He narrowed his eyes. “I believe I am ready to tell you more about my past. I wasn’t entirely forthcoming.” His tone was threatening—as if he intended to hit me with a fatal imperfection.

“Did you lie?” No, I would’ve caught him.

“I’ve never lied to you. But what I’m about to tell you involves another. His secret has been safe with me for twenty-three years, never repeated outside of my family. I will share it with you now.”

He’d definitely piqued my curiosity. “Okay. I’ll keep the secret to the grave.”

Nod. “I told you Orloff died. Which is true. But he was murdered.” Another bolt of lightning flashed.

I schooled my expression. “Who did it?”

“My brother and I.”

CHAPTER 34

My mind raced as I got my bearings with this bombshell. Orloff had died when Dmitri had been about nine. Maksim would’ve barely been a teenager. How do I respond to this? I settled on: “Will you tell me more?”

Dmitri ran his fingers through his hair. “When Orloff beat my brother and locked him in the cellar, the violence sent me deeper into dissociation; my isolation with Orloff kept me under, until I rarely surfaced. Maksim was down there in the dark for months, suffering, blaming himself for not protecting me. The night of a bitter freeze, I finally woke. Maybe the wind battering the window brought me back. Maybe it was that fuck’s smug behavior—he knew Maksim would die.”

Orloff had fully planned to murder an innocent boy. Maksim must’ve been so terrified.

“I knew I had to save my brother somehow. When I tried to get the key from the man’s pocket, he woke, but I was prepared. Earlier, I’d gone outside and brought in a snow shovel. I hit Orloff with all my might. I freed Maks, and we . . . we strangled the man before he could ever wake,” Dmitri said, his gaze clocking my face for clues.

I wanted to shake him: “You felt guilty about this? You carried this weight? Shuck it right now!”

He swallowed. “I have no idea how you’re reacting.”

I chose my words more carefully. “That psychopath forced you and Maksim to defend yourselves. You two were so incredibly brave.”

As if I were missing his point, he said, “I helped kill a man. In the same situation, I would do it again.”

“Do you think I would’ve done less if I could’ve saved Benji from the horrors he suffered? Those men are still out there, Dmitri. And we have to live with that knowledge. You and Maksim prevented a homicidal monster from preying on other children, yet no one will ever know you’re heroes.” I cupped his face.

As he’d done the first night, he leaned into my touch. “Heroes?”

“If someone had prevented Orloff from ever putting his sights on you, what would you have called that person?”

He drew back. “I never thought of it that way.”

“It’s crystal clear to me. Thank you for trusting me with this.”

His brow furrowed. “That’s it?” His shoulder and neck muscles tensed, his frustration welling.

“If you told me this to make me see you in a worse light, then you did just the opposite.”

He shot to his feet, exasperated. “I have other secrets. My family has mafiya ties.”

Come again? “You’re saying your family operates outside the law?”

“After Kovalev’s death, Aleks took over the man’s position as a vor, a very powerful man in the mafiya.”

Dr. Nat’s father had been involved in organized crime? Aleks presently was? “What does he run?” Guns, drugs, girls? All of the above?

“Nothing. He is a former enforcer who is paid for protection. Maksim had political connections to the mafiya as well.”

Unbelievable. “And you?”

“I have drawn on Aleks’s power and influence.”

“To help you with those crucial business dealings,” I said. “What were they?”

Dmitri seemed to be taking my measure. “You’ll get no more secrets out of me, not until you start sharing your own.”

How could our investigation of the Sevastyans fail to turn up even a whisper of this? “Wouldn’t there be something online?”

“I’ve kept a tight rein on that information. Over the last year, I’ve used a great deal of money and skill to bury our backgrounds.”

I frowned. “Why did you tell me these things now?”

“Because I want you to understand I’m not perfect. And that I trust you, even with my family’s secrets. Perhaps now you’ll see I can be as accepting as you are, far more so than you seem to think.”

Dmitri and his family operated outside the law. Could he really raise a brow at one or two or thirty grifters?

For the first time in weeks, hope filled me. Dmitri had risked his life to save Maksim, just as Maksim had for him. Then they’d done whatever it had taken to survive. If I explained how desperate I’d been to protect my parents, surely Dmitri could forgive me.

If he loved me . . .

He’d told me his history; he deserved mine. I would confess everything, betting the pot with this man, but only after he comprehended my motivation—for targeting him. “Dmitri, you know I would do anything for my family.”

He sat beside me. “Of course.”

“I believe you’ll like them very much. Do you want to go to Vegas for a few days and see what they’re like? We could fly out on Friday.” Giving them a couple of days to prepare.