Page 56 of The Payback

“The others weren’t part of our organisation, and they have been dealt with. Alexei recruited them when the offer came.”

I want to wring that motherfucker’s neck for involving men who didn’t know the wrath they would incur by joining him, but the twins handled it. No one—and I meanno one—involves non-Bratva members in Bratva business.

And an assassination attempt on ourpakhanand his wife is most definitely Bratva business.

“Will Alexei die?” she murmurs. “Will Dimitri kill him?”

“After he gets as much information as he can.” I pause for a moment, noting the fear on Ellie’s face. “Does that bother you? That someone who tried to take your life would die at your husband’s hand?”

“No,” she confesses almost shamefully. “An eye for an eye is a concept as old as time. It’s what most legal systems are based upon.”

Leave it to Ellie to root it all back to procedural justice—rules and regulations, law and order, even in our lawless land.

I palm the back of her head and keep her face angled towards mine, unbelieving that I’m about to defend Dimitri’s actions to the woman I love. But then again, I never thought that woman would be his wife.

“No man worth having would let a wrong against his wife go unpunished.”

Ellie is silent as she gnaws on her lower lip in contemplation. I lift my hand, and she flinches, but I do not stop as I reach for her face, pulling that lip from between her teeth.

“What about a man who betrays his partner?” she whispers.

Having been shrouded in darkness and self-flagellation for so long, contemplative of my actions, and self-reprimanding, I need an outlet. I need someone else to exact retribution for my deception, no matter why I did it. I feel ashamed for breaking my oath and for betraying my partner. It’s been a long time coming, and I shiver with realisation as the words fall from my lips. “He should pay.”

“Pay how?” She blinks up at me.

I let my shoulders fall as I drown in her dark depths. “It’s up to you. How would you punish me?”

Never mind that it was my job that Dimitri’s father, Danil, had handpicked me for. They didn’t adopt me to be part of the family when I was barely nine, no matter how hard Dimitri’s mother, Katarina, tried. They brought me in because having another loyal member at their beck and call was the right move.

It afforded me a move to America when they immigrated, but it didn’t guarantee me a life of my own. I will forever be indebted to the Aslanov family for not letting me go to an orphanage when my parents died. Doing what they required was easier than breathing.

Ellie closes her eyes, her body tense in my arms.

“Do you regret it?” The words are so low I would have missed them if I wasn’t tuned in to every hitch of her breath, every inhale and shaky exhale, and every bite of her lip.

“Which part?”

“Any of it? All of it?” Her eyes open, and there’s more swimming behind her glassy orbs than I would have thought possible.

We’d been partners for a while, the chemistry between us slow to start but deep in its reach. Not once have I regretted our night together, only wishing I could have been who I truly am, not the watered-down, PG version I had been pretending to be for nearly ten years.

“Some of it,” I answer.

“At least there’s that.” Her hiccuped chuckle is self-deprecating. “I hate you for what you did.”

“I know.” It’s the only solace I can give her. I also hate myself for the pain I caused, abandoning her like that. She looks at a tear in her leggings, picking at the rip as a tear spills and lands beside her finger.

I tilt her face upward and look into her eyes, not once blinking as I say, “I do not regret our time together. Not those long months we worked together, nor our night together. I did what I was ordered to do—what I was employed to do. My loyalties were and are with the Aslanov family. The only thing I regret is hurting you.”

She huffs out a disbelieving breath, and my grip tightens. “You don’t know the life I’ve lived, Ellie. I wish I had a clear definition of black and white, but that’s not the case. I live in the greys.”

“Do you know how much trouble I was in when you stole that diamond?” she asks.

I rub my thumb along her jaw. “I can only imagine. But I left you out of it as much as I could. I knew it was a risk, but I had to take it.”

The urge to lean in and kiss the anger from her lips swells within me, but she leans away, putting distance between us. The gap grows wider, and instead of letting her go, I pull her closer to me, closing the chasm and claiming her lips with mine.

She shoves me away, batting at my chest. “Let me go, Nik.”

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