you.”
“You’re the only one who knew.”
“Knew what?” she shouts at me.
“About my fucking uncle,” I whisper low and deadly. “You were the only one who knew he was skimming off the top and making me hide the money in the walls of that old garage we used to play in.”
“I still don’t understand.”
“You told them. You told the Pakhan what my uncle was doing.”
She pales even more, and I wouldn’t have thought it possible for a person to look so deathly white and still be upright if I didn’t have the evidence right in front of me.
“I never told them,” she whispers. “Is that what you think? Is that what you thought all these years? Your legs, did they do that to you?”
“Yes, on all three fucking counts. They took me and him the day you left; pretty good timing for a girl who didn’t know, huh? They took us to that garage, and they tortured us. They lit a fire on the floor, and they put a long metal poker in it, and they burned my thighs. They burned my uncle’s chest and back. They took the money and told my uncle he was dead. So he blamed me. You cost me everything. My uncle, the only fucking family worth anything I had, disowned me. I had to leave St. Petersburg, start fresh. You did all that because what?” I sneer at her. “You were jealous.”
She hits me so swift and hard I don’t see it coming.
“Fuck you. You broke my heart, but I never said a word. Not one word.”
I falter. She seems so sure in her conviction. She’s a consummate liar, though, isn’t she?
“You’re a little liar, Dasha.” I click my tongue. “Lying to me. Lying to your husband. Lying to yourself.”
“I’m not lying to you. I never could lie to you,” she says sadly. “I am not lying about this, Bohdan. I don’t care if you walk out of this room and I never see you again, but you must believe me on this. I can’t bear to think of you somewhere in the world believing this of me.”
She comes to me and drops to her knees, undoing the buckle on my belt. What the fuck?
I move back, but she shuffles after me and pulls my trousers down.
“Dasha, get off me.”
“Let me see,” she says simply.
She saw the scars on my back years ago. I showed them to her. No one but her. Now she’s seeing these scars. Yet again, I’m letting her be the only one to really see me.
Her gaze lifts to me, and there are tears on her cheeks. “Bohdan, I swear on my life. I. Never. Told.”
Then she leans in and kisses the scars. I freeze. I don’t even breathe. I’m not sure if my heart is still pumping.
“I never would have done that to you. Not you. You were my … everything.”
“And you were mine,” I say.
She shakes her head. “No. I wasn’t.” Her voice is so sad.
I’m torn up inside. Confused and directionless. She swears she didn’t do it, but there’s no other explanation.
My uncle had been skimming money from the Bratva and making me hide it in the walls of the dank garage I’d been going to for years. No one knew except Dasha, and I only told her because I was so terrified of what he was making me do.
Why is she on her knees?
Why am I not exultant?
This is what I wanted, isn’t it? To have her on her knees, begging me. I’ve got it, but it doesn’t feel good.
“Get up,” I say gutturally.
She doesn’t move, but presses her face to my thigh, her arms coming around me. “You broke me, Bohdan, but I swear I didn’t break you in return.”
Fuck.
“Dasha, get up.” I reach down and put my hands under her arms, hauling her to her feet.
She stares at me, and there’s some color in her cheeks now. Her lips are parted, and God help me, but her eyes are even prettier shining with tears.
I don’t think. I’m not capable of it. Instead, I simply react as I reach for her, pulling her to me and crushing her mouth with mine.
She opens for me immediately with a moan, and it goes straight to my cock.
I spin us around and walk her back to the dresser until she’s up against it, and I press into her, feeling her small body tight against mine.
She kisses me like she’s drowning, and I’m her air. I’ve never had a woman