Page 47 of Vitaly

I take her hand and shake, allowing my brows to subtly knit when she pulls away like I snatched her hand instead of her offering it.

She smiles and grips the bottom of her stool as she turns to fully face me. “Aren’t you going to drink that?” She nods to the shot on the bar top.

I glance at the shot glass and open my mouth. “Uhh, no. I’m not. Here…” I slide it over to her, but she holds up her hands and shakes her head.

“Oh no. No thank you. I don’t drink.”

I eye the martini glass in front of her.

“It’s a mocktail,” she explains with a nervous chuckle. “To be honest, I barely even drink these. It just feels weird waiting without something in front of me.”

“What are you waiting for?” I look around me. Leo is out of the bathroom and sitting at a booth with Mila’s old man and a few others. Mila sits uneasily at her brother’s side, watching me with her face pinched. She looks away.

Why are we not leaving?

“My doctor’s appointment,” Olive says, pulling my eyes back to her. “My friend was supposed to meet me here but got held up, so I’m just waiting until I need to leave for it. But, um, actually, I’m happy I was here to meet you.” Teeth sinking intoher bottom lip, she looks around before moving over to the stool next to me. She carefully slides her drink in front of her then wipes her palms on her lap and stares ahead instead of looking at me.

“I’ve heard so much about you,” she says, playing with her hands.

She has?

I stare at her. She looks like an innocent doe, but there’s a touch of weirdness to her that unsettles me. Like I shouldn’t move my eyes away.

“Oh, really?” I ask.

She clears her throat and turns to me with a tiny nod. “I’ll be honest, most of it didn’t frame you in a good light. But … um…” Her mouth stays open like she wants to tell me something, but eventually, she shakes her head and looks away. “I shouldn’t be saying this.”

“It’s all right,” I say to try to get her to go on but then remember Felicity. If she thinks she shouldn’t tell me something, maybe she shouldn’t. I don’t even know who she is.

“You don’t have to tell me anything you don’t want to.” I lean against the bar and study her again. “Are you one of Nikita’s girls?” I ask, already knowing she isn’t. “How have you heard about me?”

She frowns at me. “Oh, you don’t remember.”

I study her features, sensing the familiarity more than ever, but I still can’t place it.

She quickly shakes her head, as if shaking away a thought. “Listen, Vitaly. Ireallyshouldn’t be saying this, but I think I have to.” She sucks in a breath, and I wonder if this time she’ll really get it out. “I know you’ve done some bad things and hurt a lot of people, but to me, you coming back says a lot. Your uncle is apsychopath. He terrorizes everyone he comes into contact with and has killed so many innocent people, and thenhe forces himself on everyone, making the dinners at his houseunbearable,like, he just…” She combs hair over her eye that was already plenty in her face. It’s kind of weird. “Heenjoystorturing people. And I guess, what I really want to say is, if you’ve come here for the reasons that everyone thinks… I hope the best man wins. Even if it means my husband and I suffer for it.”

Even if it means my husband and I suffer for it.

Her husband. I must know her husband.

At the same time my eyes draw to the ring on her finger, the memory I’ve itched to recall slides into my mind. I see this woman, Olive, in her wedding dress. It was only days ago.

Alik.

She’s Alik’s wife.

The bell for the door chimes, but I don’t turn that way. My eyes are on Olive’s when she puts her hand over mine and leans toward me like she’s going to tell me a secret.Anotherone.

Now I understand why she moved next to me. Why she didn’t want the others to hear.

She’s the underboss’s wife, expressing her disdain for the Pakhan. That’s a death sentence for her. If Alik came to her defense, it’d be a death sentence for him as well.

“Alik is blinded by anger,” she continues, her beady eyes pleading, like already I’ve taken over the Bratva in some imagined scheme running through the delusional minds of Nikita’s people. “Please don’t hold that against him.”

Her eyes move behind me then go wide as saucers as she jerks upright, her hands lifting.

Before I get the chance to look, a pair of hands spins me around on the stool, and a fist connects with my eye.

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