LEVIN
Two hours later, I’d untangled myself from Bianca’s sleeping body and had forced myself to leave her side. I’d poured my heart out to her as much as I knew how, yet she’d stayed silent the whole time. There wasn’t anything else I could tell her. Laying my heart at her feet made me feel weak and worthless. And she hadn’t even given a shit.
The fear that she was already gone made my heart ache. I wasn’t the sort of guy who laid it all out for people to see. Burying my emotions was what I did, and it had worked just fine until Bianca had arrived. Now, I was skinned raw and sick to my stomach because the girl my best friend had married didn’t want me and didn’t give a fuck. This was what emotions got a guy. Fucked up.
“How is she?” Dom asked as I came downstairs.
“Sleeping,” I muttered, sitting down on the couch. “Where’s Stella?”
“In her room, bitching about not having her phone.” He rubbed his eyes.
Vincent came into the room and flopped down in the chair across from me.
“Ivanov was pissed today, threatening to go to D'Angelou if we don't produce Fallon. We need to figure out what we’re going to do.”
“I know,” Dom said, staring off into the distance, twirling the wedding band on his finger.
Lucky bastard. It wasn’t like I’d ever considered getting married. Hell, I never thought I’d find a girl I could stand to be around past getting off. But now that I knew Bianca, everything had shifted gears practically overnight. I wasn’t sure how to navigate this new territory. Clearly, I was great at fucking it up.
“Seventy-two hours. We either kill Vasiliev and get rid of his body or we set him free,” Vincent continued.
“If we set him free, he’ll run and talk,” Dom said.
“If we kill him, we’ll break Bianca further,” I added, sighing.
I’d like to kill the cocksucker. He’d been wooing our girl, and she’d fallen for it. Add to it that he'd planned on giving her over to Matteo made me want to keep punching the fucker in the throat until he choked on regret. But then he’d said he knew who'd killed Stefan. Son of a bitch knew how to save his ass, that was for sure.
Dom snapped his focus on me. “If he lives, he’ll take her from us. You know he will.”
“I hope not. She loves us. It has to mean something,” Vincent said, his voice quiet. “You know she does.”
A muscle thrummed along Dom’s jaw as he spun the ring faster on his finger.
“I hate everything to do with the lords, but that girl upstairs…” Vincent said, his voice thick with emotion. “I really hate to say this, but maybe we need to bargain with Vasiliev—”
“Never happening,” Dom snarled, glowering at Vincent as he leaned forward.
“Maybe Vin is right,” I said, hating the words as they came out of my mouth.
Dom fixed his glare on me.
“Just listen, man,” Vincent rushed on. “She loves him too. You know she does. She’ll hate us forever if we don’t let him live. Maybe she’ll love us again, or at least give us a chance, if we let him go. Don’t you want your wife to be your wife?”
Dom’s hands balled into fists for a moment as he breathed in and out deeply, like he was trying to suppress his rage. I hated the idea of letting Vasiliev go too, but the alternative seemed to be losing bumblebee if we finished Vasiliev off. Plus, if he were dead, I’d never get answers about Stefan, and the bastard said he knew something.
“I’m not letting him go. We’ll kill him.”
“Bad choice,” I said. “You know it. I know you hate him, I fucking do too, but I was just upstairs with Bianca. She was sitting in the shower with cold water raining down on her. She was like ice. She’s checking out, Dom. She’s leaving us, whether we want her to or not. I hate to say it, but Vasiliev has to live. Or maybe he lives long enough to die. The lords could find out and kill him themselves. It’ll save us a hell of a lot of trouble and not really be our fault if that happens.”
It was a slimy as fuck thing to say, but fuck Vasiliev. I didn’t give two shits about him. What I did care about cared about him, so I’d have to deal. For now.
Vincent nodded quickly. “Levin’s right. Maybe we can get him on our side. Maybe he’ll spill everything he knows for B—”