Chapter 1 Loss #2
“What, I have to be Russian to speak it?” The banter was familiar, which was also why Otto knew it only agitated Kirill because of what his use of the language actually represented.
But Lina’s head had dropped while he’d been looking away, and something in Otto’s chest pinched like it tended to when she cried. He didn’t have it in him to be polite.
“What if you get reassigned?” Kirill asked, jarring Otto back to the moment with the ludicrous question.
Otto shot his friend a glare. “Why the fuck would I get reassigned? I do my job.”
Kirill’s lips twitched as if he thought something in Otto’s answer was funny, just for a second.
He tucked his hands into the pockets of his slacks.
“Try not to pass out when I tell you this, my friend—but Lina’s twenty-six.
Single. Pakhan’s not gonna want to leave that bargaining chip on the table, if you catch my drift.
” He tilted his head toward the socializing group.
“There might be mixed feelings in the clan about her Italian heritage, but if Pakhan offers her up we both know that offer comes with perks none of those assholes would turn down.”
Every muscle in Otto’s body tightened and a growl built in his chest. His rational brain recognized the logic in Kirill’s words, yet still he wanted to rip the man’s tongue from his mouth for speaking them.
Kirill continued. “And whoever she’s given to, that guy probably won’t appreciate having you hovering over his new trophy wife.” He lowered his voice as a shadow of a smirk tipped his lips. “Especially with how you look at her.”
Otto drew a hard breath, knowing better than to fall for the obvious trap in that final statement, and shoved from the wall. “Fuck off with that bullshit.” Before Kirill could argue, Otto strode forward, finally cutting through the edge of the throng and making his way to the table where Lina sat.
He still didn’t get there fast enough to intercept Pyotr, and the curl on Pyotr’s lips was all he needed to know the low words the brat spoke were not kind, supportive, or laced with empathy.
Lina’s spine stiffened and she leaned bodily away, her head turned so that Otto’s view became a veritable wall of half-braided, light brown hair.
Pyotr chuckled and waved an arm in a lazy gesture. “Don’t be so upset. How was I supposed to know you’d be moving back in?” He shrugged, his grin broadening. “You know, if you actually mingled once in a while, maybe you’d find—”
Lina was on her feet in a flash, her palm striking her cousin’s face and the unmistakable sound of the slap echoing through the room.
Ill-placed pride lanced Otto’s chest and he held himself back, just out of reach. Somewhere equidistant beyond Pyotr, he noted Grisha hovering. Watching.
Pyotr took one step backward, staring wide-eyed at Lina. “You— Did you—”
“My mother,” Lina said on a strained, broken gasp that sucked that feeling of pride right out of Otto’s chest, “just died. I’m so very sorry if I don’t feel like laughing it up right now, you insensitive prick!”
In the silence, the distinctive thud of steel impacting hardwood exactly one time resonated on the air. And Otto knew well it was the only warning Lina would get.
He closed the distance between them and laid a hand on her shoulder, leaning down to speak quietly into her ear. “Let me take you home, Lina.” While the house she might prefer still counted as such.
She drew a shuddering breath and dipped her head in a short nod.
That was all the adjustment he needed to see the tears that still sparkled in her lashes, and the tracks that stained her cheeks.
Otto locked his jaw to keep from saying something he’d regret, tightened his hold on her shoulder, and allowed himself a split-second to lift a warning glare in Pyotr’s direction.
It was out of line, arguably, but if anyone had gone too far here it was her fucking cousin.
The cousin Lina had comforted during his own time of loss and pain.
Pyotr had the sense to take another step back and avert his eyes.
Otto steered Lina away, keeping her tucked against his side with a single arm. No one tried to stop them.
The funeral had been on Friday. She was expected out of the rowhouse before Monday.
Saturday, Evelina slept in too late and struggled to drag herself through anything at all.
She attempted to organize. She’d woken up to discover a pile of boxes and materials had been delivered along with a coffee—the latter of which Otto had consumed while she slept—as an unsubtle reminder.
Her father was not known for his patience.
But the task was daunting, and hard, and crushing. In every room, she found fresh tears waiting to be cried.
Her mother had been gone nine whole days. The house would be effectively gone on the eleventh day.
By Sunday, Evelina realized she was mourning not only her mother, but also her home, her life, and a large part of her freedom.
Living under her father’s and cousin’s thumbs would mean living under their control.
They had been difficult when she’d been in high school.
She could only imagine how demanding her traditionalist father would be now that she was a woman post-college.
There were many in the bratva who believed she ought to have been married by her age.
Because marriage works out so well.
Evelina wiped at yet another tear and forced the thoughts away. The very last thing she wanted to do was abandon this home she’d found herself in, only to lose her mother in it, too. But she had no choice—the bruise on her leg was proof enough of that.
Otto stepped into the room with two large boxes and two smaller ones piled up in his arms, only half of his face visible. “Here’re the last of the boxes from the attic,” he said, already moving toward the donation pile.
Her heart constricted. There was so much to go through.
And it wasn’t like her father’s house wasn’t large enough for it all.
He just wasn’t giving her enough time to emotionally, let alone rationally, process.
It was a manipulation tactic. She knew that, she hated it, but she had no way to overcome it.
All she could do was turn her attention back to the list she’d written out for herself in some desperate attempt to be organized.
She was the same height as her mother had been, a sprightly five-foot, five-inches without heels, but her mother had been model-thin.
She was not. There was no sense keeping her mother’s clothes.
That eased the guilt a little, because she felt weird about the idea of walking around in her mother’s clothes, too. But then there was the—
Otto set two dirty, narrow boxes onto the island beside her, jarring her focus. “I didn’t think you wanted to donate these, but you haven’t said.”
Evelina whipped her head around, irritated at the intrusion, and opened her mouth to snap at him.
Her gaze dropped to the boxes and recognition slammed into her.
“Shit. I forgot.” Her throat swelled. How the hell had she managed to forget?
It wasn’t everyday a girl learned she had an aunt she’d never known about, let alone promised to find.
Otto pulled her physically away from the list, away from the kitchen island, and cupped her shoulders firmly. “Lina, breathe. It’s been a fuckin’ shitshow these past couple weeks. This”—he tilted his head toward the shoeboxes from her mother’s mysterious past—“will keep a little longer.”
She dragged a breath in, clamped her lips shut and held it, then exhaled at a measured pace.
“Right.” She still wanted to disagree. “I guess … it’s not like I’m letting Mamma down now.
” Familiar burning crept up behind her eyes.
How she had more tears, she didn’t even know.
She fought them down and cleared her throat.
“Thanks, Otto. You’ve been surprisingly non-jerkish in all this. I appreciate it.”
He huffed and moved a hand to mess up her hair, the way he used to do when she was a teen. “Yeah, well, someone ought to be.”
A smile tugged at her lips for the briefest of seconds and Evelina pushed him off, turning back toward the island. “You were right, anyway, about those boxes. I’m keeping them. But I don’t want to risk someone finding them. Where can we pack them that snoopy dickwads are less likely to see?”
Otto walked around and pilfered a cold water from the fridge. “You might haveta put them in your personal suitcase. They’re just pictures and letters, right? They won’t set off anything. And they’re not heavy. Just means you’ll have less room for somethin’ of yours.”
Evelina nodded, recognizing his logic, but any response she had was drowned beneath the ringing of her phone.
Sighing at the interruption of her already tight schedule, she tugged the device from her pocket and immediately found herself debating swiping the red button at the sight of Pyotr’s name on the screen.
“Who is it?” Otto asked, obviously seeing her facial response.
“The prick,” she said, her lip curling. She’d forgotten to call the cleaning crew, dammit.
She needed to get that done before she stepped foot into her old room after the horrifying thing he’d so casually told her on Friday.
Using my old room for sex games, really?
Disgusting jackass. But she was just agitated enough thinking about it again to go ahead and swipe the green instead, so she lifted the phone to her ear. “What?”
“Evie,” Pyotr greeted, “you need to get home immediately.” His tone was tight, but otherwise unreadable, and it sent a chill down her spine.
Evelina cocked her hip on reflex. “You know I detest that nickname, and more importantly, I don’t take orders from you, Pyotr.” To say nothing for the whole ‘home’ thing.
Pyotr’s voice hardened. “You do today.”
Both her brows stretched up her forehead and she noted Otto rounding again closer. Her own voice was sharp when she asked, “Excuse me?”
“The pakhan, Uncle Mikhail, is dead.”