Page 121 of Marrying My Ex's Brother
“I understood enough.”
“You understood what you wanted to understand.” His face tightens. “You think you’re special to him? You think he won’t get bored once the insult fades?”
“Stop.”
“He will use you. He uses everyone.”
“I said stop.”
He reaches for me again. This time, I slap his hand away.
His eyes darken. “Don’t embarrass me again,” he says. The words are quiet, but they scare me more than if he had shouted.
Then the bathroom door opens. Not gently. The lock gives with one hard crack, and the door swings inward.
Yaromir stands in the doorway.
For one second, nobody moves.
His eyes go first to Dmitri. Then to me.
Then to Dmitri’s hand, still half-raised toward me.
The change in him is immediate. Quiet. Terrifying.
“Yaromir,” Dmitri starts.
Yaromir crosses the room and hits him. His fist connects with Dmitri’s face so hard Dmitri staggers back into the wall. I scream, more from shock than fear, but Yaromir doesn’t stop. He grabs Dmitri by the front of his tuxedo and drives him back against the marble.
Dmitri swings once.
Yaromir blocks it and hits him again.
And again.
The sounds are brutal in the small room. Flesh. Bone. Dmitri’s choked curse.
“Stop,” I say.
Yaromir doesn’t hear me.
Or he does and cannot obey yet.
Dmitri drops to one knee, blood at his mouth. Yaromir hauls him up again and slams him against the sink.
“You follow her into a locked room?” Yaromir says. His voice is low.
Dmitri coughs, trying to laugh and failing. “She’s not yours.”
Yaromir hits him again.
This time I scream his name. “Yaromir!”
He stops.
His shoulders rise and fall once. His knuckles are split. Blood stains his hand, some his, some Dmitri’s. His face is hard in a way I have never seen before, even from him.
Dmitri slumps against the sink, breathing hard, one hand pressed to his mouth.
