‘So, prior to her bombshell, what was supposed to happen when Demyan turns eighteen?’ Mikael asked, and Demyan shrugged. He didn’t like this conversation, didn’t like where it was leading. He didn’t like a mind that was as dark as his voicing his thoughts.
‘The money to Nadia will stop then.’
‘It has stopped now?’ Mikael checked, and Demyan swallowed. The afternoon sun streaming through the windows was too hot, the noises from the bar below were too loud, though but not loud enough to drown Mikael’s words. ‘You’re not still paying her?’ Mikael had the guts to smile into the black face of Demyan. ‘She tells you that Roman is not your son and you still write a cheque.’
Mikael had a solution, or the start of one. ‘I will have her served on Monday, letting her know that if she takes him to Russia, then every cent you have paid her over the years you are claiming back, every dollar you spent raising her bastard...’
Mikael didn’t get to finish. Demyan’s fist was in his face, and Mikael just laughed and hit him back.
‘Fool, Zukov, she treats you like a fool and you let her.’
It wasn’t pretty. Demyan went ballistic. Mikael didn’t mind in the least; it had been way too long since he’d had a good fight.
‘Like the old days, but with tasers,’ Mikael said, as the police did what they had to do to subdue Demyan. No, Mikael told them. He would not be giving a statement or laying charges and neither would the restaurant, given the cheque Mikael was writing.
As the police took a cuffed Demyan away to cool his heels in the cells, Mikael had the last word. ‘Don’t waste my time, Demyan, until you’re really ready to fight her. Then you can call me.’
* * *
Alina was just getting in from work when her phone rang.
‘Senior Constable Edmunds, from Kings Cross Police...’
Alina rolled her eyes when she heard that Demyan had been in a fight. ‘You have a set of keys apparently. He’s lost his.’
Alina was tempted to tell the senior constable that Demyan was no longer her problem but hearing the music coming from her house she told herself that was the reason she was heading back into the city.
She surely couldn’t want him after the awful things he had said?
Surely.
‘You don’t look pleased to see me,’ Demyan said, as he took his belt and tie from a bored officer, pocketed them and then signed his release forms, as Alina sat there, legs crossed, tapping her foot in the air. Did he have to look so amazing? There was a bruise to his eye and his knuckles were grazed and his suit was torn, and even from this distance she could feel his unpredictable mood.
She glanced around the police station as she stood. ‘It’s not exactly my idea of a fun night.’
‘I show you the world.’ Demyan shrugged as they headed out to her car.
‘I rather prefer my world.’
‘Ah,’ Demyan corrected, as they drove from the station, ‘but from what you say, you don’t.’
Alina indicated left to head for the hotel. She knew he was referring to their earlier conversation at the hotel but she refused to jump at the bait.