7. Dmitri
7
DMITRI
I t took my hacker, Claus, only a few minutes to narrow down on Layla’s location. When I arrive at the rundown bar Layla found herself at, she’s shamelessly flirting with the bartender.
The moment she sees me, her eyes go wide. My suit jacket is hiding most of the blood-stained shirt beneath, but I certainly look like I’ve had better days. My driver has been insistent on taking me to the hospital, but I have no intention of making my crossfire with my father publicly known. I have a personal doctor who I’ll have assess it, but first I had to make sure that Layla was safe.
She jumps off her stool as I casually lean over for her drink and throw it back. It does nothing to quieten the raging storm inside of me. I left Elanee behind… like a fucking coward. Unable to protect her, just like my fucking mother. Elanee might loathe me, but I resented myself even more, especially knowing that the only reason Elanee fell prey to my father was because of one denominator: me. She was caught in his web, and right now, I couldn’t do a damn fucking thing about it. I savor the wound in my shoulder; in fact, I deserved far worse.
All these years I’d been working against him, only to be humbled by the reality that I was still nothing compared to his reach. Five fucking years she’d been gone. How long had they’d been in association? What’d he do to her? Why—
“Why are you bleeding?” Layla demands, snapping me out of my spiraling thoughts. She tries to fix my shirt jacket in case anyone else notices my disheveled state. There are only two other people in the bar this early in the morning. She’s immediately on damage control for my public reputation. It would raise too many questions. Sully my grandfather’s company and everything that I’d built thus far. But I hadn’t thought of any of that. Didn’t care for any of it right now, either.
“We need to leave,” I grit out. Those bastards are most likely still watching this bar. I throw a bill on the counter to pay for her drinks and what I imagine to be a generous tip. Layla offers the bartender an apologetic goodbye and doesn’t hesitate, following me into the back of the waiting car.
“When was the last time you spoke to your parents?” I ask.
“Tonight. Why?” Her eyebrows furrow. “Does this have to do with Elanee? And are you going to explain to me why the fuck you’re bleeding?”
My driver pulls out onto the street already en route to my private practitioner, who usually patches me up if I have unfortunate run-ins such as these.
I breathe out shakily, feeling lightheaded, most likely from the blood loss. Again, I savor its punishment. “I don’t know how…but she’s involved with my father.”
Layla turns a noticeable shade paler. “The Bratva?”
I nod and wince as I shift awkwardly, relishing the shooting pain erupting from my shoulder. “She’s being watched by him. I don’t know how they got caught up, but it’s most likely due to retaliation toward me. I promise Layla, I’ll get her out of this mess.”
“What? Why the fuck didn’t you take her tonight? We have to go back!”
My gaze pins her into place. “Listen to me very carefully. You are not to approach her under any circumstance. If you do, a hit will be made on you and your parents as well. Possibly other people you love as well.”
Her expression twists into an anguished rage. Seeing her like this… because of me, I now notice an entirely different, uncomfortable pain. One in my chest. I’d hurt them both, unsuspecting, even when I’d always made sure to keep so many at a distance.
Silence fills the car. I’d been so stupid to think he wouldn’t weave himself into my life somehow. I haven’t laid eyes on him in twenty-five years, since that faithful day he turned my mother and I into outcasts. We flew back to New York and never returned. I don’t even have any memories of him since then. The one thing I do know is I’ve loathed him all of these years.
And this… capturing Elanee. I wince as pain shoots up my arm from my hands fisting.
I’ll kill him for it.
“So, what are we going to do?” Layla asks way too calmly, her resolve reminding me far too much of Elanee’s.
“There is no we.”
She scoffs. “There’s always been we . And like fuck I’m not freeing my sister from a psycho.”
Agony shoots through my jaw as I grind my teeth. Elanee would hate her sister being involved. But out of the two, Layla had always been the fighter. Not a killer, but she wasn’t a pushover either. But even this was in over her head.
And much like her sister, Layla was not someone to be told what to do. If I don’t include her in this, she’ll most likely do something reckless and get herself killed in the process.
Fuck.
“Let me think on it some. I’ll start moving around some pieces,” I say. Because although I’d been underhanding my father’s business and phantom movements throughout the city even though he still lived in Russia, he’d never taken something so personally from me.
I’d buried my feelings for Elanee five years ago when she earnestly and openly despised my existence. But despite that, I still wouldn’t let him have her.
The fact is, no one can know about the situation either.
The image and memory of Elanee’s pleading expression from tonight and the branded amethyst bracelet come to mind.
I’ll destroy him in every way.
The self-proclaimed ‘Lion’ was soon to meet his demise.