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?”