Page 11 of Scarlet Promise (Yegorov Bratva #4)

Chapter Eight

ILYA

The look of horror and misery that collapses the utter joy on Alina’s face kills me. I don’t give a shit about the angry Demyan stalking toward me.

I give a fuck about Alina.

But the twisted hate, hurt, and anger on Demyan’s face cuts into me deep.

He goes to shove his sister out of the way to get to me, but I step between them. When he grabs my shirt, I let him.

When he drags me into the back garden, I let him.

I know Demyan’s temper. And when it cracks open and someone’s in the way, he can only see his goal. I don’t want Alina as collateral damage.

“You fuck!” Demyan curls his free fist, bringing it back, and slams it into my face.

To say it hurts is an understatement. My head rings, and pain blooms outward, as big as a mushroom cloud.

He punches me again. My legs give way, but I don’t fight back.

In the background, Alina screams, Albert barks wildly, and Erin yells.

“Demyan, stop!”

“God, Demyan!” Alina cries. “Don’t!”

He stands over me like an angry god, his eyes glittering in the fairy lights of the back garden.

I let him grab me once more.

“You fucking piece of low-life shit. I should end you here and now, string your entrails up as a warning for other weak bastards who come sniffing around my sister.”

“Demyan, don’t?—”

“Shut up, Erin. I’ll deal with you later.” He doesn’t lift his gaze from me as his wife makes a small sound and Alina cries.

Albert barks urgently.

I narrow my eyes at him. I love Demyan. He’s like a brother to me. He’s family, but he’s speaking to Erin like this? Ignoring his sister and her pain? I don’t know him right now. I don’t know him at all.

“You can’t even fight back, can you? You’re weak. You’re pathetic. No wonder you can’t run a bratva?—”

“Demyan! Stop it!” Alina shouts.

I don’t look at her. I don’t dare look at her.

Or at Erin, who’s murmuring something to Alina.

“You can shut your mouth, too, Alina. I’ll deal with you, too. You thought I was tough on you before? You won’t be leaving your room until you’re thirty, when I choose your husband for you. Someone old, fat, and who can’t get it up. Someone who’ll give me a fortune and you?—”

“Demyan, that is enough,” Erin snaps. “Talk to me how you want, but this is your sister.”

“Who the fuck are you, man?” I ask him in Russian. “You speak to your wife and sister like that?”

“I’m the pakhan. King of my world, and you’re no longer in it.”

“You think I want to be in your world when you’re like this?” I pause. “I love her?—”

He punches me again.

“Hit me again, and I’ll make you regret it, Demyan.”

He grins at me, feral, nasty, and he raises his fist. Then he yells as a ball of fur launches himself at him and bites his hand.

Demyan throws the dog. Before I can react, Alina screams and hurls herself at her brother. He shoves her hard.

If his throwing Albert off him made me see red, pushing Alina makes me lose all reason.

With a cry, I attack. I slam my fists into his chest. I grab his head and bash mine into it, and then I toss him away from me.

I know he didn’t hurt Albert. I know it was more a flick than hurling the dog down. His hand is bleeding, and I’m fucking glad.

I know he shoved Alina to get her away, not to hurt her.

Demyan may be the Yegorov pakhan, but he’s no king. He’s a man as flawed as I am. Unbendable where my heart may be too soft.

But I’m no pushover.

And he’s crossed too many lines.

His wife, my dog, my girl.

We circle each other. I glance at Alina, who’s on the ground with Albert and Erin, whose face says she just may cause Demyan even more pain tonight than I will.

The worst thing is, I get it.

I get his anger.

His hurt.

The feeling of betrayal he must be feeling. From me, his sister, even Erin, who clearly conspired with Alina.

I know Demyan like I know myself, but he’s being a fucking asshole, a wounded beast. He doesn’t get to do that shit. Not now, not when he has the world. All I want is to see his sister happy, and for some reason, I’m a source of that happiness.

And I’ll fight for her.

“The only reason I’m not going to kill you,” I say, “is this is your place, and your wife is here, and because your sister wouldn’t like it. But touch her and my dog again, and I’ll hurt you so bad you wished I killed you.”

He laughs and lands a vicious punch. Though it hurts, I let him so I can deliver two hard, fast uppercuts.

I could lay him flat, and he wouldn’t see me coming. I take up my boxer’s stance, dance lightly around him, and come in with quick jabs. Demyan, who isn’t a boxer, holds his own.

Soon we’re at each other’s throats, slamming fists with angry energy. Neither of us speaks, and his grim determination matches mine. The sparks of anger fly high.

I sweep out a foot and knock him down, but Demyan isn’t pakhan just through inheritance. He earned it. He can fight dirty, and he takes me down.

We writhe, throwing underhanded, nasty punches and kicks. It takes Erin’s scream for help and four strong men to rip us apart.

I’m sore, bloodied, bruised, and so is the perfect Demyan.

He spits out blood from his split lip. I do the same.

“Get the fuck off my property now.” Demyan glares at Pavel, who stands there, hand on his gun, looking torn between annoyance and amusement. “Shoot him.”

“Sorry, sir, no can do. Mrs. Yegorov scares me, and she asked for help, not corpses. Besides, Miss Yegorov’s been through enough, don’t you think?” Pavel asks quietly. “Are you going, Ilya, or do I need to escort you?”

“I’m not going anywhere,” I say, “not until the pakhan here talks this out.”

Demyan glares at me, his eyes burning, and he shakes his head and laughs nastily. “I don’t think so.”

“And you owe an apology to your wife, Alina, and Albert,” I say.

“That fucking rat bit me.” Demyan shows me his hand.

“You were hurting his master!” Alina chokes out. “Who are you, and where’s my brother?”

“I didn’t hurt the fucking dog.”

But he casts a side-eye look to his sister, wife, and dog, and I catch his wince.

He turns back to me. “Get out, Ilya. Idi v’banyu. ”

“He told him to get lost, to go to the bathhouse. It’s an insult,” Alina says to her sister-in-law.

It sounds funny, and it’s a mild enough insult, but said with that kind of ferociousness is asking me to bite back. I won’t let him rile me.

I narrow my eyes. “Not until we talk.”

Demyan’s fists curl, which has got to hurt. Mine do, too.

“ Idi na hui .” He glares.

“ Mudak .” I glare back. “What, you want me to tell you to go fuck yourself, too? Or how about grow a dick from your forehead? Because it’s too late. You’re already a dickhead.”

Demyan tells me to do just that. “ Chtob u tebya hui vo lbu vyros. ”

“Insult all you want, in Russian and English, but I’m not leaving until we talk.”

“Fine,” he finally says. “You want to talk? How’s this? You’re a fucking asshole.”

“Nice start,” I say. “Really. Can we talk? In private?”

“I’m not inviting you in.” He waves the guards away and looks over at Erin. “I’m sorry I spoke to you like that, lyubimaya . Could you please go inside?”

Erin’s anger seems to melt some. She leads Alina inside, but Alina won’t budge from the kitchen.

Demyan flicks a glare at me. “What is it you want from me? You’ve ruined everything.”

“Me? Demyan, what is your problem here? You don’t want your sister to smile?”

He ignores me. “You’re a fuck, a mudak .”

I’ve been called worse than an asshole.

“It’s not even the lying and the secrecy that gets me the most. It’s the betrayal.”

“I haven’t betrayed you, not once. And I never would.”

“You took my sister.”

“She’s grown and makes her own decisions,” I say, a sliver of discomfort passing through me.

“You took my sister, and you changed. You went and took the corrupt bratva of Belov. You aligned with the grandfather you always hated.”

I frown. “I never knew him, but yes, I hate the man. He manipulated this. I’m?—”

I stop. I owe Demyan nothing of the stipulations of the will, of the place between that rock and a hard place with no way out. I don’t need to tell him about trying to find my own way to manipulate the old man’s hold. Of my dead grandfather trying to rule my life beyond the grave.

Alina helped me find a way to circumvent it, and if we found something special between us, then…that’s a gift, not a punishment.

And it’s not Demyan’s business.

I won’t plead a case for myself because he should know me.

“So, what? You’re punishing me for taking the job as something we could use? Together?”

He snarls. “I want nothing of that bratva. Like I want nothing of you.”

The implication of his words isn’t lost. He’s forcing me out of his bratva, out of my role as his second.

Out of any role.

“Nothing? At all?” I ask.

“What I hate here is finding out that everything I thought you stood for has changed. Our morals no longer align. I try to run my bratva with integrity. Everything about the Belov Bratva isn’t good. And my sister getting kidnapped underlines that.”

“I didn’t kidnap her, Demyan.”

But he’s not really listening to me. “Since our morals aren’t in the same place, I’m now sure you’re no good for Alina. You’ll bring her nothing but heartache and pain.”

“My morals are now wrong?” I ask him softly.

“Funny how, before you knew of me and Alina being any kind of thing, you were excited about the Belov Bratva. You even offered help. And I know you well enough to know that you were thinking of a merge, if I wanted that. You know it would be good. You said as much.”

“You hear what you want to hear,” he says, pushing a hand through his hair. “We were at dinner when one of my soldiers called, said you were headed this way.”

“You were spying?” I ask.

“I no longer trust you.”