“What the fuck?” I growled.
“Wait. Not yet. There's something I need to know before we do this...something Uncle Gioulio told me. Don't drink yet.”
I looked at her without saying shit. The girl was rattled, couldn't make up her damned mind. Long as she started talking, I'd let her. Maybe the horse piss in my glass would taste an iota better when she threw off whatever was on her chest.
“You keep looking at my coat. It's more than a family heirloom.” She looked down, staring at the crap in her own glass, giving it a little stir, collecting her words. “My Uncle showed me some pictures. It was from the night my mother died. She got run over – somebody flattened her to the ground. Until the other night, he let me think it was an accident, even though I suspected something more all along. He showed me the man who ran her down and killed her in cold blood.”
Oh, fuck. My mind started spinning a million miles an hour, ready to split right through my skull and launch to the fucking moon. I knew who she was gonna name before it was outta her wicked fucking mouth.
“It was your father, Boris Ivankov. Don't deny it wasn't,” she said coldly. “Uncle showed me the pictures. He...he had your eyes. I know Gioulio wasn't lying about this.”
She looked at me like my baby blues were gonna turn her to stone. Fuck!
I turned away in disgust, throwing my shot glass on the floor. It shattered and sent a million little shards in all directions. I wished like hell that sound was enough to wring the neck of whatever demon fate cooked up in our pasts to fuck up our present.
The whole damned cosmos wanted to keep us apart. It was a travesty, a fucking atrocity, when we were so fucking good together. No, I wasn't just talking about being balls deep inside her, throttling her perfect * 'til she shook from head to toe. We worked because we were one and the goddamned same, two lost worlds who'd been fucked over by their own blood too many times to count.
No, dammit. If this was what had her all knotted up, I'd untie everything, every dark rope keeping us apart. I turned around, ready to reach up to the ceiling and salute the entire universe with both my middle fingers.
“My old man fucked up. He told me it was the worst mistake of his life, running that poor woman down. He had bad intel – same shit I did when I tried to blow your uncle to kingdom come with all his degenerate buddies. Your mother wasn't the fucking target.” Volcanic air pumped through my lungs. I stepped closer, grabbing for her hands, forcing her to set the small shot glass between her knees.
“Christ, babe. Don't tell me you believe that motherfucker if he told you my old man ran down your ma on purpose?” Shit. One look at her eyes said that was exactly what she believed. “Fuck. You gotta be kidding me! He had no reason for targeting your mother – none. It's not the way we do shit, and we never will. We go after the bastards who fuck us over, the demons who deserve to die. Nobody else.”
“Why should I believe you!?” She cracked. She tried to rip her hands away from me, but I held on like an ogre, unwilling to let her go 'til I took a wrecking ball to the bastard's lies. “God damn it! Every time I hear something from one side, the other's always got another version. I wanted to believe you, Anton. I trusted you. Then my Uncle took out the bug you left in my fucking purse, and I couldn't.”
Fuck, fuck, fuck...
The confession went through my eardrum and blew my brain apart. If it wasn't for seeing hate and confusion flashing in her eyes right in front of me, I would've marched out, tracked down my damned brothers, and finished the ass kicking we'd started earlier in the great hall.
“It wasn't my idea, babe. I fought the fucking thing tooth and nail. Daniel and Lev...they wouldn't let you leave without having some way to see what was going on. D told me it'd only help keep tabs on you in case something bad happened. Well, we both know it didn't do shit – and now I know why!”
Fuck. This time, my brother's wise ideas had screwed us hard. They'd fucked over the trust I'd built with this girl, stained this crazy thing we had with blood and venom.
“You're not even sorry,” she said, lowering her eyes. Why the hell wouldn't she stop looking at that fucking drink?
“You're dead wrong. There's a lot of shit I regret because without it sticking to me, everything would be ten times easier for everybody. I regret being hitched to this family, son of a bastard just like me. He killed for cred and money and – yeah – he made mistakes. I regret coming along years later and using you to get to the last Italian motherfucker we've got to take down in the windy city. Fuck, you can believe me or not, but I really regret compromising with my asshole brothers and letting them slip that shit into your luggage. If it was up to me, it never would've fucking happened. I'm sorry.”