Page 150 of Silenced

“I would.”

His lips quirk. “I’m allergic to the ink. The red is the worst, and the blue is just as bad.”

My eyes widen. “Seriously?” When he nods and raises his arm to show me his tricep, I query, “You had it lasered off?”

“Grigoriy said it would help.”

“Did it?”

“It still itches from time to time. Will even swell when the humidity is high.”

“You have just the one?”

“I knew something was wrong from the beginning. I never got another one even if it made me stick out among the men.”

I trace the blurred edges of the tattoo. “A dog?”

“A bulldog,” he corrects. “But it means ‘grudge.’”

“Against?”

“The authorities.”

“Fitting.”

“More than you know.”

I bite my lip even as I continue tracing the tattoo’s lines. “Why all the questions about my father anyway?”

He hitches a shoulder.

“No.” I flick my fingers at him. “You don’t get to ask weird stuff about my family and not continue the conversation.”

When his jaw clenches, I figure I’m about to be stonewalled whether I like it or not, but he stuns me by answering, “Your father is infamous in my circles.”

That has my eyes bugging. “Myfather?” I slow down the patting of my flat hand against my chest to emphasize the ‘my.’ “How’s that possible? Anyway, he’s been dead for fifteen years.”

“Some say that he was a Bratva assassin. Others insist he was ex-KGB but still on detail to the Kremlin.”

I release an awkward chuckle. “You’ve got the wrong man.”

Except… did I really believe that?

My mind flickers back and, for some reason, the memory of him sliding a shotgun beneath his bed hits me.

He’d have killed for his family.

A cliché but not for Papa.

Papa would never have allowed Harvey to treat me how he did.

He’d have stopped him.

But… ex-KGB?

Unaware that I’m reeling, Nikolai purses his lips. “Mikhail Turgenev had a nickname—Peshnya.”

“My mom used to call him that!”

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