Chapter 24 #2
“I should have known it would take a woman to bring Sasha back to us,” she said before bustling around the table to give me a fierce hug. “You,” she continued in Russian, “are an asshole. You stayed away too long. Does Nikolai know you’re back?”
“We’re here to eat,” I said softly, still in Russian, sidestepping the question.
Babushka looked at me with sharp eyes then said in English, “Sit, sit, sit, then. What would you like?”
Eva looked at me with confusion. There were no menus. I rattled off a list of my favorite Russian dishes, hearty comfort food I suspected she would like, and my adoptive grandmother smiled.
“I’ve ordered for us,” I said quietly, taking Eva’s hand and stroking my thumb across her skin to comfort her.
She withdrew it, holding both hands clasped together in her lap, and I knew I needed to get her to relax before she’d open up to me and tell me why she was doing this.
“Tell me about your med school applications,” I instructed her, drawing her right hand back to me and holding it on the table.
Her eyebrows flew to her hairline, but she didn’t pull her hand away. “I got three interviews so far, but they’re all going to require an overnight stay.” She closed her eyes and swallowed hard. “I can’t afford to travel overnight for interviews.”
“Is that what you needed help with?” I asked her, and she laughed, the gorgeous expanse of skin over her neckline drawing my eye as she moved.
“No.”
“What if I wanted to help anyway?”
“You can’t buy my forgiveness.”
“You think forgiveness is what I want?” I wanted to taste submission on her lips again. The way she whispered Sir, the way she bloomed under my control—it fucking undid me, but I couldn’t ask for that. Not yet.
“I don’t want your money,” she snapped. “You blackmailed me into sucking your cock so I could get a job. And then, when you found out why I was so desperate, instead of trying to help, you acted like I was in the wrong! The three of you!”
I gripped her hand, refusing to let her go. “What do you need help with?”
Eva smoothed her hands over her dress then lifted her chin. “I want to take down Jed Carter so he can’t hurt anyone else ever again.”
I’d been expecting this. I’d known from the moment she’d shown up in that heart-stopping dress that she wasn’t here because she wanted me.
“Dmitri Lebedev is your cousin,” she said quietly.
I waited in silence.
“You’re the only coach in the sports program—the only person who’s ever successfully stood up to him,” she continued, and then her eyes flashed to mine, bright and green and full of fire. “How can you let him continue to hurt people? To hurt Cole?”
To hurt me, she didn’t say, but I heard it anyway.
“No,” I said. “And you’ll stay out of it.”
She yanked her hand away from mine to pull a beat-up phone out of her bag and throw it on the table. “I can’t,” she snapped. “Carter’s made it clear that I do what he wants, or my father dies, and I can’t let him hurt anyone else.”
The words hung between us, heavy and final.
I stared at the phone and then at her face—pale, determined, terrified.
She intended to go to war against one of the most powerful men on the East Coast, a man who’d already threatened her life and her father.
He’d threatened the team if I didn’t make them lose, and while the team was delivering on that without any help from me, I knew I’d eventually pay the price of my refusal.
“No,” I repeated. “It’s too dangerous.”
She straightened her spine and lifted her chin. Then, she leaned forward, and the neckline of her dress shifted, revealing the tops of her full, freckled breasts.
My cock hardened instantly, even as my heart broke.
“Please, Alek,” she said, her voice dropping to a breathy register. “I need your help. I’ll do—” She swallowed and blinked back glassiness. “I’ll do whatever you want, whatever it takes, just please—”
“Stop.” The word came out harsh and ugly.
Eva froze, hurt flashing across her face before she could hide it.
“Don’t,” I said more gently. “Don’t offer me your body like it’s the only thing you have of value.”
“It worked before,” she said bitterly.
She was right. I’d made her body the price of a job, or my affection, and I’d taught her that her body was all she had to bargain with.
Eva’s hands shook as she tried to adjust her dress, to cover herself, but the wrap had shifted, and she couldn’t quite—
I reached over and tugged, fixing it for her, careful not to let my fingers linger on her skin, even though every instinct screamed to touch her, claim her, keep her.
She took a shuddering breath then swallowed hard.
“I can’t help you go after Carter,” I said quietly. “It’s too dangerous. He’ll destroy you.”
“He’s already destroying me!” Her voice broke. “Every fucking day I don’t give him what he wants, he gets closer to killing my father. And every time I do give him what he wants, I betray people I—” She stopped. “I betray people who trusted me. I can’t win, Alek. I have to stop him.”
Her chin trembled for a second, the movement so unlike her, it snapped me out of my fury.
Eva was terrified.
Not of me.
Of Carter.
Jed Carter would kill her father if she didn’t give him everything he wanted.
Instead of giving up, instead of betraying me and Tristan and Cole and the team, she had decided that enough was enough.
My baby girl had come to start a war. She was trying so hard to be seductive when all I wanted was to hold her and tell her she didn’t have to fight alone anymore.
I’d give up anything to keep this woman safe. I’d give up everything. Nothing—not my career, not my reputation, not the life I’d built after my knee surgery, none of it meant a fucking thing compared to Eva, desperate and brave and carrying this weight alone.
I’d walked away from the bratva when Dmitri issued an ultimatum.
I could walk away from hockey too.
I couldn’t walk away from Eva.
Not again.
I pulled out my phone.
“What are you doing?” Her voice was small, uncertain, and I hated that I’d put that uncertainty there.
I dialed Dmitri and hit call before I could second-guess myself.
“Sasha,” he greeted me.
“Dmitri. I’ll do it,” I rasped in English. “Whatever Nikolai wants, as long as he promises to help me take down Jed Carter.”
“I’ll set up the meeting,” Dmitri said shortly then hung up.
I’d refused to do this sixteen years ago, refused to pay the price of my revenge, thinking I was too good for the bratva.
Now, I knew the truth. I was a monster.
Eva sat across from me, her eyes wide—courageous, determined, fucking loyal Eva—everything I aspired to be and fell short of, over and over and over again.
She deserved better than to be blackmailed by Jed Carter, better than to be an instrument of my revenge, better than me.
And I was going to give it to her.
My hands were shaking. I pressed them flat against the table, trying to stop the tremors.
Worth it.