42. Arsen
42
ARSEN
“It has to be a death wish,” I continue in an icy snarl. “Because a burning desire to die as painfully and slowly as possible is the only reason I can think of for you to show up here like this.”
Charles Barnes is red-faced, paddling his legs in the air as I hold him off the ground at eye level. “Let… me… down…” he croaks.
I’m prepared to drop him like the trash he is only once he’s taken his dying breath, but Laila lays her hand on my arm before I get that far. “Let him go, Arsen. He’s not worth it.”
He isn’t—but she is.
So as much as I’d love to bury this fucker six feet under, I’d rather not do it in front of Laila.
“Go inside,” I tell her.
“I will. With you.”
His face is puffy, shifting from red to purple. A minute or two more and he’ll be dead weight—quite literally.
Laila shifts closer, wincing and favoring her right side. “Arsen, please. Just come inside with me.”
I consider my options for a second before I see Laila shiver again.
Then, reluctantly, I drag him a little closer, making sure he sees the threat in my eyes. “You’re walking away from this house because my wife took mercy on your life. Not because I spared you. Touch her again, though, and not even she will be able to save you.”
I drop him, and his legs buckle like matchsticks. He collapses into the mud, moaning softly.
I take Laila’s hand in mine and lead her inside. The moment we’re on the other side of the bolted gate, I turn to my wife. “Did he hurt you?”
Her hair is stuck to her face from the rain. She’s shaking her head, but her hand is cupped over her forearm.
I peel her fingers away—and promptly consider ripping the gate from the hinges and beating Charles over the head with it.
Red, fingerprint-shaped welts wrap around her arm, swelling more and more by the second. “That fucking bastard?—”
“It’s fine! It’s nothing.” She fists my shirt and pulls herself close to me, the heat of her body cutting through my frosty rage. “Just… stay with me.”
It takes every iota of self-restraint I possess to keep myself at her side. I grit my teeth. “You’re shaking.”
“I’m fine. I just didn’t expect him to show up here. I thought… I thought I could handle it.”
Her chin wobbles and she sways on her feet. Wordlessly, I hoist her into my arms and carry her back to the house. She doesn’t argue or pound her fists against my chest, which is how I know she’s not okay.
I take her straight to our bathroom and run a hot bath. She watches me work, but her eyes are unfocused. I have a feeling she’s not really here with me. When the bath is ready, I reach for the buttons of her blouse.
She blinks at me. “What are you doing?”
“I’m going to take off your clothes and get you in the tub. You’re soaked through from the rain.”
She nods weakly, and I help peel her wet clothes away and lower her into the tub.
Before I can back away, she reaches for my hand. “Will you get in with me?”
I have other things I need to be doing. I was supposed to leave thirty minutes ago, but I ran to the gates the second I heard Charles was here. Still, I strip down without hesitating and join her in the water. Laila makes room for me to settle behind her, and then reclines back against my chest.
After a few minutes, her trembling subsides and her shoulders relax.
“Now, I’m better,” she sighs.
I kiss her shoulder. “How’s your hip?”
“Better,” she admits. “Arsen, please don’t tell my mom about what just happened. I don’t want her to know he showed up here.”
I lift her arm out of the water. The marks are faint but still raw and red. “How will you explain this?”
“I’ll figure it out. I just don’t want to worry her.”
“Very well.” I press another kiss to the tender bruise. “She won’t hear about it from me.”
“Thank you.”
We sit in silence for a long time. I trickle warm water down her arms while she rests against my chest, sighing softly every so often.
I’ve never experienced anything like this before—the peace that cocoons us. The ease of simply being with someone without needing to fill the silence.
My hands work gently over her body, tracing the shape of her under the water. When I reach her hip, I remember something I heard. I can’t stop myself from breaking the silence.
“What you said back there, about why your father left… Is it true?”
She turns in my arms. “Yes, it’s true.” Laila looks peaceful, but there’s a storm churning in my chest. “He stuck around for maybe a week after Mom and I left the hospital. The day they removed her bandages… that’s when he left.” She draws slow circles across my chest, tracing my scars and tattoos. “I woke up and heard voices from downstairs. I listened from the top of the staircase. Mom was crying, but he was stone-cold. ‘ How can I stay now? Everything is ruined. Look at you.’ ”
I hold her tighter. “He’s an asshole, roza . He’s scum. A pitiless excuse for a man.”
“I don’t disagree.” She purses her lips. “But, up until that moment, he was still my dad. He was around, at least. I thought that was enough.”
“Being a father is about so much more than just being there. It’s putting your kid first no matter what. It’s sacrificing your happiness if it means ensuring theirs.”
She smiles sadly. “Did you have a father like that?”
“I did. He was a good man.”
I can’t remember the last time I talked about my dad. Either of my parents, really.
But Laila presses.
And, for some reason, it feels easier with her here.
“What were they like?”
“Dad claimed it was love at first sight. She was a waitress at a cocktail bar, and once he laid eyes on her, that was that. He said he knew she’d be his wife one day.”
“Wow,” she breathes. “Turns out the rom-coms weren’t lying to me after all.”
I shrug. “It doesn’t matter now. They both died young. They never got their happily-ever-after.”
“Yes, they did. You were their happy ending, Arsen.” I wince and she smiles. “Sorry. Too sappy?”
I kiss her cheek. “Not from you.”
“Do you think your life would have been very different if they’d—if they hadn’t…?”
I shake my head. “I would’ve gone to work for my grandfather regardless. In fact, my grandfather started laying the groundwork for me to take over while my dad was still alive.”
“But why you? Why didn’t he hand things off to your father?”
“He thought my dad was too soft. As far as he was concerned, I was his chance to correct all the mistakes he made with my father.”
Her forehead is tucked into the crook of my neck, but I can still feel her frown. “Did your dad want that life for you?”
“It didn’t matter what he wanted. He tried to stand up to my grandfather, but there was no winning with Yeremy. He had the power to hurt my parents, and I realized early on that it was easier for me to toe the line so he’d leave my parents out of it.”
Her sigh fans out over my skin, soft and warm and fragrant. “You sacrificed yourself for them?”
“I wasn’t nearly as selfless as you’re making me out to be. I was young and determined to prove what I could do. It’s not like I didn’t want to be part of the Bratva. Part of me always knew I’d inherit it, and I wanted to make something of myself before I did.”
She cups my face. “You’re an extraordinary man, Arsen Adamov.”
“Loyalty isn’t extraordinary. It’s tablestakes. Bare minimum.” The bubbles are almost completely gone now and the water is starting to turn cold. “If a man doesn’t have loyalty, what does he have?”
She doesn’t answer. Truth be told, I don’t need her to.
I know what matters.
I know what counts.
Eventually, I lift her out of the water and dry her off. I help her dress her in pajamas. When she’s tucked into bed, her eyes getting heavier and heavier with each passing second, I hear a sharp knock at the door.
I check to make sure it didn’t wake her, and then storm across the room and yank it open. “What do you want?” I snarl at Dominik. “Laila’s sleeping.”
Tension is evident in the crease of his forehead. “We have a problem.”
My hands clench into ready fists. “Is it Charles?”
“No.” Dom shakes his head. “It’s Jasper.”
I close Laila’s door behind me as I step into the hallway. “What did he do now?”
I just put out one fire, so it’s obviously time for another. Knowing Jasper, he could be back in jail for anything from drug charges to assaulting an elderly man he thought looked at him wrong. I hoped better for him when he first knocked on my door, but if Dominik is worried, there’s probably a good reason.
Dominik is tense, shifting from side to side like enemies are going to jump out of the walls at any moment. “Nothing.”
“Am I losing my mind, or did you not just tell me we have a problem?”
“Nothing yet .” I open my mouth, but he waves me off. “I know what you’re going to say—‘ you’re being paranoid, Dom’; ‘give him a chance, Dom’ —but I have a bad feeling about this guy.” He runs a hand through his hair. “I visited him today like you asked, and he’s boarded up in this shady-ass hole in the wall in the middle of Drug Central.”
“He just got out of jail. You can’t expect him to be at the Ritz,” I say. “The man needs direction.”
“What he needs is an attitude adjustment,” Dominik fires back. “He lacks respect. He doesn’t know how to follow orders.”
“That was a long time ago. He was young. He needed to rebel.”
Dominik grits his teeth. “We were all young. Less so now, though. I can’t believe you’re making excuses for the man.”
“He’s a brother.”
He rolls the sleeve of his shirt to reveal the tattooed symbol of the Adamov Bratva. “He does not have the mark yet, Arsen. He isn’t a brother until his skin looks like this . And for that to happen, he has to prove himself. He’s already failed the test once. I was under the impression that once was all it takes.”
Usually, that’s true, but…
“This is different.”
Dominik rolls his eyes. “He saved your life multiple times, yes, but you saved his just as many. You’re even. You don’t need to stick your neck out for this fucking shmuck anymore.”
“That’s not how loyalty works.”
The conversation I just had with Laila is fresh in my mind. If I don’t have loyalty, what do I have?
“And treating someone you hope to call a brother like shit isn’t very ‘loyal,’ either.” Dom shakes his head. “He was pissed that I was the one who showed up today to check on him. He was expecting you. He may be loyal to you, but he doesn’t give a damn about the rest of us. He’s not ready for life in the Bratva.”
“Then we’ll have to teach him.”
“Arsen—”
“I will not turn my back on Jasper,” I bark, cutting Dominik off. “Just like I would never turn my back on you.”
Dom crosses his arms. “The difference is that I’d never give you a reason.”
I drag a hand over my neck. The calming effects of the bath with Laila are already a distant memory. I feel like one raw, exposed nerve ending. “I was the first family Jasper ever had. We have to give him a chance.”
“And this isn’t about you feeling guilty for not looking out for him when we heard he was in deep with the Italians?”
I swallow, feeling the weight of that old decision settle on my shoulders again. “I’ve made mistakes, too.”
“You gave him an opportunity, and he spit in your face. Casting him out and making him fend for himself was kind of you. He should be grateful. You could’ve?—”
“Could’ve what?” I snarl before he can finish that thought. “Put him in jail for making a mistake? Like Yeremy did to me?”
“That’s not what I?—”
“I’ve made the decision, Dominik. If you don’t like it, then I’ll put Gedeon on the job and you can go dig fucking ditches. But if you decide to stay on Jasper, then you’re going to have to give him the benefit of the doubt.”
The silence stretches until it becomes uncomfortable. Finally, Dominik sighs. “Fine. I’ll do it. For you. But I’m watching him.”
“I’d expect nothing less.”