going to inherit.”
Territory . My conversation with the Crow earlier comes back in a rush. “Shit,” I whisper, and this time I do take a step back, three quick, hurried steps as my hip bumps into the charred remains of what used to be a chair. The ashy wood crumbles, and that scent of burned wood and paint fills my nose again, making my eyes water. “Are you Bratva?”
Dimitri chuckles. “I’m surprised you know anything about the Bratva. You certainly didn’t clock it when we met the first time.”
I swallow hard. “One of that group—the ones that call themselves the Crows—came by earlier this evening. He threatened me. And he told me my business was in Bratva territory.” I press my lips together tightly. “You’re right, I don’t know anything about Bratva, or gangs, or any of this. But he mentioned it earlier, and you just said your territory —so I’m smart enough to at least add two and two, Dimitri .”
Something flares in his gaze when I say his name. “Oh, I think you’re much smarter than that, Evelyn,” he murmurs, his voice momentarily smooth as silk. But it hardens again as I see him mulling over what I just said, as he speaks again.
“You said they threatened you?” His jaw tightens. “How so?”
“He wanted money. Protection from the Bratva, he said. Protection from you , I presume.” I narrow my eyes at him. “Which makes me wonder if this has something to do with you. Your orders. Since you’ve so conveniently shown up?—”
“ Chertovy ublyudki!” Dimitri curses harshly under his breath, in a sudden burst of what sounds like Russian to me. My skin prickles at the violence of it, the sharp words bitten out between his clenched teeth.
“Did you give them money?” he asks sharply. “For their supposed protection ?”
I shake my head. “No. Of course not. I’m not just going to give money to some asshole because he walks in here and says?—”
“Then this was their doing. Chert voz’mi,” Dimitri growls, cursing again. “The other two businesses that were targeted must have reacted similarly.” He turns to the muscled man behind him. “Vik, see if you can contact the other two.”
“You’re not going to go see them personally?” I narrow my eyes at him. “Why am I getting the special treatment?” In the back of my head, I have a creeping suspicion why. Last year’s party is all coming back to me, and I remember the way Dimitri touched me. The way he looked at me. The disappointment in his eyes when I told him no and walked away.
“I want to help.” He looks around the room, taking in everything I’ve been looking at for the last half-hour, since the flames were put out and the fire department left. The burned clothing, the charred furniture and mannequins, the destroyed papers and records and patterns. My chest squeezes so tightly just looking at it that I feel like I can’t breathe. This was everything to me, and now it’s gone. Just like that.
Because someone decided that they wanted to make an example of me.
Anger burns hotly in my chest. “Help?” I shake my head sharply. “This is your fault. They told me about you, and when I refused to have anything to do with it, this happened. This clearly has to do with you?—”
Dimitri nods. “I know.” His voice is taut, and he sounds angry, too. “I’m sorry, Evelyn?—”
“Sorry doesn’t help anything.”
He nods, swallowing hard. I can see wheels turning in his head, that he’s thinking about something, but I can’t imagine what. “This is unacceptable,” he says finally, that cold anger still threading through his words. As pissed as I am at him, at everything, it is oddly comforting to have someone standing here with me who is angry about it, too. Who is also a target. Dahlia will be incensed when I tell her, but it won’t be the same. She’ll commiserate with me, and she’ll listen, but it won’t be personal to her.
This seems like it’s personal to Dimitri.
“These men sent someone to threaten you. They tried to extort you, and then they burned your shop, along with two other businesses in this area, because they want to send me a message. I will do something about this,” he says sharply. “I will have to discuss with?—”
“ Discuss ? I thought you said it was your territory. Are you not the one in charge?”
“I’m the heir.” Dimitri runs a hand through his dark blond hair, looking suddenly tired. “My father can be difficult. But I will address this?—”
“That doesn’t help me now. That doesn’t help with any of this.” I feel tired too, dragged under by a surge of exhaustion as I look around the wreckage again. “It’s all well and good that you can give me the reasons, but you can’t actually do anything about this. You can’t help me now. So just—go, okay? I appreciate you stopping by to look in on your territory, or whatever, but I don’t belong to you, and neither does my shop. I’ve never had anything to do with you, or this—gang war that I’m somehow in the middle of. So if you don’t mind, I’d like to be left alone to figure out how to pick up the pieces.”
Dimitri pauses, drawing his lower lip between his teeth as if he’s deciding whether to say something or not. He looks as if he’s weighing something, which confuses me, and irritates me too. All I want right now is to be left alone. I want to call my best friend, and I want to cry. And this man, handsome as he is, is rapidly wearing out his welcome.
“I can help you,” he says finally, and his gaze catches mine, a sudden intensity in his blue eyes that pins me like a butterfly to a corkboard. “And you can help me, too. If you agree.”
“ I can help you ?” I snort, shaking my head. “I don’t think I’m in much of a position to help anyone right now. And truthfully, I don’t think I want to. You have a lot of nerve, actually, asking me to help you, when?—”
“You haven’t heard my offer.” His gaze is still holding mine, unrelenting, and I let out a sigh as I rub my hands over my face. My mascara is long since cried off, so nothing to worry about there.
“Fine.” I look at him tiredly. “What is it?”
“Marry me.”
For a second, I’m not sure I’ve heard him right. I study his face for signs of a joke, but other than the smallest twitch at the corners of his mouth, he looks deadly serious.
“This isn’t funny,” I bite out, but Dimitri doesn’t falter.
“I’m not joking.”
Impatience pushes its way to the surface, mingling with my exhaustion and anger. “How on earth would marrying you fucking fix anything?” I snap. “I don’t even know you. I met you once?—”
“---and promptly forgot me.”
“Exactly. An even better reason not to marry you.” I look at him as if he’s lost his mind, which clearly, he has. “I don’t know what you’re thinking, but?—”
“Not a real marriage,” Dimitri clarifies, and I huff out a sharp breath.
“What?”
“Just listen,” he says, a bit impatiently. “It would be real, in that it would be legal. But between us, we would know the truth.”
“And what truth is that?” My arms tighten over my chest. I don’t know what he’s up to, but I don’t trust any of this.
“That it would be an arrangement that suits us both. Currently, I’m being pushed into an unwanted engagement. You’ve just lost your shop. I can’t convince my father that the marriage isn’t in my best interests, and you—” Dimitri looks around the remains of my boutique again. “I’m just guessing here, but I doubt you have the means to fix this all yourself.”
The comment feels like a jab to the heart, but I somehow manage to avoid letting it show on my face. Or at least—I think I do. “No,” I say quietly. “I don’t know how I’m going to recover from this.”
“So make a deal with me.” He smiles, as handsome as any devil. “Pretend to be my wife, and I’ll cover every cost of fixing this place for you. I’ll restore it however you like. No expense will be spared. And in return?—”
“I hand over my life to you?” I shake my head. “That’s too steep a cost, even for?—”
“Not forever,” Dimitri clarifies. “Just until my father passes. He’s elderly, and not well, but he still has an iron hand in a good deal of the Bratva’s business. When he’s gone, there will be no one to challenge me. I’ll give you a divorce, and we’ll go our separate ways. I’ll be free to pursue a different marriage of my choice, or not, as I prefer—and you’ll have your shop back. And,” he pauses, still holding my gaze. “I will make sure these men leave you alone. You’ll have my protection. They won’t target you again, not when you’re my wife.”
“They offered me protection, too.” I glare at him. “First I was being extorted for money, and now for marriage.”
“Do you want to marry one of them?” Dimitri chuckles, and I narrow my eyes.
“It wasn’t offered.”
“Would you have said yes? I’m hurt.” He presses a hand to his chest, and I fight the urge to slap him. I’m not in a joking mood in the least, but he seems to be able to find some levity in all of this.
“No. I just—” I let out a long breath. “I’m in your territory, you said. My shop was destroyed because of your problems, and I’m supposed to give you something for helping me?”
“We both have a problem. We can be each other’s solution.” Dimitri looks at me, unwavering. “I could simply fix up your shop. But they’ll only attack it again, seeing that it clearly matters to me. Or, I can offer you better protection. I can keep you safe until all of this is resolved.”
I stare at him, trying to make sense of it. “It matters to you?” I repeat those few words, shaking my head. “Why? Why does this matter to you?”
Dimitri takes a step closer, enveloping me in his scent, making me feel briefly dizzy. My heart beats a little faster, my pulse leaping into my throat, and I swallow hard, looking for the resolve that I had that night at the party, the resolve to keep this man at arm’s length. But it’s already wavering. If he could help me?—
He reaches out, and his thumb brushes against my cheekbone, wiping away a mark of soot. “Because, Evelyn,” he says quietly?—
“I haven’t stopped thinking about you since the night I met you.”