Chapter 18 Liev
LIEV
Clenching my fists, I do my best to control my rising temper. Whatever Brady said to Sera clearly upset her, though she is doing her best to hide it.
“What’s happening?”
“Nothing.”
My nostrils flare as frustration claws through me. She’s throwing her walls up again, and if I’m not careful, she’ll have the gates locked against me before I can get my foot in. “If you’re going to lie to me, you are going to have to work on your tells.”
“I’m not lying.” She pauses. “What tells?”
I drop my gaze pointedly to where she’s picking at her thumbnail. She quickly folds the thumb into her hand. “It’s not a big deal. Really. Brady wanted to give me a heads up about something, but it’s not important.”
She turns her face away, raking her hands through her hair, pulling it forward to shield her face.
Fuck that. We aren’t going backwards.
I push down my mounting temper. I’ve never been a patient man, but I have to be with her. No matter how difficult it is.
“After the secret we share, malyshka, do you think there’s anything you could say to me…” I let my words trail off because I’m not exactly sure why she’s shutting me out.
“What does that mean?” Her words catch me off guard. “Malyshka? You’ve called me it before.”
“It’s an endearment.” I watch her closely, realizing how I answer could change things. “It’s like the English ‘baby’ but… more.”
A short puff of air escapes her lips. “More?”
“It means you’re mine.”
I watch as her whole body shivers, and then just as the last tether on my patience slips, she heaves a sigh, her whole-body sagging. “My ex-boyfriend Aaron—his family—is suing me and Brady for wrongful death.”
Sera sits abruptly on the bed. Not wanting to loom over her, I take the seat opposite on the side of my bed.
“He’s dead?”
That’s new.
I mentally sift through all the information I’d found about her.
I knew her ex-boyfriend was Aaron Taggert from the news articles I found covering her attack.
I recognized the name. Taggert Construction is one of the largest commercial builders in the southeast. The family is known for its philanthropy and political power in Georgia.
What is less known is their willingness to reach out to criminal organizations when they have financing or labor problems. I’ve only met Aaron’s father Arthur Taggert once. Though met isn’t the right word. I knew who the man meeting with Mikhail was, but they didn’t include me in the meeting.
Sera’s lips part but then snap shut, her expression torn.
“You know you can trust me. What happened?”
Her throat bobs, and she takes a deep breath, her chest filling. “After Aaron threw acid on me, he went to his brother’s house. By the time the police got around to questioning him, he had hired lawyers. His brother gave him an alibi.”
I’m careful to hide the emotion surging inside me, pushing it down until a cold resolve fills my chest.
I need her to tell me the whole story. I need the names of every single person who needs to pay to give her justice.
“There was nothing the police could do. Aaron wore a mask and covered his tracks well. The only reason they even went to question him was because of my restraining order.”
My heart thuds in angry beats. “Why did you have a restraining order?”
“Let’s just say Aaron didn’t take getting dumped well.”
“No.” My tone is sharper than I mean, and her eyes fly to mine. “We’re not going to just say. Tell me what he did.”
Hazel eyes search mine. “Why? What does it matter now?”
“He hurt you. That hurt still affects you. I don’t want to inadvertently do something that hurts you again.”
“You wouldn’t.” She shakes her head.
“No,” I agree. “Not on purpose. But if I don’t know what he did, then I don’t know what to avoid.”
“Trust me.” She gives me a wry smile. “Unless you are actively trying, you won’t do what he did.”
Black rage overtakes my brain. “Did he hit you?”
She shakes her head again. “No, I almost wish he had.”
My brow furrows, and she hurries to explain.
“It would have made it easier, clearer. I would have broken up with him right away. He was a lot sneakier than that. His method was more psychological and verbal. Looking back, I realize it started a lot earlier than I realized, but I didn’t recognize it.
He wasn’t physically aggressive until the night I broke up with him.
” Her mouth flattens, eyes clouding at the memory.
“The restraining order was because he was calling and texting all day, every day. Calling me names… that kind of thing.”
“That’s all?”
Her jaw sets. “That’s all.”
I don’t believe her, but there’s no need to push. She would have had to submit her reasons with her application for the restraining order. I’ll get them from my source at the courthouse.
“Why didn’t your brother do something about this asshole harassing you? Before it went so far?”
Sera’s eyes flicker around the room, color rising in her cheeks. “I didn’t tell him. I wanted to handle it on my own.” She holds up her palm. “Yeah, I know. In hindsight, not the smartest decision.”
She rubs at her shoulder. I’m not sure she’s aware she’s doing it. “Our mom died not long before the break-up, and I was living on my own for the first time. Probably what made me such a good mark for Aaron.”
“You weren’t a mark,” I growl.
She ignores me. “I was working for Brady doing mostly admin stuff… It was the first time in his life he wasn’t having to look after someone. Our mom had depended on him—a lot. I didn’t want to be another burden.”
I frown. “I don’t know your brother well, but you’re not a burden to him. It’s obvious how much he cares about you.”
“You don’t get it. He’s had to look after me since I was a baby. Our dad wasn’t around, and our mom was always working. I wanted to show him I could handle it on my own, like an adult. I thought I could…” Her voice breaks.
I’m on my knees in front of her before my mind catches up, and I cup her face in my palms. “It wasn’t your fault. None of it.”
Her chin drops, and her hair falls forward, hiding her face from me. She’s been telling herself that she’s responsible for too long to easily believe me now.
I slide one hand to tuck her hair behind her ear and mirror the action on the other side. My forefinger lifts her chin, and when she meets my eyes, one palm finds her cheek again.
With a shaky exhale, she lets a little more weight rest on me, and my ribs tighten. The pain in her eyes takes my breath. If there were a way I could take it from her, I would. Whatever the cost, I’ll gladly pay it if it means making her feel whole again.
Sera’s gaze searches my face, and I feel the second the pull between us scares her. She leans back, and I let my hand drop to my side, even though every cell wants to pull her into my arms. With a casualness I don’t feel, I return to my seat on the bed, my knees still touching hers.
“What did your brother do when the police didn’t arrest Aaron?”
There is not a single doubt in my mind Brady did something.
Sera’s face blanks. “My brother was supportive. Throughout everything… the surgeries, rehab, moving me out of my condo.”
“That’s not what I meant, and you know it.” She stays stubbornly silent. “What did he do to Aaron?”
She glares at me, voice icy. “What makes you think my brother did anything?”
“I was there last summer, remember? For all our differences, your brother and I share some fundamental similarities. Nothing is too much when it comes to those we care about.”
“What is it you think he did?” she whispers.
She doesn’t want to say it. To reveal her brother’s secret. I’ll do it for her.
“I know what I would’ve done. I would have tortured the bastard until he screamed for mercy. And then I would have cut him apart, piece by tiny piece and left them to rot.”
Sera blinks several times rapidly and then her slow smile surprises me. “Piece by piece? Sounds messy and time-consuming. Brady’s more of a just get it done kind of guy.”
Her humor takes some of the heat out of the rage that is boiling my blood.
I give her a crooked grin and hold up my thumb and forefinger an inch apart. “Okay, that might have been a little extreme.”
It wasn’t. I’ve imagined that exact scenario several times since the night she confessed Aaron tried to rape her.
“A little?” She leans forward and presses her lips to mine in a quick kiss. “But I appreciate the sentiment.”
“What evidence does his family have against you?” I know no body was discovered. If it had, it would have been in the news.
She sighs. “A few days after I was hospitalized, two masked men attacked Aaron in a parking lot. Fortunately for him, a police cruiser saw it, and the men ran off. After he healed, he packed up and left the country. He told his family that Atlanta wasn’t safe for him because I,” she says, smiling bitterly, “blamed him for a random attack, and my brother was obviously behind his beating.”
“And?”
She exhales with a shrug. “That’s the last time he spoke to his parents in person.
From what I’ve been told, he went to Costa Rica first and then traveled around to different surfing hot spots throughout Central America.
Periodically, he would email his family, and they would receive postcards…
But there’s been no banking activity and no confirmed sightings. ”
“Central America can be a dangerous place. How can you be blamed? You were in the hospital.”
Her shoulders droop, and suddenly she looks exhausted. “Apparently, I can be held responsible for ‘causing’ his death. Like if I hired a hit man or something.”
My body stiffens. “So… if your brother killed him, you made him do it?”
“That’s their theory, anyway.”
“What’s the truth?”
She fiddles with the hem of her shirt, her face collapsing in a kind of hopeless devastation. Something in me gives. I can’t pretend that I’m capable of keeping my distance. I scoop her into my arms and settle her in my lap. Framing her face, I make her look at me.
“I’m only asking because I need to know if he is still out there.”
Gold swirls with green as her eyes hold mine. She slowly shakes her head.
“That’s disappointing.”
She lets out a sound that is half laugh, half cry.
“I truly don’t know what happened. All I know is one day after I’d had a particularly bad nightmare, Brady assured me that Aaron could never hurt me again.
He didn’t have to explain it to me. I’d already caught Vincent handing a stack of postcards to an operative headed overseas. ”
“Clever,” I say approvingly. “They knew they couldn’t hide it forever, but it bought them time to obscure things.”
She chews her lip. “I know I should feel bad… or guilty… for his family if not for him, but…”
“But what?”
“Even before the acid, they were covering for him, smearing my name to the police when I reported the stalking and afterward to the press. They made it out that I was a woman scorned and wanted revenge because I’d been dumped.
His father even insinuated that I’d burned myself.
” Her eyes glisten. “The threats Aaron made in the texts… knowing him and what he’d already gotten away with.
He wouldn’t have stopped until he killed me. And they would have protected him.”
I can feel the veins in my temples throbbing. I didn’t know her then, but what I wouldn’t give for a fucking time-machine.
I run my hand over her hair. “I’m sure whatever Brady did or didn’t do, they won’t be able to find anything.”
“I know.” When she curls into me, resting her body against my chest, I feel the weight of her trust.
Something inside me locks into place—like this is where I’ve always been meant to be.
“I get his family wants answers, but I don’t know what they realistically expect.
Part of me thinks this is just a way to punish me.
Not just for him disappearing—because I think even they know I was in no state to direct anything.
I was sedated most of the time. I think they’re angry because he was exposed as a monster.
After my attack, a few other women came forward about how he treated them.
He’d been accused of sexual assault before, but somehow his family had all the records buried.
"It wasn’t just that though.” Her hand drifts up to absently pet my pecs as she continues to remember.
“Aaron was the oldest, the heir apparent, but he was also the black sheep if that makes sense. He was always saying how his father was never happy with him. He was constantly trying to think of something that would finally impress him. He worked at their company doing something with finances. I didn’t really understand. ” Her words end with a yawn. “Sorry.”
Her face presses into my chest as I glide my hand up and down her spine.
“Don’t let go yet.”
“Not a chance.”
Her breathing evens out against me, slower now.
I press my mouth to the top of her head. Then I ease her back, hands steady on her arms, forcing myself to let go, even though every instinct in me wants to keep her right where she is.
“Come on,” I murmur. “You need sleep.”
“What about the food?”
“Are you hungry?” She shakes her head. “Neither am I.”
I pull back the covers of the bed we’ve been sitting on and wait until she’s settled before stepping away.
“I’m right here, if you need me.”
I kill the light and lie back on my mattress, hands folded behind my head, staring up at the dark ceiling.
“I’m scared.”
The quiet voice cuts straight through me. “I won’t let anything happen to you.”
“You, I’m afraid of you.”
My heart stops until her voice comes through the darkness again.
“You’re dangerous to my heart.”
“I’ll be careful with it,” I vow.
I lie there, every muscle coiled tight. I might not have access to the bratva right now, but Alex can help. I’ll need intel on the Taggerts and a plan to deal with them.
It’s not just her heart I plan on keeping safe. It’s everything else attached to it.