Page 142 of Ruthless Rustanovs

“WOMEN, man. They’ll mess you up every time,” the middle-aged bartender said as he set a glass of vodka in front of Bair. The finest The Sit and Git, Drummond’s one bar, had to offer, but still cheaper than anything Bair had let pass through his lips in years.

Bair took a huge swallow anyway, and asked. “How do you know I am here because of woman?”

“Why else would a dude with a wedding band be in here on Christmas morning? You look just like me right before my second divorce. Believe me, the holidays can be hell on a marriage. You want me to get another one of those on deck for you, buddy?”

Bair nodded with one dip of his large head, and spent the next couple of hours tossing back vodkas. Trying to override the medication, and waiting for the Darkness to claim him.

But it never did. Nor did the usual desire to go out and lay his fists into someone return.

Instead a strange, new emotion overtook him.

One that felt like the after effects of getting punched hard in the chest. And it only got worst whenever he let himself think too hard about the things Sirena had said to him the night before.

He could not love her. That was what Sirena didn’t understand.

He was obsessed with her. Had been from the start.

He wanted her. More than any other women he’d ever met before or after her.

He was willing to do almost anything for her, including raising a daughter who might be inflicted with the same tiger’s curse.

But love? No. It wasn’t something he was capable of. Possession, yes. Love, no. His character was too broken for that. His Darkness wouldn’t even know how to process such an emotion.

So he raised his hand for another vodka, hoping this would be the one that finally obliterated the image running on a loop inside his head.

Her calling him a coward and walking out of his life.

Taking their baby, the only one he’d ever have if his grandmother’s tiger curse story was to be believed, with her.

“Cancel that,” a clipped Russian voice said from behind him.

Bair sighed, before looking over his shoulder at Nikolai , standing there in sweats and a fleece with the name of his hockey team, The Indiana Polar, blazoned across its chest. “Good I’ve found you. You must come with me now.”

Bair dead-eyed his cousin. “I was raised Buddhist. I do not celebrate Christmas. My brother should not have sent you.”

“He did not send me, Boris, he helped me find you. We have been looking for you everywhere. Suro had to call in favors to track you down through your phone which you were not answering. You must come with me now, quickly.”

But Bair shook his head. “You can open presents without me.”

“No! Look at me, I am so frazzled trying to find you for Sirena, I forget to, as Sam says, ‘lead with that.’”

That brought Bair all the way around on his stool. “Sirena sent for me?”

Nikolai’s face became grim, “No, Boris. She collapsed in the guesthouse kitchen. Alexei has taken her to the hospital and he sent me to find you.”