Chapter Fourteen
Sarah
My mind blanked for a moment, slow to process his words because they were insane. Dmitri had just barged into my home, which was hard to believe in the first place, and demanded I leave with him.
He had to be out of his mind. And probably dangerous. After what happened in the parking lot of the grocery store, I knew he didn’t actually kill Mr. Moss, but that didn’t mean the DA was wrong about his ties to the mafia.
Maybe he was trying to intimidate me like the men in the parking lot. They wanted me to testify that Dmitri killed my boss, and he probably wanted me to say I saw nothing at all, that I didn’t see his associates threatening Mr. Moss just days before he died.
“You need to leave,” I said, my chest tight. My voice was high and frightened. There was no hiding that. “Just g-get out of here. Or I’ll call the police.”
“Did you call the police about the men in the grocery store parking lot?”
His words created a gut-wrenching jolt, and I felt like the world shifted under my feet.
“How do you know about that?” I asked, my hand shooting out to steady myself on the back of a chair.
“I have my ways.”
That was when I remembered the man I saw in the store. I’d forgotten about him when the men in the ski masks accosted me, but now I had to wonder if I was right in my initial assumption that he was watching me. Did Dmitri send him?
Yeah, he was definitely insane.
But he still wasn’t my biggest concern.
“You shouldn’t be here,” I said, grabbing his arm and trying to drag him back to the door.
He didn’t budge, and it was impossible for me to make him.
He was huge. Panic made my body feel jittery, adrenaline rushing through me.
My voice reflected my anxiety. “If you know what happened in the parking lot, then you know you can’t be here. They said they’d be watching me.”
“That’s why you need to come with me,” Dmitri said, sounding infuriatingly calm. “I can keep you safe.”
The laugh that escaped me had no humor in it. “Safe? Am I really supposed to believe that?”
“I didn’t kill your boss.”
“I know,” I admitted. “The men in the parking lot, they did it. They told me as much. But that doesn’t mean I can trust you. The DA says you head the Russian mafia.”
“We call it the Bratva.”
Was that a confirmation? My jaw went slack, and I stumbled back a step, almost tripping on a toy that Alexis left on the floor.
“I don’t care what you call it!” Hysteria threatened to overwhelm me, and my voice got louder. “This has nothing to do with me. I can’t be involved in this mess. It’s not my life.”
“Do you really think you have a choice in the matter?” His calm reserve cracked just a little, frustration bleeding through. “You’re caught up in all of this whether you like it or not.”
“I didn’t do anything wrong!”
To my horror, the urge to cry again swelled inside me. I turned away from Dmitri, not wanting him to see the tears in my eyes as I tried to blink them away, forcing back the emotion that would make me look weaker than I already did.
“No, you didn’t. But that doesn’t always matter.
” I heard him step closer to me, and my body tensed up, but I didn’t move away.
I should have, I knew that, but I didn’t.
“I can’t change the past, can’t make it so that you didn’t find his body or end up as a witness in the case.
I can’t make it so that my enemies don’t know about you. But I can help you now.”
He was right behind me now, his warmth seeping into my back and his breath on my neck.
When his hands came to my arms, I told myself to move away, but the feeling of his skin on mine again after all of these years felt too good.
I gave myself just a moment to enjoy it, knowing that it couldn’t last.
“Mommy?” Alexis’s voice snapped me out of it, and I jerked away from Dmitri as I looked at the hallway leading to her bedroom. She stood there in her lavender pajamas with her favorite stuffed bunny tucked under one arm. Her eyes were wide.
Shit. We must have been too loud and woken her up.
“It’s okay, sweetheart,” I said, taking a step toward her, but she’d already spotted Dmitri and was heading his way.
I would have expected her to be afraid of a big stranger in the house at night, but she walked right up to him, looking up at him with a cute smile on her face.
“Hi!” she said enthusiastically. “Who are you?”
I would normally laugh at the bluntness of my little girl, but I was too shocked as I stared at the two of them. Dmitri’s stoic face softened as he looked down at my daughter.
His daughter.
“I’m Dmitri,” he said as he crouched down in front of her, holding out his hand. “What’s your name?”
“Alexis.”
She took his hand, and the sight of his big fingers wrapped around her tiny ones made my chest ache. I’d often felt guilty about the fact that Alexis didn’t have a dad, but I didn’t have a way to remedy that situation. I didn’t know how to contact Dmitri.
Now, I did know, but I was too scared to even consider telling him that he was her father. How could I? All I knew about him was that he was potentially a dangerous criminal.
But keeping it to myself felt wrong, especially as he shot her a smile that was so full of warmth that I could envision him as a great, loving father. Would he be thrilled to learn that he got me pregnant that night? Or would he be angry with me, feeling trapped?
My emotions were all over the place, and it made me feel like my life was even more out of control. How had so much changed for me in just a few short months?
“I’m a friend of your mom’s,” Dmitri said, releasing Alexis’s hand but staying crouched down, “and I’m going to take you guys somewhere to stay for a while.”
“No, you’re not,” I said, but he ignored me and kept talking to Alexis.
“Would you like to have an adventure with me?” he asked, and I swore I saw a sparkle in his eyes. What the hell was he doing?
“Yeah!” Alexis said.
I marched over to them, but Dmitri suddenly scooped Alexis up into his arms. My heart stuttered at the sight of them like that. She fit perfectly into his arms, and there were similarities between them. They had the same nose and long eyelashes.
“Come on, Sarah. The little girl wants an adventure. You’re not going to deny her that, are you?”
“How dare you use my daughter against me.”
My harsh voice startled Alexis, and she looked scared for the first time since she came into the room. Regret slammed into me, a feeling I was becoming way too familiar with lately.
“Stop fighting this, Sarah,” he said sternly. “It’s not going to do any good. I’m used to getting what I want.”
“I wonder why that is,” I muttered, shaking my head. Of course, he was used to getting his way. He was a mafia leader. “Why are you doing this? Why would you want to keep me safe?”
Was it possible that he somehow knew Alexis was his kid?
“I might not be a good guy, but I’m not completely heartless.” His eyes shifted to Alexis, who was poking at his cheek with her forefinger, and then he looked back at me. The concern I saw in his eyes shocked me. “I’m not going to let my enemies get to you. Either of you.”
He wasn’t going to budge, that much was clear. I still didn’t like the idea of this, it felt reckless. But there was something that seemed sincere about Dmitri as he held our daughter and proclaimed that he wanted to keep us both safe.
A part of me knew it was a bad idea to go along with this. He might not have ordered the killing of my boss, but he was still on trial for it, and I was a witness. And he clearly had ties to the Bratva.
All of that should’ve had me calling the police to get him out of this apartment and away from me and Alexis.
But I’d been terrified all evening since those men threatened me in the parking lot.
No matter how many times I told myself that I couldn’t trust Dmitri, I had to admit to myself that the fear had faded a little since he arrived.
Knowing that he was here to keep us safe allowed me to breathe easily for the first time in hours.
It wasn’t much to make me place my faith in him, but I decided it had to be enough.
None of my options were ideal, but I had a feeling Dmitri was my best shot at keeping my daughter safe.
It was better to take protection from the devil I knew than to hope the men stalking and threatening me wouldn’t follow through.
I would go with him for now and hope I wasn’t making a huge mistake. I still didn’t trust him, but I didn’t have to. I’d keep an eye on him and only think of this as temporary.
“Fine,” I said, crossing my arms and meeting his eyes so he’d know I meant business. “Let me get Alexis’s car seat. I doubt you have one. And I’m bringing my cat.”