Page 81 of Craving Dahlia

“We need to go,” Dimitri says urgently. In the distance, I can hear the wail of sirens, and I know he’s right. I nod sharply, fighting back the dizzying wave of emotion that threatens to pull me under.

He’s dead. He’s fucking dead.I’m relieved that it’s over and disappointed that it didn’t take longer, and now that it’s done I feel oddly cut adrift, as if I’m not sure what my purpose is any longer.

Dahlia. She’s what’s left when this is all done. Get back to her.

That focuses me. I follow Dimitri out, reloading my guns in case of trouble, and we all rush out the back way, out into the dark alley behind the hotel.

“Split up,” Dimitri snaps. “Vik, go get Alek’s bike. Alek, you’re coming with me. Let’s go!” he snarls, and the men scatter, headed for where the cars would have been left. For once, I don’t argue with him, even though I don’t love the idea of Vik riding my motorcycle. Instead, I follow my brother through the darkalleys to where his car has been left, the sounds of sirens louder and louder with every passing second.

“Let’s go.” Dimitri flings open the driver’s side, jumping in as I leap into the passenger’s side. “We’ll lose them. Some of our other men will be watching, draw them off if we have any trouble.”

He lays down his foot on the gas, peeling out of the alley, and we pull out into traffic. Almost immediately, Dimitri is careful to blend in, looking around for any sign that we’ve been spotted by the police as someone of interest.

The car is silent as he weaves through traffic, the lack of sound inside almost oppressive compared to the chaos of the city outside. And then, Dimtri’s voice cuts through it.

“I thought you were dead.” His tone is heavy, full of remembered grief. “I would have come for you if I’d known, Alek. Whether our father wanted me to or not. I thought?—”

“Did you even look for me?” The hurt in my voice is raw as the question that I’ve been holding back for years comes out at last. “Did you even fucking try?”

“Of course I fucking tried!” Dimitri’s voice rises, and he twists to look at me. “We sent out men. I went to fucking Moscow with them. We had every connection we had looking for you. Looking into Elia’s family. They pretended to cooperate. They acted as if they didn’t know what happened to you. We talked to Elia and she seemed heartbroken. And then—” His voice cracks. “They covered their tracks, Alek. There was a body in a hotel room that our connections led us to. It had your clothes on. The face was a mess, the body was a mess, full of so many bullet holes it was basically meat, fingerprints burned away, all the teeth pulled out. I thought for sure it was a trick of some kind, but your things were in the hotel room. The body had your tattoos.Otetswas convinced it was you, that you’d pissed off the wrong people. And he was furious with you for leavingwith Elia. He convinced me, too. I thought—I swear I thought you were fucking dead, Alek. I would never have stopped otherwise.”

A part of me wants to stay angry. It’s so much easier than forgiving him is, than putting five years of pain and suffering behind me…or starting to try, anyway. But I can hear the grief in his voice, raw and bleeding, and I know he’s telling me the truth.

I’ve been betrayed terribly in the past. But not by Dimitri. Not by Dahlia. Not by the people I really love.

Who love me.

I need to tell her.

I’m about to tell Dimitri to take me to the safe house, that I need to see Dahlia now, when his phone starts to ring. He taps the screen in the dash, and Vik’s voice fills the car.

“Boss. We need to head up to the safe house, now. They’re being attacked.”

28

DAHLIA

After Alek leaves the safe house, I feel restless, unable to sit still for long.

I head downstairs at first, looking for something to eat, awkwardly avoiding the security moving through the house, in and out, checking the exits and entrances, deciding who will take up which posts where. I eat some cheese and crackers, get a glass of water, and head back upstairs to the main bedroom.

I’ve only spent one night sleeping in the same bed as Alek, but I already miss it. I hadn’t known it could feel that good to fall asleep naked in someone’s arms, wrapped up in them. That I would enjoy waking up next to someone so much. It’s never done much for me in the past, but with Alek, it felt like it was the first time I’d ever spent the night with someone. Like there could be a warmth, a safety in it that I’d never known was possible before. I’d never thought that I would find that feeling with him, for sure.

But a part of me still wonders if it can last. We said all kinds of things to each other last night and this morning, caught up in a rush of emotion and desire—but now that I’m here alone, I can’t help but wonder if it can really work. I’m not even entirelysure what it is that I want from him. I married him expecting it to be temporary. A failsafe, the way he accused me. And along the way, what went from a one-night-stand into a marriage of convenience became something else…a relationship fraught with anger and desire and lies that I wanted to unwrap to find the core of him.

Now I’ve found it. He’s laid himself utterly bare to me, and I know everything. A past so horrific that I can barely wrap my head around it, although I believe it, and I know he believes me now. But is that enough?

I need him to do more than believe me. I need him to trust me, in a way that I’m not entirely sure he’ll ever be able to, with the ghost of that former betrayal hanging over him. And I have to trust him, despite the lies that might threaten to come between us. We’d have to both set aside how we feel about all the things that came before now, wipe the slate clean for us both, and start fresh together.

I wonder if we can really do that.

I try to sleep, but it’s impossible. I watch the clock tick from midnight to one, to two in the morning, tossing and turning, wondering where Alek is. If he’s gone to find Gregoriy yet, if he’s still waiting, if he’s okay.

Frustrated, I get up and pad downstairs for water in my shorts and tank top. I can hear the security milling around outside, and I can see the almost full-moon lighting up the backyard, the wooded view peaceful?—

A sharpcrackjolts through the air. My entire body tenses, fear filling my veins like ice as I recognize the sound.

A gunshot.

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