God knew ...
Claire tried.
With him, she tried really hard.
His half-sister, Vera, was perfect in every way, and he was at the other end of that rainbow. She certainly hadn’t put their parents through the kind of shit he had over the years.
Still was, honestly.
The burden of not having turned out quite the way his parents pictured his life—or so he believed—kept Roman in a state of constant limbo. Numb because he was who he was, and he liked that person, but also just distant enough from the people who loved him that he hoped it hurt them less to see him this way. He never swung too much one way or the other; he stayed right in the middle, unwilling to figure out how to fix it.
Or if he wanted to.
When his family looked at him, did they see their legacy in ruin—was that all they saw?
“What’s on your mind?”
Anastasia’s voice broke through his thoughts. A throb at the back of his head reminded him why he didn’t like females for more than a quick fuck—they never stopped talking.
Roman’s stare cut her way. “Let’s get something clear, otherwise, at the next stoplight, I’m kicking your ass out of this car.”
She sucked in a fast breath.
He didn’t wait for her to respond before adding, “We’re not here to talk. I’m taking you to my shop, and then you go on your way. Disappear. I don’t need to see you again. I don’t want to.”
Cold, yes.
But it was the truth.
At least, he was a decent enough man to offer her that. He couldn’t say much else for the rest, though.
She sat with her long legs crossed, and her fingers tangling and untangling in her lap, the nervous actions making him more and more unsettled as the quiet seconds ticked on. He didn’t care where she went or what she would have to do to get back home after this. Wherever her home was. He just wanted to wash his hands of her.
“I really am grateful to you,” Anastasia whispered. “If I didn’t leave with you ... he would never have let me go.”
Roman groaned in response. He didn’t need her gratitude. He just wanted to be left alone.
“And you didn’t have to do this for me, except you still did. I know the asshole act is just to make it clear where we stand—and I do. You know, but maybe you’re not the man you keep telling yourself you are, Roman Avdonin.”
Or maybe he was exactly that man.
She didn't have the first clue.
Roman whipped his face around to look at her. “You don’t fucking know me.”
His voice and expression should have been cold enough for her to get the hint and shut the fuck up. His respect for her dared to notch up when Anastasia tipped her chin upward slightly, and stared him down, unafraid.
“No, I don’t—someday, someone will, though. And when that happens, what will you do then?”
The words hit him right in the chest.
She didn’t know ...
Couldn’t.
But that terrified him.
The only thing that did.
• • •
Roman hadn’t noticed the phone that sat between them in the console until the damn thing started to ring. Through the Bluetooth speakers. He hadn’t put the radio on, but apparently, the speakers were turned up loud enough to make the ringing pierce through his eardrums.
“Is he as deaf as he is stupid?”
“It’s his phone,” Anastasia informed, glancing toward the phone.
Clearly.
Roman growled under his breath as he turned the volume down to a bearable level. Not that it did anything for the ache in his ears. “Why the fuck did he leave it in the car?”
“Paranoid. He thinks they’re bugged, and someone might be listening. He doesn’t like carrying them around everywhere.”
“Them? He has more than one?”
Anastasia shrugged. “He only ever gets burner phones and switches them out every week.”
Jesus.
He understood the need—many guys in his line of work replaced their phones often—still, not to that extent. Dima sounded more and more like someone who was constantly looking over his shoulder. Always afraid of getting caught with his pants down.
Why?
The obvious reason was rarely the right one.
The ringing finally ended, and then a few moments later, the screen on the dash blinked with a voice message. He didn’t know why, but the message started auto-playing through Bluetooth.
Shit.
Maybe the car wasn’t a rental.
Roman startled when he heard a soft, but annoyed, voice echo over the microphone.
“It’s me. Katee. There. I called you back. Are you happy now?”
She sounded like ... a girl.
Young.
Maybe ten.
Silence spread through the Bugatti when the message ended abruptly.
He really shouldn’t ask.
Roman’s mouth worked before he could stop it. “Who the fuck was that?”
“I don’t know. She calls him a lot, though,” Anastasia replied. “Maybe his sister?”
Maybe.
Either way, Roman didn’t give a shit. And because he couldn’t afford another distraction like the phone call, he didn’t waste time rolling down the window and tossing the device to the racing pavement below.
All he cared about now was getting the car to the shop where he would hide it until it could be cut down.
• • •
Despite owning three different chop shops across New York, the one in Brighton Beach was the one he preferred working at because it was also technically his home. One of two. He kept an apartment in the city—just because.
His loft was situated right above the chop shop. When someone from the bratva needed to find him, this was the first place they came to do so. And now it looked like the cops knew it, too.
Later, when he had time to think the situation over because he had nothing else to do except stare at the cement walls of a jail cell, Roman would blame the comfort he felt in the safety of his home for his distraction. He used the clicker to open the warehouse’s shutters before driving straight into a goddamn mess.
At first, when Roman saw the three armed cops standing there—weapons already drawn and pointed at him through the windshield—he thought it was a joke. Not once had his shops been raided in the past year. And even before that, the amount of police he had on his payroll ensured he could do business without worry they were going to constantly come up on him without enough warning from his sources to keep his side of things covered.
Except it wasn’t a joke.
And he was fucked.
“Oh, my God,” Anastasia whispered, horrified.
Roman’s foot had hit the brakes on the car to stop it all of three feet away from the legs of the officers. His other foot twitched with the urge to jam down on the gas, but a rational part of his brain kept him from making an even worse mistake than he already had tonight.
“Hands up—step out of the car with your hands up!”
“Now!”
Shit, he hadn’t even put the car in park. Roman’s heart raced like thundering hooves in his chest as his gaze darted from the cops in front of him, and the rapidly closing garage door behind him in the rearview mirror.
He could have made it—would have—if not for Anastasia reaching over and digging her red stiletto nails into his arm with enough force to drag Roman’s attention away from the danger he still faced.