Oh, my God. "My grift sense said it was a badger game! I just suspected you guys of pulling it--to get the gull out of my life."
"Not us," Karin said. "Sevastyan must've hooked up with a private investigator in Vegas and put a temptation scenario into motion."
I had no urge to get back together with Brett or anything, but could any man have withstood that kind of lure? Fifteen minutes ago, I would've bet my life on Dmitri. Now I didn't even know him.
He'd set me up for devastation, ensuring I found my fiance with another woman. The success of his scheme had depended on my pain.
"We've started digging with detective agencies," Pete said. "We'll know more soon enough." He craned his head, looking for a way to reverse.
I'd love one too--a way to reverse the last month of my life. I'd known something was off, had felt it down to my bones! "You guys think Dmitri's been spying on me for a year?"
"Yeah, sis." Benji's solemn eyes made mine water. "I'd bet ten large he was."
That manipulative stalker!
Movement near the hotel entry drew my attention. Speak of the devil.
Dmitri's head jerked in all directions as he searched for me. His frantic gaze darted.
Karin mumbled, "Shit. He's already down here."
He caught sight of us and charged forward, his long strides eating up the pavement.
Pete locked the doors.
Dmitri reached the car, pulling the door handle. Masking his panic, he bit out, "Open this for me, love."
I shook my head.
In a roughened voice, he asked, "What's happened?"
"Don't you already know?" I held up my phone.
His eyes widened. "Let me explain, Vika!"
Explain what? He'd played with my life. He'd played with me. I understood the irony, could see the parallels. But short of impending murder, I'd never targeted a decent person.
Why had he targeted me? Tears welled.
"Just talk to me." He sounded so agonized, and even now it gutted me. "Please don't cry, moya zhena."
Tears spilled down my cheeks.
Each one maddened him more. "Open this door!" He pounded a fist on the roof of the car.
Karin jumped. Pete snapped, "For fuck's sake."
Dmitri was just getting started. "Goddamn it, let me . . . get to you!" His accent was the thickest I'd ever heard it. "Just give me a chance to explain." Another pounding hit to the roof. A month ago, he'd warned Pete, "Do not ever get between me and her. You do not want to do that." This car was between Dmitri and his wife.
I could only stare and cry. Karin reached back to take my hand. An infusion of strength.
He stabbed his fingers through his unruly hair. "I can make this right! Vika, love, I can." He looked crazed, as if he was barely holding it together. Like how I felt.
I spotted his bodyguards at the entrance, "buffering" against Calydon security.
I murmured, "Did you set Brett up?" But Dmitri must've heard.
He bellowed with frustration and yanked the car handle so hard I thought it would break.
I had my answer. A sob broke free. But I wanted to hear him say it. "Did you set him up?"
Dmitri swallowed, growing still. "Yes."
I battled a wave of nausea. The anxiety I'd grappled with had never been about fate or luck or a too-perfect husband. I'd subconsciously picked up clues from his behavior and sensed my own impending doom. I'd been tied across the railroad tracks, perceiving the vibrations of an oncoming locomotive.
"I can't even look at you!"
That seemed to snap him past the limits of his control. "Guess what, wife? I'd do all of it again!"
"Stay the fuck away from me! I never want to see your face again!"
The sedan lurched ahead a few feet, but was blocked by a taxi.
Eyes wild, Dmitri yelled, "Nooo!" Still yanking on the car handle, he pounded his fist against the window. The car rocked.
Benji muttered, "Jesus."
"Just unlock the door, Vika." Another brutal punch against the window. Blood smeared the glass. "You cannot leave!"
Even now I fought the impulse to soothe his anguish.
Pete said, "Finally!" The car sped forward out onto the Strip, leaving Dmitri behind.
I gazed back as he stumbled out into the traffic, yelling, "Do not leave me!"
CHAPTER 36
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"Is she hyperventilating?"
"She looks like she's about to throw up."
"Not in my new car!"
"Shut the fuck up, Pete."
"Vice, say something, hon."
I couldn't, could barely think with the roaring in my ears. I had all this noise in my head, yet my body was numb.
Was this what crazy felt like? How had Dmitri stood it for so many years?
Familiar scenery passed by my window, but Dmitri's dried blood on the glass colored every sight. Vegas no longer felt like my home.
I'd made my home alongside a wave-tossed cliff with a man who was a stranger to me.
I glanced down at my ring, and the tears fell and fell. . . .
After what must've been ages, we pulled up to my parents' house. I let Karin walk me inside.
When Mom and Dad leapt up to hug me, I gave a humiliating sob. Cold-as-Ice Vice had broken into frozen shards. Even Cash's welcoming gurgle from his playpen barely regis
tered. I dimly noticed Al and Gram had traded up from sherry to hard liquor--vodka. Because things were seriously fucked.
Mom brushed tears from my face. "Honey, we're going to figure this out."
Dad searched my expression. "Did he ever hurt you, sweet pea?"
I shook my head. Finally found my voice. "He was . . . wonderful. Obviously too good to be true."
I sat on the lumpy couch, Mom and Dad on one side, Karin protectively on the other.
Mom rubbed my back. "Then help us understand this."
How? When I couldn't wrap my mind around it? "I don't know. I don't . . . I can't think."
How much of Dmitri's interest was real? How much of his sentiments?
Everything between us was as fake as the Strip.
I muffled another sob.
"We can't figure out why." Mom frowned. "Does he like playing games?"
Dmitri had warned me he would do just that.
Benji sat on my parents' love seat. "Maybe he's a typical rich asshole who enjoys manipulating people. He could've made a bet with one of his brothers or something, then ended up falling for Vice."
Karin said, "Maybe he's an unlovable person--and he knows it. He could've spied on Vice, learned everything about her, then changed himself like a chameleon to trick her into loving him."
They debated possibilities, each one getting more far-fetched.
I finally said, "I want to see the surveillance."
Karin nodded. "Benji put a compilation together."
He pushed buttons on a remote. "I'll cue it up." The TV flared to life.
I noticed they had a new flat-screen, courtesy of Dmitri's money. Good. They'd proudly hung the art I'd bought them.
Video footage of the Caly's main lounge began to play, with a date and time stamp at the bottom. August 21 at ten after ten.
I barely recognized Dmitri sitting at the end of the bar. Because he'd been a drug-addicted, addled, suicidal wreck--a shadow of what he was now.
He'd weighed at least twenty pounds less. His skin had been pale and clammy, his face gaunt, his eyes deadened and filled with pain.
Seeing him like that . . . Emotion squeezed my chest till my lungs threatened to collapse.
Then my group of seven women came on-screen--Karin and I, cousins, and grift friends. We'd booked rooms that night at the Caly; right then, we would've been heading out to a club next door.
Karin, dazzling as ever in a slinky red dress, had led the way. She'd been pregnant, but hadn't looked it, except for her glowing skin and lustrous hair. Every man she'd passed had done a double take. Yet as she'd traipsed past Dmitri, he hadn't spared her a second glance.