Page 87 of Bound By Debt
He stares, transfixed, as the flames grow and spread, crackling, hungry, racing up the curtains to the wood paneling on the ceiling. I know this is the moment, my only moment, and I turn and run.
I’m quickly out of breath, my gait awkward, but I reach our bedroom and almost manage to slam the door. Something stops it at the last second and slams it back into my nose. Pain explodes in my face, stunning me, and I stumble back as the door bursts wide open.
“Thought you could fucking get away from me, did you?” His grin manic and terrifying, Vasya grabs my wrist in a grip like iron as blood starts to trickle from my nose onto my upper lip. I taste copper. “If you think I’m done with you, you have another thing coming, no, I’m going to use you to take everything from Evgeny, just like he took from me.”
“Vasya, let go! Let go!” My screams go unanswered as I struggle. My free hand brushes one of the built-in shelves as I thrash to find something solid. There’s one of the brass candlesticks Evgeny keeps up there.
I pull backward, leaning with all my added weight. My fingers brush the candlestick once, twice, and I finally grab it the third time. Vasya has only a moment to react, his eyes wide when he realizes what I’m doing, before I bring the solid brass down on his head.
With a yell, he releases me, hands clutching the spot where his forehead splits open as he stumbles back. I catch myself on the wall and push off to run again.
My breath comes in hard gasps. Blood still spills out of my nose. My hands shake so badly I can barely control them, but I manage to unlock and yank open the door leading outside.
I hear crackling as heat from the fire behind me grows. The rain is coming down in heavy sheets and hits me instantly. I nearly trip over another dead guard, the downpour washing away theblood from the pavement around him. I dart for the yard and safety. If I can just get far enough!
Someone grabs the back of my shirt and yanks. A hand fists in my hair, pulling hard against my scalp, and I scream.
“Fucking bitch.” All semblance of nonchalance is gone from Vasya’s face as he wrenches my head back so I can see him. The look in his eyes is feral. Blood streams down one side of his face from the cut above his eye. “You’re just like him. I should have known.”
I scream. I scream until my voice is hoarse, but Vasya only laughs.
“Keep screaming, Eva. Nobody is coming to save you.”
34
EVGENY
“Iwant answers. Now.”
For once, the old man’s watery gray eyes fix on the window, on the hazy day outside, instead of glaring back at me. He’s not demanding respect or admonishing me for talking to him like a child instead of the honoredvorhe is.
For three weeks, I’ve racked my mind, my memory, my soul trying to understand why Vasya betrayed me. Why he killed Eva’s brother. Why he crashed his car into hers when that impact could have killed her.
We’ve been like brothers since we were kids, both caught up in our grief, both without anyone in the world except each other. Over time, as I took my position and Vasya his, our closeness frayed at the edges. But he still knew so many of my secrets, knew a part of me no one else did.
It’s tearing me apart, and I have to understand. But he’s gone to ground, disappeared, and neither Dmitri nor the rest of my men can find him.
Out of respect for my past with Vasya, I had kept the secret between us, waiting until I could find and question him before I decided on his punishment. If everyone had known of his betrayal, death would have followed very soon, and before he breathed his last, I had to understand why he betrayed me. Not just the Bratva, butme. This was about me. I knew that down to my core.
“Ivan.”
He doesn’t respond to the sharpness in my voice, so I do something I never thought I would. I’m desperate.
“Ivan, please. My brother has betrayed me, and I don’t understand why.” I’m appalled at the emotion in my voice. It feels like someone ripped my heart out, like I’ve lost another family member. “Ivan, help me understand why Vasya has done what he’s done.”
Silence falls in the room, broken only by the faint noise in the hallway outside, the nurses and other residents passing. Dmitri meets my eyes, then shakes his head, but this old man is my last hope to figure out this puzzle, and from his reaction, he feels like the last piece.
“Ivan.” I switch to Russian. “Please, I’m asking you. I’m begging you. Tell me what I need to know. Why did Vasya betray me? What is he planning to do? You know he killed Eva’s brother, yes? That he tried to kill Eva and the twins, too?”
Ivan turns suddenly, gray eyes wide. “He tried to kill Eva?”
“He was the one who hit her car. We have video, photos, and paint transfer on his car that matched hers when the police found it abandoned several miles away.”
The old man pales, then drops his face into his hands, a low moan escaping him. When he looks up, misery deepens the wrinkles on his face. He looks truly old and broken.
“I should have taken care of this long ago. Told you long ago.” His voice is as thin and watery as his eyes.
“Taken care of what? Told us what?” Dmitri asks, far kinder than I am, as my hands curl into fists at my sides.
