so sorry, Ania. I haven’t been around . . .” He forced himself to stop blurting out what a true loser he was with women. “I’m sorry,” he reiterated.
“I liked your hand over mine, Mitya. You’re unusual. Rare. I don’t get to meet men like you very often. I wish we had more time to talk, but I see my tire is back on and your men are standing around in the rain getting soaked. I should go.” She scooted across the seat and dropped her hand to the door handle.
He searched for something, anything, to hold her to him a moment longer. “If you are ever in San Antonio, my sister-in-law owns a bakery, The Small Sweet Shoppe. I’m often there.” If she said she knew it, he would be there every day just to hope to see her again.
“In the business district?”
“Right on the edge, although the businesses seem to be growing up around it.” He found himself holding his breath, his hand on the other door handle.
“I’ve actually been there once,” she admitted. “If I go, I’ll look for you. Thank you again for stopping. It was so sweet of you.”
Before he could ask for her number, she pushed open the door. In all things he wanted, Mitya was extremely aggressive. He had no problem picking up women when he wanted some quick relief, but this was different. Very different. This woman mattered in some undefined way he didn’t fully understand. He wanted to stay in her company. His body wanted her with every breath he drew. His leopard wanted to stay close to her.
He lived in hell. It was that simple. What man subjected a good woman to hell? What kind of a man would he be if he even considered it? He took a deep breath and slowly let go of the door handle, forcing himself to turn away from the sight of her walking back to her car, under the umbrella Vikenti provided.
Sevastyan slid into the car and turned toward him, glaring. Mitya held up his hand. “I know what I did was insane, Sevastyan. I apologize for making your life so difficult. It wasn’t done on purpose.” It wasn’t. He loved his cousin and had placed him in a terrible position. Worse, he’d placed Ania in one. Sevastyan could easily have determined her a threat and shot her.
Sevastyan didn’t lay into him the way he should have. Instead, he waited until Vikenti and Zinoviy had gotten back into their cars and Miron was once more behind the wheel. “What made you stop for her?”
Mitya shrugged his broad shoulders. “It was a compulsion. My leopard went wild when we passed her. When we turned back, he acted strange.”
“In what way?” Sevastyan pushed.
“Just different. A behavior I’d never seen in him. Not like she was a threat, but more that he was content in her presence. My leopard had to guard me when I was a child. There were conspiracies. I don’t know if you remember or not, but Gorya’s father, Uncle Filipp, was alive then. He had two sons, Dima and Grisha, much older than Gorya. Lazar and Gorya’s older brothers wanted Gorya and his mother dead.”
Sevastyan frowned. “How do you know this? You aren’t any older than the rest of us.”
Mitya felt older, not that the others hadn’t gone through hell as well. No one lived in their lairs and had it easy, especially his cousins. Their fathers were cruel and expected their sons to follow in their footsteps. They were expected to torture and kill any who might oppose their fathers’ rule.
Mitya’s father insisted the toddler be kept with him at all times. He wanted his son to grow up familiar with torture. With seeing women and children killed if their fathers in any way stepped out of line. He wanted his son to be so conditioned to the violence that he would never so much as blink when he had to do the same things. He heard a lot of things as a toddler, things his father planned.
“Mitya? What really happened to Uncle Filipp? Did Uncle Lazar or my father have anything to do with his death?”
Mitya glanced toward the front seat where Miron drove. The man had proved his loyalty to them, and yet he was still reluctant to talk about family business in front of him. Why? Because his father had drilled it into him never to speak of their business in front of non–family members. He had insisted