The elevator door opened, but I simply stared at him as he walked out.
“What?” he asked, frowning back at me.
I walked out and followed him to the car. “I can’t decide if that is the sweetest thing I’ve ever heard or the saddest.”
We got in the car, and Drago drove out of the parking garage, heading to the north side of the city. “What’s sad about it?”
“I mean, you’ve never bought presents for anyone?”
We drove for a moment, then when we stopped at a red light, Drago turned to me. “Katya, you know that I love you. You may not know that I have never loved another person in my entire life. Ever. Buying presents, birthday parties, family gatherings—that isn’t a world I know, that I’ve ever known.”
I searched his face, and instead of the stubborn aloofness I thought I’d find, I found discomfort and uncertainty that was quickly erased when the light changed, and he continued driving. I reached up and rubbed his cheek. “I think you’re going to have to start getting used to it.”
He shot me a quick glance, and I gave him a soft smile in return, my heart aching for the loneliness and isolation he had endured, but grateful to provide him with love, with family, with connection.
At the next red light, he pulled grabbed me around the neck and slammed his lips on mine, kissing me hungrily, passionately, desperately. He pulled back and stared into my eyes, then gave me a gentle kiss on the forehead, put the car in gear, and drove us to the birthday party.
*****
When we arrived at Hannah’s mother’s house, the party appeared to be in full swing, though there weren’t that many people there. There were four tables with umbrellas spread around the backyard with one long table full of food in the back of the yard under a stand of trees. Hannah didn’t go too over the top with the decorations, which makes sense considering whose party it was.
I saw Jack and Ava sitting with Hannah and Nikolai at one of the tables. I was excited to see them, as they both went to school out of state. They typically visited a couple of times a year, but recently Ava’s parents had moved down south, so they came up less often. Ava promised Hannah they would come to town for Nikolai’s birthday since Jack was his best friend. In fact, his appearance was a birthday surprise for Nikolai.
“Hey, Ava!” I exclaimed before putting my arms around her from behind. She popped up and gave me a proper hug. Drago had walked over to talk to Nikolai and Jack.
“Katya! How are you? Hannah told me about what happened a couple of months ago,” she said, nodding at Hannah as she also stood to join our little group. “Are you okay?” Ava asked, her peridot eyes darkening in concern. She looked nearly the same as the last time I saw her, though her pale blonde hair was longer now.
“Yes, I’m doing fantastic,” I replied, putting my hand on her arm to set her mind at ease. An easy smile replaced her previous expression, and she was grinning happily at my news. “Are you guys up here for long?”
“Only a week.” Ava said, turning her head to Jack, who had just walked up.
“Hey, babe, you need another drink?” he asked, nodding his head at the beer in her hand.
She shook the bottle in her hand and nodded at him. He smiled and leaned in, giving her a quick peck on the mouth, that turned into a little more until she pulled away and shot me a sheepish smile.
“Sorry,” she said as she blushed. Jack didn’t look the least bit sorry as he reached and gave her a final kiss on the neck. He looked the exact same as the last time I saw him, with his short brown hair and piercing, dark green eyes that shot me a mischievous look before he walked over to the row of coolers to get Ava her drink.
“I guess you two are doing well,” I said.
“You don’t know the half of it, Katya. They have been sickening since they got here last night,” Hannah said, giving Ava a good-natured elbow jab.
Ava gave Hannah a swat on the arm. “You’ve got to be kidding me. You and Nikolai are practically glued together by his hands on your ass.”
Hannah gave a snort of laughter. Ava was not wrong, though it could be any body part of Hannah’s that Nikolai was groping, not necessarily her ass.
“What are you guys laughing at?” Nikolai asked as he walked up to Hannah and pulled her to his side, his hand sliding behind her, clearly aiming for her butt. Ava and I roared with laughter as Hannah twirled to dislodge his hand, and he looked at her like she’d lost her mind.
“What did I miss?” he asked quizzically.
Hannah reached up and rubbed his cheek. “Nothing, just girl talk. Can you grab me another beer?”
Nikolai cocked his head but shrugged his shoulders and dropped a hard kiss on her mouth. “You want the same kind?” he asked, nodding in the direction of her drink.
She nodded and turned back to us. He shot us a devilish look and smacked her ass before walking toward the coolers. Hannah whirled around again, then turned to us as we all started laughing again.
“Who is that with Emmy?” I asked in curiosity.
Emmy looked lovely in a colorfully printed, sleeveless, V-neck, maxi dress I made for her on her last birthday. I knew it would cling to her body and show off her modestly curved, trim figure to its fullest effect. Her dark hair flowed down her back and around her shoulders. She was standing with a boy who stared at her adoringly. She gave him a kind, but disinterested smile. Why had she invited someone she was clearly uninterested in?
Hannah shook her head. “I don’t know what she was thinking. He’s a guy she was in band with. He’s been asking her out for years, and for some reason, she invited him to the party. I think he believes she likes him, but, I mean, you don’t have to a body language expert to see she is definitely not into him.”
I was about to reply when I saw Ivan arrive. He was wearing a casual, slim fit dark-green button-down and pair of jeans. He stopped short when he saw Emmy, his eyes raking over her slender form in a way that made me distinctly uncomfortable to see as his sister. Then he stopped short, his eyebrows slamming together when he saw the young man that was hovering next to her.
As if realizing he had everyone’s attention on him, he veered toward Drago, who pointed him toward the coolers of alcohol. I had a feeling it was going to be an interesting evening.
Drago pulled me over to the table laden with all types of food. He frowned and pointed to an item in the middle of the table.
“Are those empanadas?” he asked curiously, as they did not fit in with the other more barbecue-friendly foods of chips, potato salad, and hot dogs.
I smiled. “No, think closer to home. Well, your home.”
His eyebrows jumped as he turned to look at me. “Are they chebureki?”
I nodded, grabbing one of the savory pastries and putting it on his plate. “Me and Hannah made them yesterday.”
Stunned, he picked it up and took a huge bite as I waited anxiously for his opinion.
“Well? Are they good? Do they taste like chebureki in Russia?”
He looked down at me, his gaze softening. “You made these for me, kotyonok?”
“I saw how much you appreciated it when I made pelmeni,” I said, referring to the pierogi-like dish that was a staple of Russian cuisine. “Your face…you looked so happy. So, I tried to think of other Russian foods you might like. The chebureki, is it good?”
He stared at me for a minute, his thumb coming up to rub my bottom lip. “It’s perfect.”
*****
Drago
I was kicking back at a table with Callahan, Maxim, Jack, Ivan, and Nikolai, completely stuffed after eating five chebureki. I still felt a kick in my chest as I imagined Katya working so hard to make something special for me. Food was probably the only thing I missed about Russia.
“Hey, any news on that Russian fuck?” Callahan asked, walking back from the coolers with another round of drinks for us.
Four Russians snapped their head in his direction, scowling heavily.
Callahan laughed. “Not you Russian fucks
, the guy that was working with Yuri. Jesus, he was a crazy bastard.”
“Orlov?” I asked.
“Yeah, that guy. I come across a lot of psychos in this line of work, but never one like that guy. He was serial killer crazy. And he was fucking obsessed with some girl—couldn’t stop talking about her. Rambled about her all the time. Felt bad for her considering how fucked up he was.”
“Katya?”
Callahan took a sip of his beer and shook his head. “No, some other girl.” He snorted. “He knew better than to fixate on Katya, especially around Yuri.”
While I couldn’t care less about some girl that Orlov had a crush on, something about this was nagging at me. “Do you remember the name of the girl?”
Callahan sighed and tipped his head back, trying to recollect what must have seemed like irrelevant chatter from an irritating psychopath at the time. “Annie? Emma? Something like that.”
I saw Ivan’s head pop up and whip around. “Emmy?”
Callahan snapped his fingers. “That’s it. Emmy. On and on about that one.”
“Shit,” Nikolai exclaimed, slamming his beer down.
Ivan marched up to Callahan and grabbed the front of his shirt. “Tell me exactly what the fuck he said about her.”
Callahan looked like he was about to toss Ivan through a wall, but after taking stock of the almost crazed look on his face, he appeared to reconsider. He figured out, as we all did, that Ivan’s reaction was based not on aggression, but distress.
Callahan reached down to remove Ivan’s hand from his shirt, and while Ivan complied, he stayed crowded in Callahan’s personal space, his eyes glittering with emotion. “You know this girl? Wait…Hannah’s sister? That Emmy?”
Ivan gave a short nod. “Tell me everything that fucker said.”
Callahan took a step back from Ivan. “I only met him a couple of times, but he arrived before Alfonsi a couple of times. No surprise, Alfonsi was a lazy piece of shit. Anyway, he would go on about ‘his girl’ this and ‘his girl’ that.” That had Ivan’s fists clenching—Orlov asserting possession over Emmy.
Callahan continued. “But then he’d slip and say when we get together, or when I finally have her, so I figured he wasn’t actually dating her, and honestly, who could blame her with that guy. I just assumed he was rambling about some girl who made his coffee at a Starbucks or waved hello at him once. He seems like the kind of crazy fucker who’d get obsessed with someone who barely knew he existed.”
Callahan had that shit right. Orlov had been on the loose for three months, and while we had our feelers out, we hadn’t really been worried about him. Shit, he could be dead for all we knew.
“Has anyone been watching over Emmy?” Ivan growled at me, his body rigid, tension coming off him in waves.
My eyebrows shot up. “No, why would we be watching over her? We didn’t know Orlov was into her. Fuck, we shot that asshole before he got away, and that was on top of the burns he sustained when the warehouse blew up. Who’s to say he’s even alive?”
Ivan shook his head. “No, she needs to be protected. You think that flute player, or whatever he is, is going to do shit against someone like Orlov?” Ivan said, jerking his thumb in the direction of Emmy and the guy she brought with her. I had been wondering how he felt about her bringing a date to this party. His thunderous expression told me everything I wanted to know.
“What do you suggest we do? I guess I could put a man on her for a bit, check out any guys hanging around her,” I said casually. I knew where this was headed.
“You guess? We’re the reason she’s even on Orlov’s radar.”
“If you’re so worked up, why don’t you protect her?”
“No way,” Ivan said, looking spooked.
I rubbed my jaw thoughtfully. “Okay, then I guess I can put Will on her. I’ll tell her to pretend he’s her boyfriend, so it doesn’t look so weird with him around her all the time. I doubt Orlov will make a move on her if he knows she’s taken. Assuming that lunatic is even alive.”
If possible, Ivan’s scowl intensified. “Her boyfriend? Will? No fucking way. Absolutely not. He’ll make a move on her. He’ll show her his fucking scars from when he got shot and act like some kind of hero. Forget it, I’ll take care of this myself,” he said, slamming down his beer bottle before marching toward Emmy and the unfortunate man she had brought to the party.
Though I was concerned about the situation with Orlov, I couldn’t help but grin at what I knew was about to unfold.
Ivan was done.
I got up and walked toward Katya, chuckling when I saw Ivan walk up to Emmy and drag her into the small grove of trees at the back of the yard.
I slid my arm around her waist and pulled her toward me, dropping a kiss on her pouty, irresistible mouth. “What’s going on with Ivan?” she asked, darting a quick look over to where he and Emmy were talking animatedly.
I shrugged. “He’s finally facing his destiny.”
Katya cocked her head, then nodded and smiled. She knew what I was talking about. I had resisted mine for long enough.
*****
Katya
“Oh, you’re still wearing your necklace, Katya! I remember when you got that for graduation,” Ava remarked, pointing to the one piece of jewelry I rarely removed these days. Drago’s arm tightened on my waist.
“Oh, yeah, well, I didn’t wear it for a while, but now I never take it off.”
Ava smiled and nodded. She continued to examine the locket for a moment longer, then frowned. “You know, I never noticed the D until right now. Slick, Drago,” Ava said as she smiled and walked away.
My head snapped around to stare at him. I pulled the locket up for closer scrutiny and was stunned to discover that Ava had been right. Hidden among the etched swirls on the front of the locket was the shape of the letter D. The scrollwork made it nearly undetectable, as I was sure he intended, but it was there. How had I not seen it earlier?
I quickly realized I had only worn it for one night when he gave it to me, then I’d taken it off and avoided looking at it for nearly two years. When I started wearing it again, I never thought to examine it.
“She’s right! There is a D hidden here. Did you know that?” I asked, still inspecting it as if he might have hidden any number of things on this tiny locket.
“Of course, I knew. I told them to put it there.”
My jaw dropped as I stared at him. “Why?”
He cocked his head, gray eyes steady on mine. “You know why,” he said.
I was immediately brought back to his earlier comment, that he’d never bought a present for anyone but me. I’d had no idea just how far out of character a gift from Drago was at that time. The tattoo, the necklace—he’d been mine for so long, and I’d never realized.
He reached up and grabbed the locket, rubbing his thumb over his initial. Something he frequently did. “You have no idea what it does to me to see this around your neck, even now.”
I thought back to the day I started wearing it again, how he’d reacted, how he’d stared at it.
He reached down and grabbed my left hand, rubbing his thumb across my third finger. “I’m going to have to get you another piece of jewelry soon.”
“Are you proposing to me right now?” I gasped.
He shook his head. “I’m not officially proposing, just stating a fact. You know you’re going to be mine for the rest of our lives, don’t you, Katya?” he asked, his hand sliding up to cradle my jaw.
Hearing those casual words—words of devotion and commitment—still filled me with amazement, but when I considered how much we’d been through and how happy we were, I was hard-pressed to disagree. Over the last three months, I could hardly believe how beautiful my life had become, and it seemed, if Drago had his way, that was the way it was going to stay.
I smiled and nodded my head. “I know.”
About the Author
Kristin Alexander is a new author who lives in the Chicago area with her family.
She has spent most of her professional life as a teacher and social worker but tends to wear many hats when it comes to her interests! She loves writing characters who display both passion and humor but are relatable and real. The first three books in her Dangerous Love Series, Nikolai, Jack, and Drago are all available for sale.
Kristin loves hearing from fans, so please follow her on Facebook or Instagram in order to get all the latest updates on upcoming titles.
Drago (Dangerous Love Book 3) Page 26
