Demyan & Ana (8 page)

Demyan slammed his booted foot between Cavan’s shoulder blades, pinning him in place as he yanked his head back roughly.

“Bite the ledge,” Demyan ordered.

Cavan swallowed audibly. “Fuck you.”

“Bite it, or I’ll make you do it.”

When Cavan still refused, Demyan nodded for Koldan to help. Koldan stayed silent while he forced a shouting Cavan’s mouth to open against the edge of the ledge. Hard enough to do damage, but still keep the fucker lucid, Demyan’s heel came down on the back of Cavan’s head.

Blood, teeth, cartilage and fluid spilled to the floor in a mass of slop, followed by red vomit. Cavan choked as he retched and spat out blood. Demyan fisted Cavan’s hair and pulled him up high enough for his knife to reach the correct spot at his throat to slice the vocal cords.

“I’m going to enjoy this, Cavan,” Demyan whispered. “Scream for me.”

Chapter Eight

Ana

“You seem better than last week,” Viviana said.

Ana shrugged and picked at her
ptichie moloko
. The Russian dessert was one of her most favorite growing up and eating it always left her sentimental and missing her grandmamma Clarissa. “It’s been … okay, Ma.”

“Good. I was worried about you, Ana. You can always come to me, you know? Or your father. He worries, too. So much.”

Ana offered her mother a small smile. Then, she took a decent sized bite of the chocolate covered marshmallow sweet in an attempt to end the conversation. At least her side of it.

The week had gone by quietly, for the most part. Every day became a little easier to bear. Her anxiety wasn’t necessarily lessened, but she didn’t startle as badly as before. The dreams started to ebb. Food had its appeal again.

Mostly, her ease of mind came from Demyan. He promised it was over the morning after Koldan told her brother who her attacker really was. Ana didn’t know why it was over, she didn’t ask, and she sure as hell didn’t plan to. But, inside, she knew it was. Well, the fear of Cavan was gone, anyway.

Koldan took her home to her apartment yesterday. Ana actually asked to go. She was ready to stand back up on her own two feet without Demyan’s protection. Try to. She didn’t expect it to be so hard walking back into her place, but it really, really was. Someone—she suspected her brother and Koldan—had cleaned the mess left over from her attack. It didn’t help with the memories.

She stayed there. She slept that first night. Dreamed, too, but slept.

Ana swallowed her sweet, noticing her mother watching her closely. “I’m good, Ma. Really.”

Viviana nodded. “I know, baby. Does it maybe have something to do with a certain Russian hanging around your brother?”

Ana’s grin formed before she could hide it. “You’re nosy.”

“Oh, yes. Very much. Even so, does it?”

“Has Daddy noticed, too?”

“Your father knows everything,” Viviana said, winking. “Even when we think he doesn’t.”

Ana blew out a huff of air. Not everything. “How does he feel about it?”

“He’s patiently waiting for Koldan to take him aside.”

“We’re not … together, or whatever. We hang out, talk and things. I like him. There’s not much for him to discuss with Papa.”

Viviana rapped her fingers to the countertop. “And that’s why your father is patiently waiting and not knocking heads. Like I said, he knows, Ana.”

Ah.

“Heads up, Erik!”

Ana didn’t have time to react to a large male form bumping into her side. A football bounced off the stool beside hers. The liquor rack on the island took the brunt of both Erik and Ana’s weight. It wasn’t unusual for her father’s close associates to be in their home. They were almost always sipping on vodka, sharing jokes that made Ana cringe, and sometimes they got a little rowdy.

Demyan loved football, Anton didn’t. Ana overheard them arguing with Erik earlier about who could throw a better pass. That explained the ball and Erik.

It didn’t explain the hard ball of panic swelling in her stomach as the glass liquor bottles shattered on the floor. The sounds of the shards tinkering and the liquid spilling across gray tiles sent her spinning right back into that night.

Ana couldn’t breathe. She couldn’t see anything but darkness. The smell of her apartment floor was all around her. A memory of blood in her mouth made her taste buds sting. The decorative glass vase filled with gelled colors on her coffee table smashed to the floor.

Erik laughed deeply. Hands were on her body, righting her into the stool, but no one seemed to notice she was as stiff as a board, biting hard into her cheek, and fisting her hands into her stomach.

“Sorry, Ana girl.” A very short beat of time passed before Erik said, “Ana? Ana, look at her me. It’s okay,
milaya
. It’s just me, Erik. Breathe, Ana.”

“What’s wrong?” Ana heard her mother whisper.

The trembling started in Ana’s hands and quickly spread through the rest of her body like a raging forest fire. A heaviness settled on her chest with every short breath. She stumbled off the stool, hands flying out to keep anyone from coming closer.

The panic attack was relentless and damning.

In the background, she could hear her mother calling her name. Her father’s worried words. Demyan’s demands for everyone to give her space.

“I need you to count with me,” Erik said faintly. “In, one, two, three, four, five and let it out, Ana. Again …”

Someway, though she didn’t have the first clue how he managed, Erik’s voice caught her attention through the thick fog of terror. She followed his instructions over and over until the crushing waves lessened, her breathing became deeper and slower, and her vision cleared.

The shaking didn’t relent as Erik watched her warily. “No more counting, just keep breathing.”

Ana nodded, forcing herself to do as he said. She backed into the wall without realizing it. Like a dog being cornered. She couldn’t bear to look around at the other faces in the room, so she focused only on Erik.

“How many fingers am I holding up?” Erik asked, waving a thumb and two fingers.

“Three,” Ana said hoarsely.

“Good. Did you take your anxiety meds today?”

“She’s not on any medications,” Anton said from somewhere behind Erik.

He sounded so angry.

Ana broke into a fit of tears.

“Fuck, Anton, shut up,” Erik growled. “Ana girl, look at me again. No meds?”

Ana shook her head, keeping her gaze on the ground.

“What triggered it? Was it me or the bottles breaking?”

“Bottles.”

“What in the fuck is going on?” Anton demanded.

Ana glanced up just in time to see Erik toss her father a look over his shoulder. “You don’t recognize it, do you?”

“Obviously not, Erik.”

“Why didn’t you tell me, Anton? I’m your friend. I wouldn’t have said anything.”

No, no, no, no, no.

Ana couldn’t speak.

“Tell you what?”

“Look at her, man. This kind of an anxiety episode, it’s induced by triggers from an attack.”

“No,” Anton breathed. “No, you’re wrong.”

“I am not. My first wife had them for years after her sexual assault before she committed suicide.”

“Ana?” Viviana asked, crying softly.

Ana flinched away from her mother’s call and the hands reaching toward her.

Anton, however, turned to his son. “Demyan?”

“She begged me not to tell you,” Demyan confessed.

“Jesus Christ.”

Ana wept harder. “I’m sorry.”

• • •

“Why, Ana?” her father asked, his voice strained with emotion. “Why wouldn’t you tell me?”

He kneeled down at her feet. Ana stayed stock still perched on the couch, fighting off the urge to cry or run. Viviana sat beside her daughter, hand holding tight to Ana’s while tears rolled down her cheeks soundlessly. When Anton asked Ana to recount the attack, she did so in monotone with her gaze stuck to the wall where the clock was ticking down.

Everyone was silent. No one moved. They kept watching.

“Why?” Anton asked again, the word full of air.

“I didn’t want you to blame me,” she whispered. “I thought … I thought I did something wrong and you would be disappointed.”

“For fuck’s sake, Ana, I would never—” Anton clamped his mouth shut, tipping his head down to meet his palm.

“And I was scared,” Ana continued. “Of him and what might happen if I said anything.”

Anton frowned. “How long ago?”

“Two weeks,” Demyan said quietly where he was leaning against the wall.

“You shut up,” Anton growled, glaring. “Her I can understand, but you, Demyan.
You
…”

“Please don’t be angry with him,” Ana said, sniffling. “He only did what I asked.”

“He knows better.” Anton didn’t relent in his harsh, angry stare. “He knows what I can—”

“Same thing I did,” Demyan interrupted their father sharply.

Anton sighed, his tongue peeking out to wet his lips as he regarded Ana again. “Cavan Dolan?”

“Yes.”

“I thought you warned him off, Demyan?”

“Me, too.”

Anton cleared his throat, never looking away from Ana. “The body found last Wednesday in the loft uptown. They weren’t releasing names at the time. That’s on you, yes?”

“Yeah,” Demyan answered.

“Ana,” her father drawled softly, his hands coming to rest on her wrists. “Tell me what you need.”

“Please don’t blame me,” Ana said.

Anton’s gaze met his wife’s, something unspoken passing between them. “I don’t know what’s worse, Ana. That you felt you couldn’t come to me, or that you feel like I might say it was your fault. They both hurt me just the same. What did I do to make you so distrustful and doubting of me? I love you.”

Ana’s heart hurt. “I know, Papa.”

“You’ve always been my little girl. You always come to me when you need something.”

“And that’s exactly why, isn’t it, Ana?” her mother asked. “Because he sees you as his princess, and treats you like it, too. You didn’t want him to think you were tainted or ruined. How would he look at you after, knowing? Am I right?”

Ana cringed, refusing to answer.

“I’d say so, Vine,” Anton murmured. “I’m so sorry. So, so sorry, Ana. I will always love you, no matter what. You’re mine. If I’ve ever made you feel anything less, I’m sorry. And it’s not your fault, my
dushka
.”

More than anything, Ana needed to hear those words from her father the most.

• • •

Ana woke to yells coming from down the hall. She sat up on the bed and looked around her old room, confused. After the shit show earlier, all she wanted to do was sleep. Her parents hadn’t pushed her for anything more than she gave them, so they let her go to bed without an argument.

Standing from the bed, she padded out of her room and down the hall. The shouts became clearer the closer she came to father’s office.

“What would you have done, then?” Demyan asked, sounding derisive and angry.

“I’d—”

“Murdered him,” her brother interrupted their father. “You would have slaughtered him, Papa. Painted the fucking city with his blood and then bathed in it. I know you … I fucking
am
you, okay.”

“Demyan, calm down,” Viviana said quietly.

Ana came to a stop just outside the office door. She stayed hidden in the darkness of the hallway where no one inside would be able to see her, but she also couldn’t see them.

“What are we going to do, now?” Anton barked. “They’ve got a small syndicate in the city worth nothing compared to us, but the family in Detroit is
massive
. If he sends men down here, it will be the biggest war New York has seen in a century.”

“I know,” Demyan said. “But I made a choice. I don’t regret it.”

“What about Freddie?”

Demyan made an uncomfortable sound. “There’s a problem with that.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah, he’s missing. Has been since the day after they found the body.”

“Shit,” Anton hissed.

“What does that mean?” Viviana asked.

“It means Freddie was likely one of the few people Cavan had contact with outside of his family,” Anton explained. “Demyan got his info from Freddie. It’ll lead right back to us. There’s no keeping it quiet.”

“But … he raped her, Anton.”

“I know, baby. I fucking know what he did to her.”

“They’re not like the Italians, Ma,” Demyan said. “They don’t follow rules like Cosa Nostra. The family is involved heavily in human-trafficking, so they have little regard for human life as it is. I did some checking on Cavan and his time back in Detroit. Ana is not the first girl. There are others, but they’ve been quieted with money, the stories have all but disappeared, and it was like it never even happened.”

“My God.”

“He got what he deserved,” Demyan added.

“I’m not disagreeing with you,” Anton said, sighing heavily. “But this is going to be a mess—a bad one.”

“I’m not sorry.”

“Go home, Demyan,” Viviana murmured. “Go home to Gia.”

“I should,” her brother agreed.

Ana took a few steps backward before Demyan came into the hall. He didn’t say a thing when he noticed her eavesdropping.

Ana couldn’t meet Demyan’s stare. “I’m sorry he’s mad at you.”

“Come here,
sestra
,” Demyan said, pulling Ana into a tight hug. “Don’t worry about his anger with me. Papa will get over it, eventually. Everything I did was worth it, especially for you.”