The God (Bratva Blood #3)- S.R. Jones Page 0,82

don’t know how Violet and Andrius organize that side of things, but he’s clever and shrewd himself when it comes to investing. He’s got a lot of money in property. Now he’s building this new venture, and it should make us all extremely well off, even though that’s not his motivation behind it.

I stretch and crick my neck side to side. Glancing out the window, I see the sun high in the sky and decide to go look for Dasha.

I find her in a clearing in the woods, dancing. The sun is dappled through the trees, and Mr. Bojangles is dancing around under her feet, yapping. The scene is pure magic.

Not wanting to disturb her, I don’t speak; instead, I stand there watching as she finishes the dance. She has headphones in, and when she does a final turn and sees me, she starts.

Hand on her chest, she narrows her eyes. “Don’t sneak up on me.”

I laugh. “I didn’t sneak up. I walked up, no sneaking at all, and then stayed here watching you. You’re magnificent when you dance,” I tell her as I go in for a kiss.

She wraps her arms around my neck and tilts her face to me. “Only when I dance?”

I smile. “Okay, all the time, but particularly when you dance.”

“Right answer,” she tells me with a soft laugh. “Right answer, Bohdan.”

This time when she says Bohdan, unlike in Paris all those weeks ago, my name falls from her lips in shades of gold and yellow. Warm, happy colors.

Wanting to be near her, I take her hand in mine. “Walk with me,” I say.

Her divorce lawyer called this morning, and she told me he says that Jasper is going to give her what she wants. Neither Dasha nor her lawyer know that Jasper was found at Paris airport waiting for a flight to Athens. Found by a man I hired to watch him and keep tabs on him. I know the bastard was coming here to come after Dasha. To do what I don’t know but I wasn’t taking the risk. My man followed him into the toilets, smacked him around a little, and threatened him with death if he boarded the plane. He also threatened him with exposure for some of the shady shit he’s done and told him in future Jasper better be squeaky clean, or there’d be reprisals. One of those threats worked and Dasha has her offer.

She doesn’t know that Jasper was coming after her, but Dasha knows I’ve had him threatened if he does the same thing to any other young women.

I think she’s going too easy on him and giving him far too much, but she says she wants him out of her life. Gone. Exorcised.

I can exorcise him for her, and I’ve told her as much, but she says she’d spend years terrified I’d go to prison for harming him. I decided not to tell her quite how many people I’ve harmed in the past. There’s a limit to being truthful with her, and that limit is when it is going to cause her sleepless nights.

No matter what I do going forward, I’ll always have that past snapping at my heels, and one day it might take me down. It’s something I’ve accepted, and because of it, I want to live every damn day to the fullest, with Dasha. I don’t share this sentiment with her, though. I don’t want her thinking I’m not planning a future for us because I am. Its more that I know things can change quickly, and people like me and K, we don’t always get to walk away from our past sins and start again.

I pray every day I’ll be one of those lucky sinners that God forgives, but I’m realistic enough to know I might not be.

Banishing such dark thoughts, I turn to the woman I love and pull her in for a kiss.

“It was always you,” I say.

“Ditto,” she replies.

We head deeper into the woods, toward the point where the sea and sky meet, and the horizon goes on forever. Toward our future.

**

Vasily

Moscow

I stare at the missed call on my phone. I should call her back. Zoey has phoned me three times since we screwed. I’ve ignored her each time because I’m a cowardly shit.

I want to talk to her, but I can’t. The night we spent together was … well, actually, I don’t have words for it. I’ve never experienced such a high with a woman. Not purely from the