The Score (27 page)

Suddenly, Anton’s mind was catching up to speed lightning quick. “Oh, Demyan,
no
.”

“What am I supposed to do, huh?” Demyan asked, finally looking back up at his father. Wetness shined behind his blue irises but he blinked it away just as fast. “I didn’t ask her here. Ana didn’t get a good look at her, thank fuck, because that would have only made it worse. Mom just … I don’t know about Ma, really, but she didn’t look especially pleased about it.”

“Might have helped if Gia wasn’t naked.”

Demyan snorted. “Right. She wasn’t. That was just Ana being her usual self.”

Gia … it was always about her when it came to Demyan
, Anton thought with a shake of his head. Turning to stare out the window, his mind ran wild. Gia Lavrov was Ivan’s youngest daughter. Nearly a year older than Demyan, they had spent their childhood and most of their teenage years stuck to one another. Demyan insisted he remembered her even when she was young, but Anton wasn’t sure if that was his son actually having the memory, or creating what he wanted.

Because Demyan so badly wanted Gia.

She was the only girl Demyan would drop anything and everything for. Anton had seen him do it, and watched him hurt when he was shut out time and time again. Those walls his son built up around his heart and soul only grew higher and tougher over the years. It was no wonder Demyan couldn’t find a woman to ground him.

Demyan might have touched many women, but he only loved one. Just Gia.

Anton couldn’t help but wonder if she was setting his son up for nothing but heartbreak again.

“She’s supposed to be getting married next month, son.”

“I know,” Demyan whispered, sounding pained at just the thought alone. “God, I know, Papa. I
do
. She was the one who came here, okay? Texted me ten minutes after you guys left and said she was outside. A taxi dropped her off.”

“Just like that?” When Demyan didn’t answer, Anton asked, “Does Ivan know she’s here?”

“I don’t think so, but maybe. I didn’t really ask much of anything when I saw her.”

Then, Anton had another thought. One that was as sobering and difficult to understand as Gia herself being there. Demyan could have just as easily gotten Gia to his apartment across the city and Anton and Viviana would have been none the wiser about her arrival. He could have stayed away with her and not said a word until somebody figured it out. No one would have known for a good while. It wasn’t unusual for his son to come and go as he pleased, and Gia was a twenty-year-old adult.

“You meant to be caught,” Anton said softly.

Demyan wet his lips, hands wringing between his spread legs. “And if I did?”

“You know I have to call Ivan, now.” A single nod answered him back. Anton felt a lump lodge in his throat, painfully so. “Why would you do that? He’s my oldest friend, Demyan. This will break his fucking heart to find out she’s been running around with you whenever she was able to.”

“Just say you didn’t know.”

Yeah, that wouldn’t work. If there was anything Anton was known for, it was keeping a close eye on his family. Ivan would know. There would be no excuse he could use worthy enough to pass off the fact that Anton had knowledge his son had been meeting up with Gia for over a year. Beyond the point when their rocky teenaged relationship had ended, and then picked up where it left off after she had met her boyfriend who only two months later became her fiancé. Mostly, Anton thought Demyan and Gia weren’t anything serious, seeing as how they couldn’t keep it together the first time, and nothing would come of the confusing, secretive thing they had going on now.

Evidently, Anton should have known better.

Demyan sniffed, wiping his cheek off on his shoulder as he said, “She’d never tell him herself, even now with her calling the wedding off. She’s always so worried about what Ivan would think, or what her mother would say. They never wanted her to be with someone affiliated.”

Wait—Gia called the wedding off?

“Wasn’t the Bratva the whole reason you two went south in the first place?”

“Things change.”

“They do, but that’s a pretty big thing to change overnight,” Anton said under his breath. “It wasn’t overnight, though, was it? This wasn’t a onetime thing with you two, and you know how your mother and I feel about that. There are boundaries you shouldn’t cross, Demyan, and a relationship between other people is a big one to leap over.”

“What should I have done, then, let her marry that idiot because everybody else wants her to? I know he’s Mr. Fan-fucking-tastic and all. She doesn’t love him—she loves me. That’s not fair to Gia.”

“You mean it’s not fair to you,” Anton corrected. “Not everything is about you, Demyan. She wanted to marry that boy. Suddenly that’s changed, too?”

“No, she never did. It just took her a while to figure out that the rest didn’t matter, she wasn’t going to make a happy future with someone who was fine enough for now. She still wanted
me
.”

Anton forced his mouth to stay shut so he could think. A ragged exhale left his lungs before he rested back in his chair and rubbed at his forehead, feeling the headache beginning to throb there.

If anything, Anton was incredibly proud of his son. He wouldn’t tell Demyan that, but he was. The one thing Demyan wanted, he hadn’t let go of. And even if it ached to get to the end result, he was clearly prepared to do it.

“This might not work out the way you want it to,” Anton said warningly.

Demyan nodded. “But it might, though. And if it gets me her, I don’t give a shit about the rest. I’m willing to take that risk. I love her like nobody else.”

Anton sighed. “Yeah, you always did, huh?”

“Like crazy.”

“Are you really ready for what that means, though?”

“I’ve just been waiting on her.”

The familiarity in Demyan’s conviction was Anton needed to hear. After all, that had been him once, too.

***

Viviana leaned in the doorway of her daughter’s bedroom, letting her mind run a million miles a minute. Ana pretended her mother wasn’t there. That wasn’t unusual for the girl. Sometimes it was just plain annoying, but wasn’t that always the way with teenagers? All they ever seemed to do was test their limits. God knew Anton and Viviana’s kids sure tested theirs enough.

Ana was fifteen, so she still had a bit more pushing room for a few years. Viviana didn’t turn cheek to the innocent charade her daughter had going on, either. Sure, Ana was a straight-A student, on the swim team, and barely stepped out of line, but she could be one wicked fucking thing, too. Sometimes it was just the simplest curve of her pretty lips quirking up into a grin that told her mother all she needed to know.

Ana could be a hellion, no doubt about it.

With almond shaped eyes that pooled with a melting, milk chocolate color, shiny, straight ebony hair, and add in the fact that at her young age she was already five foot, seven inches tall with curves abound … Well, Ana caught the gazes of the boys her age, and a few older ones. That seventeen-year-old neighbor boy Anton caught Ana jogging with the previous weekend when she was supposed to be exercising alone was a perfect example.

Really, Viviana tried not to think about it. She trusted her daughter. But, even if she didn’t, Ana toted one hell of an overprotective father and a big brother who was heavy on the fists when it came to boys that might be staring for too long. Daddy’s little girl didn’t quite do their spoiled daughter justice.

Ana, from the day she was born, wanted for absolutely nothing. Anton made damn sure of that, regardless of Viviana’s worry he would somehow turn their child rotten. To her father, Ana did no wrong. As for Viviana, she knew without a doubt her daughter was, essentially, the Bratva princess. And already, there were too many eyes watching the young girl, the daughter of one of the most infamous Bratva bosses, just to see what she might do … or better yet, who she may pick if that was the life she wanted to lead.

Those were too heavy of expectations for a girl of only fifteen, so both Viviana and Anton did their best to shield Ana from it. Viviana had no clue if they were succeeding or failing.

“So …” Viviana trailed off with a pointed cough meant to draw her daughter’s attention away from the tablet in her hands. Ana tugged the ear buds from her ears and look up with a huff. “About earlier, I wanted to let you know what’s going on with that.”

Ana quirked up a brow. “You mean Demyan getting his dick wet in more ways than one?”

Viviana stared up at the ceiling, wishing the pulsing headache would go away. “Ana, please.”

“Fine, sorry. What, now?”

“Did you, um, happen to see who the girl in the pool was?”

“No. You pulled me back into the house and she ran under the cabaña. Why, Ma?”

Chewing on her lower lip, Viviana frowned. She figured it would be better if she just spat it out and got it over with. “It was Gia.”

Ana’s eyes widened as her mouth dropped open with an audible pop. That was about the extent of Viviana’s feelings, too, really, but she had to be more objective for her son’s sake. The situation was delicate enough as it was without adding to it.

“Before you say anything, your brother is going through a crappy time right now. This isn’t going to be easy on him, or her, and it’s certainly not going to be easy on your father or Ivan when that all goes down. What I need is for you to keep that attitude of yours in line for a few days until this all blows over. Can you do that?”

Dumbly, Ana nodded. “Isn’t she marrying Mark, or … What’s his name again?”

“Matt,” Viviana said quietly. “He’s a nice kid.”

Matt Taylor wasn’t anything to scoff at. He was handsome, sure. Well-to-do on the financial side of things, but so were Gia and Demyan, given their fathers’ statuses in the Bratva. What Demyan was that Matt wasn’t, was affiliated with the mafia. As far as Viviana knew, Gia wanted to stay clear away from that mess. She didn’t want to be a mob wife, even though she had clearly been in love with Demyan since they were kids.

When it came to being a vor, that was something Demyan hadn’t been given much of a choice in. What he had been given, however, was the chance to live how he wanted while he did it. Demyan was going to college, taking his time to grow up, make mistakes, enjoy his life, and learning the ways of his future in the Bratva all the while. Sometimes it was difficult, worrisome, and confusing, but she knew Demyan wouldn’t have his life any other way.

Gia couldn’t seem to accept that, or at least she hadn’t, before.

What changed?

It hurt Viviana something awful to watch her son struggle and fight for someone who kept pushing him away the closer he came. But, if Demyan was anything, it was stubborn. Giving up was not in his nature.

“He’s like a doctor or something, right?” Ana asked.

“No, he’s still got a couple of more years in college to go, but he will be.”

“Huh. So are you asking me to leave Demyan alone?”

“I’m asking for you to be nice to your brother for once.”

“Sure, Ma.”

Then, Ana smiled one of those private grins. Despite the nastiness that was occasionally shared between Demyan and his little sister, the two loved one another. They merely showed that love differently than other siblings. Mostly in a way that drove their parents totally insane.

“You know, I always wondered if they would happen again.”

Viviana stared down at her daughter, confused. “Demyan and Gia?”

Ana shrugged. “Yeah. I mean, he holds her hand.”

“Do they?” Viviana had never seen that before. She noticed a lot between the two over the years, but rarely that, and when she had, it was mostly when they were children. “When?”

“Sometimes, in private. Under the table, or passing by in the hallway. Where he thinks nobody sees. Just reaches out and grabs her hand, you know?”

Viviana smiled, hiding it with her hand. “Like Dad does with me.”

“Kinda.”

Happy with the way the discussion had gone, Viviana left Ana alone. Eventually, after walking aimlessly through the halls, she found her way into the master bedroom, closing the door quietly to shut out the rest of the house.

The window at the far left of the bedroom offered a view of the entire backyard. Down below, she could plainly see her son relaxing back on one of the rocking lounging chairs. Gia’s tinier figure wearing a flimsy summer dress was curled into his side and resting on his chest.

No one would be able to see them from down below, Viviana knew. Their position on the other side of the large cabaña kept them out of view. Oddly, the way Demyan’s hand smoothed down the golden waves of his lover’s hair, his lips moving against Gia’s cheek to signal he was speaking something, Viviana felt like she was intruding.

Her son was a lot of things. He could be moody and particular, or uninhibited and carefree. Like his father and the men who came before him, he was dangerous and magnetic. A natural born leader in his mafia driven environment, and an easily free, happy soul in his family life. At times, he could be a philanderer, as much as Viviana hated to think about it, although he never brought those women home for her to meet.