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I sat in the spacious office I helped decorate, dragging my heels on the last bit of work before I went home. It wasn’t like I didn’t have plenty to do to get ready for the move back to LA, and the work was second nature to me by now. But my heart still felt heavy, no matter how mundane the finishing tasks for the day were, because it was the countdown to being one of the last.

It was silly to be so melancholy about not sending the emails nagging for faster service, or putting out inquiries on all the permits that needed to be fast-tracked. Even wiping down the counters in the office break room had me smoothing the damp cloth a little slower than usual.

I absolutely loved working for Max, even though it wasn’t a job I would have chosen. I was proud of how quickly I learned the ins and outs of a high-ranking Bratva kingpin’s daily schedule, and how Max had come to rely on me. I even liked the work. Sure, it was tedious sometimes, but it was explosively exciting at others.

Max’s wife had been nothing but an angel to me, and I’d grown as close to her as I dared. It was nice lending an ear to someone new to the Bratva, and so far, I’d been able to deflect any questions that were too personal with a story that wasn’t about my own life. The hurt in Brooke’s eyes when I had to flat-out refuse to give her any details about why I was so suddenly quitting and moving back to LA hung even heavier on my heart than leaving the job I adored.

I could get another job, eventually. But would I ever find someone who’d be on my side like Brooke?

She won’t be on your side when it all comes to light. None of them will.

And really, what were the chances I’d ever get another job again?

Going home to visit last week had been my biggest mistake, but it wasn’t like I could skip it. If I stayed away too long and my father didn’t deem I was being a properly doting daughter, he’d only come down here to collect me. I couldn’t risk a scene in front of Max, who’d only ever been kind to me, even though I wasn’t his choice of an assistant.

My job was originally nothing more than a handout since my father and Aleks, the eldest brother and head of the Fokin organization, were friends in the past. I’d since proven myself a hundredfold, and I just about burst with pride every time Max told me how grateful he was to have me on his team. Just the day before I had to resign, he’d told me warmly how glad he was that he could always count on me.

Thanks to my father, no one could count on me now. Maybe never again.

I was running just like the scared rabbit I used to be. My freedom from my father had been fleeting, but it was over now. Knowing that soon enough, no one in the Fokin family would ever trust me again, didn’t just make my heart sink; it brought stinging hot tears to my eyes.

Not that letting them fall would change anything, so I finished up my work like it was any other day and not the countdown to returning to hell. At that point, I was too exhausted to work up much disappointment or anger at my father, because I knew it was inevitable. I was lucky to have these last few months away from his iron fist.

Even though I fought it, I couldn’t help the dread that rose up in me as the days ticked down to returning. As I slowly finished my admin tasks, I couldn’t help but lapse into memories I’d pushed to the furthest reaches of my mind. It had gotten easier to keep them at bay with the space between us. Not so much when I was still living it every day.

When I first started working for Max in LA, I had to go home every night and face whatever cruelty he had in store for me. How drunk would he be? How angry would he be from losing the bets he’d placed? Even his good moods from the rare times he was on a winning streak could be terrifying. The slightest look could set him off. If I was lucky, it would only be words he flung at me, but I’d never had too much luck. Moving to San Diego had been the best news I’d ever gotten.

And now I had to go back.

It wasn’t always that way. When my mother was alive, Papa had mostly just ignored me. He’d been wildly, madly in love with his wife and played the dutiful father to keep her happy since she adored me. At least I had those memories, too, of the good times we shared when he wasn’t around. My mother would have torn his throat out if she could see how he treated me now, but she had died four years ago. The grief of losing the love of his life had only magnified the monster he kept at bay in her presence.

Before I could start thinking too much about my mom and really sinking into despair, I pulled myself together with the last shreds of my courage. I was going to need all of it for what lay ahead in the next few days. Finishing up the work I’d been dawdling over, I locked up the office and headed home.

Since it would be one of the last times I could, I had to stop at my favorite coffee shop on the way home for one of their frothy, decadent mochas, and I’d need the caffeine boost if I was going to put a dent in all the packing I’d been putting off. I was in the kind of mood that demanded cake as well, and I decided to just call it my dinner and be done with it. With no one around, I didn’t always have to be perfect.

However, as soon as I walked through the doors to the cozy little place I was going to miss so much, my eyes were immediately drawn to the magnetic presence in the corner. It wasn’t like a big, handsome Russian was easy to miss in the first place, but this was my big, handsome Russian.

Dima.

Nope. No, he wasn’t mine. And he never would be, either, since he was one of my boss’s brothers, and the only one I couldn’t seem to ignore how utterly gorgeous he was. It should have been the most highly illegal thing about him, and I knew as well as anyone that he wasn’t exactly on the up and up.

I stopped dead, shuffling to the side as someone behind me tried to get past. Dima’s dark blond hair had gotten sandier over the last few months from all the time he spent in the sun, probably lounging around the pool at his lux hotel in his off hours, surrounded by fawning women. Right now, one of those golden locks fell forward to hide his eyes as he scanned his phone, but I knew how shockingly blue they were. The sky couldn’t rival them on the clearest day.

For just a moment, before I ducked out and bailed on my naughty dinner plan, I took in the hard, chiseled lines of his jaw, unable to keep my gaze from settling on his mouth. There was a layer of end-of-the-day stubble on the lower part of his face, but those lips…

I swallowed hard and tried to take a step back. There was no way I could let him see me, not when my emotions were in such turmoil. Not when I was getting all gooey just from looking at him. The way he’d unbuttoned an extra button on his dress shirt, his navy-blue tie from that morning gone altogether, to reveal the tanned skin of his smooth chest, and just knowing how sculpted those pecs were, had me frozen in place. That was an extra perk of being friends with the boss’s wife—getting invited to barbecues where his brother took his shirt off to swim in the thrashing waves.

Oh my God, my brain was thrashing wildly, and I realized how ridiculous I was being. Dima was a shameless flirt, so good looking it was more dangerous than any riptide, and absolutely no one to me. I liked to think we’d become friends over the last few months, but ultimately, I was just the hired help. And soon enough, I’d be an enemy.

And now he was looking up from his phone and straight at me. There was no more chance of escape, and I silently swore at myself for how relieved I was. Because I really wanted that cake, right? He looked shocked to see me, then smiled, revealing a dimple that a couple of his other brothers shared, but his was somehow more charming, more intoxicating. It made him go from dangerous to adorable in the blink of an eye.

But he was dangerous, and I would do well to remember that.

He half rose from his seat and waved me over, asking what I wanted, then smiling widely as he went to place the order. Of course, he had to be sweet, too. If he started up that playful flirting it might have just brought on the waterworks and I couldn’t have that. I was going to miss everything about the two years I worked for Max, but losing his brother Dima’s cheeky smiles was really going to sting.

I watched surreptitiously as he towered over everyone else in line. As soon as he brought me my big slab of cake and my caramel mocha, he fixed me with a long, penetrating look that gave me goosebumps all up and down my bare arms, even though the place was a completely comfortable temperature. I just took a swig of my piping hot drink. It was like he could see right into my soul, but I really couldn’t have that. And yet, I couldn’t look away.

“I have to confess this isn’t a coincidence,” he said, his deep, gravelly voice wreaking havoc on my system. “Something’s up with you, and I want to know what it is.”

My mouth dropped open and I tried to make my shock look like confusion. I tried to deny anything was wrong, but he wasn’t having it.

“Why are you quitting and moving back to LA?” he demanded, concern darkening his blue eyes. “You love your job, don’t bother denying it. Do you just miss your father that much?”

I dropped my gaze to my cake, which didn’t look half so appetizing anymore. There was no way I could lie about missing my dad. Even someone who didn’t know me at all would spot the deception immediately.

“Something like that,” I said, barely able to get the words out.

He reached across the table and tipped up my chin, so I had to face him again. “Come on,” he said. “What’s a two-hour drive? Should I lean on Max to give you more time off? Can I buy you a jet?”

I was pretty sure that last question was a joke, but he looked so serious I didn’t laugh. It wasn’t my imagination. We had become friends over the last few months. He cared enough to seek me out and make sure everything was okay with me, like a friend would.

And not a single damn thing was okay with me.

Once again, I was suffering because of my father’s poor decisions. His foibles were costing me everything and anger rose up. Anger that I’d been pushing down because there was no one to express it to, and nothing that I could do about it. It welled up like a burbling natural spring, threatening to spill all over the place.

I opened my mouth to get some of it off my chest, but just as quickly snapped it shut again. I couldn’t be friends with Dima because his family was going to hate mine in a matter of days.

“You can trust me,” he said. “I’m all ears if you need to vent. Don’t pretend nothing’s wrong, Olivia. You don’t have to, not with me.”

The look on his face, the sound of his voice, and the way he instantly caught me trying to hide my feelings, had me on the verge of tears.

“My father’s in financial trouble,” I admitted. I didn’t say ‘again,’ and I certainly didn’t admit that I knew it was partly because he was running a scam that would affect his brother Aleks if my father couldn’t come up with the money to pay it back in a hurry.

He couldn’t. I had already exhausted every avenue, and the amount this time was so staggering there was no way I could secure a loan to cover it. I had a bad feeling that as soon as I was back in LA, Papa would drag me off to hide somewhere, and I’d be isolated until he could figure it out. Why he bothered when he clearly couldn’t stand me was beyond my comprehension and not worth thinking about anymore. I’d come to accept he liked having a twenty-four-hour servant he could take his frustrations out on.

Dima’s hand had dropped from my chin but rested very close to mine, and now he let his fingers glide over mine as he gave me a compassionate look. Not pity, but it was still too much. It was bad enough I had to admit my father was in debt over his head, but the way Dima was looking at me had me wishing for things that couldn’t happen in a million years.

“That’s not the worst thing in the world, is it?” he asked.

God, how I wanted to pretend that it wasn’t. I couldn’t tell him everything, but the anger still raged in me, and I let loose a little bit more.

“One of the people he owes is Rurik Kuzmin,” I said.

“Oh shit.”

Yep. It was like that. Rurik Kuzmin was the head of a rival organization that the Fokins had a tenuous peace with at the moment, and he made the Fokins look like kittens. Well, that wasn’t exactly true, since they could be just as ruthless when wronged, and I clammed up again, wishing I hadn’t opened up at all. Despite the cease-fire up in Los Angeles, the two families were by no means friendly, with a long history of animosity towards each other.

I had thought it might feel good to let it out, at least a little bit, but embarrassment flooded me, followed swiftly by shame that I’d aired my own family’s dirty laundry.

“It’ll all get worked out,” I said, pushing my chair back. The cake sat untouched on its plate, but the last thing I wanted was to waste time getting a to-go box. I needed to get out of there, away from Dima’s compassionate gaze.

It looked too much like pity now, and the tears I’d been fighting were close to finally falling.

“Wait, Olivia,” he said, reaching for my hand.

“Thanks for the coffee,” I said, forcing a smile. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

There. Now, I could pretend that never happened, and after the end of the week, I’d never see him again. There was already so much weighing me down, the pain of realizing this was probably true nearly toppled me. All I could do was pretend it wasn’t happening and start packing once I got home.

My tiny apartment was strewn with things I meant to wrap and put in boxes because I couldn’t bear to get rid of anything. Just about every moment of freedom had meaning to me, and I saved the tiniest mementos to commemorate it all. As if I knew it had to end all along, because, of course I did.

As I was packing, my father called, and I listlessly answered, wishing he’d just leave me in peace for these last couple of days.

“You need to get home now,” he said before I finished saying hello.

“That’s impossible,” I said, looking at all my stuff. “I have to finish out the work week.”

“You don’t owe them anything,” he snapped. But you do , I didn’t bother reminding him. “Get your ass back here by tomorrow morning. I found someone who can get us out of the country faster than I planned, because things have escalated with Kuzmin, and he wants his money now. Like tomorrow night. So, we obviously can’t be here.”

Why was I a part of this again? “Listen, let me talk to him,” I said, just the thought of it sending a creeping chill up my spine. “You leave the country, and I can still keep sending him my paycheck while you figure something else out. Maybe I can figure out a way to make more, ask for a raise…”

My father laughed bitterly. “And why do you think your boss will give you anything when he finds out what we owe?”

I held my breath, so I wouldn’t scream, knowing how it all worked. If Rurik Kuzmin couldn’t find my dad, he’d come after me. And the Fokins wouldn’t be there to save me, because they’d be next in line wanting their pound of flesh.

My arguments turned to pleading, but it was futile. My father was too controlling. The fact I was able to move down to San Diego in the first place had been a miracle. If I flat-out refused to head home immediately like he demanded, he’d only send one of his cronies, or let the Kuzmins drag me back to pay.

I hung up without answering, but he knew I’d be on my way without me saying a word. I had no choice. Closing my eyes, I conjured up my mother’s sweet, smiling face. She was so weak right before she died, but she never stopped smiling for me, so I wouldn’t worry too much that she was in pain. Some of her last words came back to me.

‘Take care of your father. He’ll see how important you are to him when I’m gone.’

I laughed without a hint of humor as I tossed some things into a suitcase; no time to bother with my beloved keepsakes anymore. For about five minutes I had hoped what my mother said was true, but he only got worse instead.

As I zipped up the hastily packed case, I realized I wouldn’t get to say a final goodbye to anyone. Running out on them like this might even make the people who’d been so kind to me and treated me like one of their own think that I was part of my father’s schemes.

The tears I’d been holding back for so long finally started to flow.