Chapter 29

Hannah

“Hannah, are you okay? Did that motherfucker do anything to you?”
He looked so worried, I thought my heart would burst with emotion. “I’m fine. You got there before he did anything. All he did was scare me.” I lifted my hands up to his chest, sensing my touch might calm him down, reassure him. I must have been right, because as I lightly caressed the cotton covering his tense pectoral muscles, he took a deep breath and briefly closed his eyes, his posture relaxing slightly. His hands slid down from my shoulders to gently grip my hips.
Nikolai opened his eyes and pierced me with his pale gaze. “Look, Hannah, I’m sorry you had to see me like that. When I saw him holding you down, I just fucking lost it.” He shook his head in remembered aggravation, his breathing still heavy. His expression was reserved, but the hint of tension in his features indicated he expected me to be disgusted or outraged at his violent response to Jeff manhandling me.
I gaped in shock. “Do you think I’m upset that you beat up Jeff?”
Nikolai gave me a hard look. “Hannah, that asshole deserved what he got, but if you’re—”
“Oh my god, stop! I’m grateful that you came downstairs. If I had been in my right mind, I would have jumped in and helped you.”
Nikolai’s head jerked back, and he huffed out a surprised chuckle, no doubt envisioning my puny arms trying to beat up Jeff. He slid his hands tightened around my waist and smirked. “Next time, I guess I’ll have to hold him back, so you can get a few shots in.”
I chuckled, then reached up and lightly kissed his mouth, my voice serious again. “Thank you. What would I have done without you?” I ended the last bit of my statement as a whisper because I truly did not want to think about what would have happened if Nikolai hadn’t been there. In response, he let out a huge sigh and hugged me tightly to his body, as if to completely reassure himself that I was okay.
I jerked back. “Nikolai, what are you going to do about Jeff? His dad is going to be out for blood when he sees what you did to him.” The whole point of Nikolai not beating Jeff up was in order to avoid being expelled. We blew the whole plan on the first night.
“It’s okay, Hannah. Some of the benefits of being surrounded by criminals my whole life–creative problem solving and connections to shady characters. Ideally, I would have followed through with our plan the way we mapped it out, but when he stepped out of line, I couldn’t let that go. Me and Jack talked about it and I think we figured a way to deal with him.”
“How?”
“I’m going to call a couple of guys I know. The fact that we’re at a party with a lot of drinking will work to our advantage. No one here likes Connors, they put up with him because of his dad. I won’t have any problems getting the people here to go along with whatever we say.”
“What are you going to do with Jeff? I mean, you might be able to get everyone here to agree with your story, but Jeff won’t do that. What’s to stop him from simply telling on you?”
“Well, Jeff is knocked out cold right now. We’re going to engineer it in a way that will make him question his own memory.”
I frowned in confusion.
Nikolai leaned down and kissed the spot between my eyes that was pinched in bewilderment. “Let it go, Hannah, I’m taking care of it.”
We were soon distracted by the huge rush of people who streamed into the kitchen, chattering excitedly about what happened in the basement and looking for more alcohol. The surge of testosterone from the fight created an even more boisterous atmosphere with the remaining partygoers. I glanced down at Nikolai’s hand and noticed all the tears in his skin from hitting Jeff so many times.
“Nikolai, you need some ice on that,” I exclaimed as I grabbed a kitchen towel and opened the freezer to pull out an ice tray. As I was filling the towel, Ava swiped a few cubes for the drinks she was still making us. I walked back to Nikolai, who was watching me with a very serious, yet inscrutable expression as I took his hand and gently laid the towel-wrapped ice on his swollen knuckles.
He tilted his head and looked at me for long minutes, then said softly, “Thanks, Hannah.” I was completely sucked into the swirling depths of his soft, pale eyes when Ava jerked me back into awareness by thrusting what looked a like a rum and coke in front of me.
“Drink up, Hannah, you earned it!” She then clinked her own red plastic cup that I assumed contained the same thing.
“I don’t know, Ava, I don’t want to get too drunk…” I said, although the lure of alcohol was powerful.
“I told you, Hannah, Nikolai will take care of you. Right, Nikolai?” Ava said as she shot an expectant look at Nikolai.
Nikolai put his arm around my waist and picked up his previously abandoned beer. Instead of looking at Ava, he looked at me when he answered. “Nothing is going to happen to Hannah if I’m here.”