by SR Jones
She shakes her head. “I presume this man is your bodyguard? Good Lord, Dasha, what are you thinking? You could ruin everything. If Jasper finds out, he’ll be done with you. All the sacrifices I've made, all the hard work I put into getting you your dream, and you’re about to throw it away over what? A cheap roll in the hay with some jumped up private investigator.”
Private investigator? I’m indignant at being called that.
I sit up and run a hand through my hair. Dasha’s mother stares at me, her face a picture, eyes wide, mouth slack as she slowly realizes who I am.
“You?”
It’s an accusation. An angry one too.
“Mother, please leave us. I’ll be down in ten minutes if you will make some tea.”
Her mother stares at me, her lips pursed so tight they look stitched together.
“Mother,” Dasha snaps.
Her mother still doesn’t move. “I should have known you’d come back into her life one day to mess it up again.”
She turns to Dasha. “What will Jasper say?”
“He won’t find out, will he?” Dasha says, and I’m impressed with the amount of threat she puts into the last two words. “He’s hardly been a saint, Mom. He’s been screwing around for years. You know it, I know it, hell most of Paris knows it. He doesn’t get to find out everything about me, okay?”
“He’s the reason you’re a star; it’s all down to him. Men are feckless when it comes to women, but in the important ways, he’s a good husband.”
I snort at that. I can’t help it.
“Get out of bed, you cheap hoodlum.”
This is a little unexpected. Dasha’s mother was always friendly toward me; since when did she hate me so much?
I shrug. Then because I’m an asshole, and I like winding people like her up, I stare at Dasha’s mother as I take her daughter’s mouth in a fierce kiss. I throw off the covers and get out of bed, collecting my clothes leisurely, before sauntering past Mrs. Imanovich, bare ass naked.
“Well,” she gasps, looking away.
I wait until Dasha and her mother have cleared out of my room, and then I return to it and take a brief shower. The urge to know what they’re discussing rides me hard. I go to my laptop. I shouldn’t, but I do. I open the damn thing and click on the video and sound feed from the living room where Dasha and her mother are sitting drinking tea and having a blazing row in Russian.
“I can understand the appeal. Bohdan’s always been too good looking for his own good. Too popular. Too flashy. You don’t need a flashy man, Dasha. He’ll cheat on you, ruin you.”
“Mother,” she snaps, “we aren’t exactly getting married. We had sex, okay? I don’t think there’s anything wrong with me doing that seeing as my husband hasn’t come near me in that way for years. Thank God, I might add, with the never-ending parade of blondes he screws behind my back. I’d probably get a disease.”
“What is he even doing here?”
I know her mother is referring to me.
“His firm was given the contract to protect me, and he asked to be assigned to me because he knew me from the past.”
“I don’t like it.” Mrs. Imanovich shakes her head. “There’s got to be a reason why he’s here. Does Jasper even know that you two are old acquaintances?”
Dasha stands and starts to pace. “No, and he must never find out. You mustn’t tell him. Mother, listen to me.” She kneels by her mother on the floor, and it’s such an oddly childlike pose; it touches me deeply. “You can’t tell him. Jasper isn’t the man you believe. He’s… He can be… Sometimes he hurts me. If you tell him, he might hurt me more.”
“I won’t tell him,” her mother says. “So long as you send Bohdan away, today.”
“Mother!” Dasha stands again and begins pacing once more. “There’s a threat against my life. With Jasper away, if Bohdan leaves, I’ll be in real danger. Do you want that?”
“I want him gone,” Mrs. Imanovich shouts. “Gone, do you hear me. He’s like a bad penny, that boy. Always turned up where you were. He would have dragged you into a life of petty crime and poverty before, if I hadn’t intervened, and he’ll do it again.”
My blood runs cold at her words. Intervened?
Dasha stops her pacing and turns slowly to her mother. “What do you mean, intervened?”
“I … erm … when I took you away. To London. After he slept with some cheap whore. You were so heartbroken, darling; don’t you remember? So I took you away from him. That’s all I meant.”
Dasha seems to accept this, but I don’t. Her mother didn’t mean only that; I’m convinced of it. So what did she mean?
It seems I’m going to have to investigate Mrs. Imanovich and see exactly what she did to make sure I didn’t ruin Dasha’s life, the way she believed I would.
“I’ll make a promise, Mother. Once Jasper returns, I shall tell him I want a new bodyguard, and Bohdan will be gone, okay? So long as you don’t say a word. But I need him to stay until Jasper gets back as I won’t be safe otherwise.”
“Fine. I will keep my mouth shut, but I want that boy gone.”
Boy? Fuck her. I’m not a boy any longer. Nor am I as forgiving as Dasha is of those who trespass against me. I’m going to investigate every area of Mrs. Imanovich’s life and turn it inside out and upside down. First, though, on a hunch, I pick up my phone and dial an old acquaintance, a mafia Pakhan called Ilya, who runs the St. Petersburg area.
I need to find out exactly what happened all those years ago.
Chapter Eighteen
Bohdan
Ilya answers on the fourth ring.
“Long time, no speak. I thought you were getting out of the business along with that crazy fucker, Konstantin.” His voice is deep, with a hint of amusement.
“I am, but I need to ask a favor. Personal.”
There’s a beat of silence and then a cautious, “Go on.”
“You’re damn high up over there now, right?”
“Yep.”
“Do you think you could do some digging into what happened when my uncle and I were reported for skimming off the top?”
“Digging how?”
I sigh. This is a big ask because Ilya runs most of St. Petersburg, but he left some of the old Pakhans measly neighborhoods to give them an illusion they were still important to avoid any hassle. He doesn’t bother them, and they don’t bother him. One of those Pakhans is Arseni, the man who burned my legs to fuck and my uncle’s back. This might cause issues for Ilya. “I just need to know who told Arseni that my uncle was skimming off the top. It matters to me, on a personal level. Deeply personal.”
“Why, you think your own mother did it or something?”
I laugh at that. “She wasn’t capable of anything other than staring into a vodka bottle at that point, so no. I thought a girl I loved did it. Now, I need to know for sure.”
“Arseni is old and sick now. He isn’t that involved anymore. I think if I went to see him and offered him something worthwhile, he’d talk.”
“Like what?”
Ilya laughs, a deep, resonant chuckle. “Like money, Bohdan.”
“Oh, yeah, well I can pay. How much do you think?”
“He’s fallen on hard times recently. You offer him something substantial, and I think he’ll tell me. I won’t say the money has come from you; I’ll simply state that I need to know for reasons of my own and offer him the money.”
I think. If he’s on hard times then fifty thousand euros will go a long way; more so in Russia if I offer it in gold. “How about the equivalent of fifty thousand euros, in gold?”
Ilya whistles through his teeth. “I was thinking along the lines of ten myself, but yeah if you give him fifty, he’ll talk; I’m sure. Probably make the old fucker feel important to have someone wanting to listen to anything he’s got to say too.”
“I’ll transfer the gold to you if you give me your bank details.”
“She must be important.”
“Sh
e is,” I say simply.
More though, I need to know. Now that I’m convinced that Dasha didn’t do it, the mystery of who did is driving me crazy. Who else could have known? Did my uncle himself drop a hint by accident? Were some of Arseni’s men following me? For all these years I have been blaming Dasha when I was the one who led the men to discovering my uncle’s secret?
There was another reason I’d hated Dasha for what I believed to be her betrayal, and that’s because she was the only person I told about the shit my father used to pull. She knew about the way he let his supposed friends try to molest me during those damn card games. I’d always believed her telling the Bratva about what my uncle was doing, to be particularly callous somehow after I’d shared the secret with her. It doesn’t make sense logically, but it’s how I had felt about it at the time. Sometimes our feelings and logic are a million miles apart.
I watch her on the screen. The conversation between her and her mother has moved on from me, to the possible upcoming solo show Dasha might be sponsored for. Her mother is more excited than Dasha, it seems.
“You don’t seem excited,” her mother says as if reading my thoughts.
“Oh, I am. You know me, Mom, I love to dance. I get more excited about the dancing, though, than the other side of things, and from what Jasper told me before he left for business, this particular show will involve a lot of media interviews, and I hate all of that.”
“All of that is what pays for this,” her mother says, waving her hands around the room.
“I’m well aware of that fact. It also pays for your house,” Dasha points out. “It also pays for Jasper’s jet-setting, his ridiculous insistence on dressing like some Edwardian gent, and his penchant for antiques. It pays for everything. Or rather, it would be more accurate to say, I do. It’s my feet that bleed, my bones that ache. I’m the one dancing and dancing and dancing, not anyone else, and yet I’m the one controlled by everybody.”
“Because, my darling.” Her mother takes hold of Dasha’s hand. “You’re the artist. You’re the creative, talented, precious one. You need the headspace to simply go out there and dance. Jasper sorts all the other nasty stuff, so you don’t have to think about it.”
“Yes, he does, doesn’t he?” Dasha shakes her head. “Mother, do you know how vulnerable we both are?”
Her mother frowns and sips at her tea, so Dasha pushes on.
“He’s got control of everything. I’ve been looking into it in recent months because frankly his behavior has grown much worse, and I’m scared he’s going to really harm me. I looked into how easy it would be to leave, and he’s tied me to him so tightly I don’t think I can ever get away.”
Her mother shakes her head and pats at her hair, smoothing it down. “Darling, you’re tired, overwrought. You’ve just done something very foolish with that Russian boy, and you’re clearly not thinking straight. Why would you leave Jasper? He has made you who and what you are! All men can be tricky. We women must learn to handle them. You think Jasper is bad? You think it’s bad to live in this beautiful house and be world famous as a dancer? If we’d stayed in Russia, you’d have been married to a man who would probably drink too much and beat you daily. That’s the fate of many women living in poverty the world over. You have to deal with Jasper’s temperament, yes, and he can be tricky, but he’s hardly turning you black and blue. I would know.”
“Mother.” Dasha stands. “I think you should leave. Surely you have things to do, and I need to practice. I’m fine, and Bohdan, whatever you may think of him, is capable of looking after me, so you can leave.”
Her mom laughs. “Oh, darling, I’m not leaving. God knows what you and that street urchin will get up to. I won’t tell Jasper, I promise, but until he returns, I’m staying.”
“Fine, stay. I need to go to the theater and practice. Make yourself at home.”
Dasha sweeps out of the room, and I hear her footsteps on the stairs. I close the window down quickly and pull up Google, typing in news so when she storms into the room, it looks as if I’m browsing the latest headlines.
“God, my mother is impossible sometimes,” she fumes. “I am so sorry about the way she spoke to you. I love her,” she says. “Of course, I do. She’s my mother. She brought me into this world, and she gave me the start in life I needed by moving us to London. Of course, I love her; she’s simply difficult.”
I don’t say anything, but it sounds to me like Dasha is convincing herself, not me.
“What do you want to do today?” I ask her.
She turns to me and grins. “I’ve told Mother Dearest I need to go practice, but do you want to play hooky? Fancy lunch along the river somewhere and a walk through the park?”
“I’d love to,” I say.
We both get ready, and then we leave. I feel her mother’s gaze on my back as we go. “Don’t think your mother likes me,” I say with a smile to Dasha as I hold the passenger side door open for her.
“Yes, well, she does like Jasper, so she’s a bad judge of character.”
I climb into the driver’s seat, automatically patting my side to check I have my weapon. I know I have it, but it’s just something I do these days whenever I get into the car.
“Does she know how badly he treats you?” I ask as I pull out of the drive, and then I remember. I’m not supposed to know all the details of how badly he treats her, only what she’s told me. Damn, I need to be more careful.
She doesn’t pick up on it, though, and simply shrugs. “She knows he can be a dick, but she doesn’t know he hits me.”
“You’ve got to get out of that marriage, Dasha.”
“And do what?” she demands. “He holds all the assets because he’s been very clever.”
“Firstly, he can’t legally claim everything. No judge on earth isn’t going to understand that you put a lot into that relationship and the money you have. Secondly, you’re living on your knees.”
“What?” she asks.
“You, you’re living on your knees. Some say it’s better to die on your feet than to live on your knees. So why not leave? Get up off the floor.”
“Stop the car,” she says.
I glance at her and see she’s red in the face she’s so livid. Fuck, I think I’ve just put my foot right in it.
“No, we’re going for a day out,” I say.
“No, we’re fucking not. Talk about shitty victim blaming. You think it’s so easy?” Tears start to shimmer in her eyes, and I wish I could take those words back.
Part of me just wants to shake her and make her realize that she simply needs to leave the bastard to get some sort of life back, but I get why she’s so upset with me. It was shitty victim blaming, and now I feel crappy.
“I have no friends left. None. I have no money of my own and nowhere to go.” She pulls at a thread repeatedly on the light cotton sweater she wears. “My mother relies on him to keep her clothed and fed, and he’s also rather expertly turned her against me too. He didn’t start treating me like this, Bohdan. Abusers rarely do. He did it slowly. Slowly but surely. He undermined my confidence. He made me believe no one would think anything of me and the only thing going for me was my skill as a dancer. I was ugly, stupid, clumsy, childish. You name the insult, that was me. But it started so slowly, so insidiously. A constant drip, drip, drip of small cuts that became larger cuts until by the time I realized I was bleeding out it was too late.”
“I’m sorry,” I say. “I get it, I do, but you can’t stay, Dasha. Please, get the fuck out.”
“Oh, and do what? Run away with you? My knight in shining armor?” she sneers as she stares out of the windscreen at the traffic-heavy road stretching out ahead.
“It’s one option,” I say, only half joking.
“No, it isn’t.” She shakes her head. “I can’t jump straight into a relationship with you when things have gone so wrong for me in my other relationship. That would be disastrous. Utterly disastrous. If I leave, I will go and be alone somewhere. Take the t
ime to find myself and sort my head out, so you might as well stop pushing for it because it won’t benefit you, okay?”
This time I’m the one wanting to stop the car so I can fucking throttle her. Does she think I only want her to leave Jasper so I can make her mine? I want her. I want to try to make something with her, but I want her to leave him because he is insane, and he’s going to kill her one of these days.
“You know, I have friends who own this amazing property on Corfu. I have a share in it,” I say. “You could go there. Stay in one of the houses, with your mother, for as long as you want. No strings. You’d be safe. You could spend time every day in the sun, get your strength back, and figure out what you want.”
“Oh, and how do I live?”
“I can help,” I say.
“No, Bohdan. You’re not listening to a word I say. I can’t leave Jasper only to become reliant on another man. I daren’t; don’t you understand that? It terrifies me the very idea that I could be going from the frying pan into the fire.” My jaw tenses as the meaning of her words sinks in. “I’m not saying you’re anything like Jasper, but what I am saying is that I don’t trust my own judgment anymore.”
We spend the rest of the journey in silence, and I want to kick myself for ruining what could have been a magical day.
Chapter Nineteen
Dasha
Bohdan doesn’t get it. He doesn’t get me. I’ve been broken down slowly and surely over time by a master manipulator, and the idea that I might leave him to simply find myself relying yet again on another man is terrifying to me. I need to leave knowing I can support myself. For that, I need a lawyer, but every single one I approach says no. Jasper’s lawyer is one of the most feared and respected in all of Paris.
We’re walking along the embankment, and things are frosty between us still. The kernel of an idea is taking root in my brain, though. I turn to Bohdan. “Do you really want to help me get away?”
