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I lifted a hand to stop him.
"The best apology you can make for me right now is getting sober," I told him. "That’s all I want from you. Okay?"
Slowly, a smile creased his face, a smile I couldn’t help but return.
"Okay."
Chapter Twenty – Damyan
As we pulled the car to a halt, I glowered at Dimitry in the back seat.
I could feel Maxim giving me a hard look, a reminder that this was what Mina had wanted us to do—no matter how little sense it made to me, this was the choice she had made, and I knew it wasn’t fair of me to second guess it like this.
"We’re here," I told Dimitry, who lifted his head from where it was lolling down against his chest. He looked rough, seriously rough, but that was to be expected. He was detoxing off everything he had been using to keep his head above water this whole time, and I figured it was going to be a while before he truly started to feel like himself again.
It was the day after Mina’s confrontation with her father in the basement of the club. I was exhausted, not having had a chance to get any rest yet, but I was running on fumes, willing to do whatever it took to make sure Mina got what she wanted from all of this.
When she had come back up those stairs and told us what had happened—that she had offered her father a second chance as long as he was willing to get sober—I'd hardly been able to believe what I was hearing. Hardly been able to trust that she knew what she was agreeing to. I knew she cared for him, of course she did—she wouldn’t have taken care of him for as long as she had if she didn’t—but after what he’d done to her, did he really deserve another chance?
"I know how it sounds," Mina told us softly, glancing between Maxim and me. "But I truly believe the man who raised me is in there somewhere, underneath all of it. And I want to at least give him a chance to find out if that’s true."
Maxim and I had exchanged a doubtful glance. It was tough not to see this as a mistake, knowing what he had done to her. But, in the time that I had come to know Mina, I had seen that she had this softness to her, this sweetness—this kindness, this willingness to look past the front that people put up to see the goodness underneath. And if she wanted to give her father a chance to prove himself to her, hell, maybe it was a good idea. If it was going to let her put to rest everything that had happened between them, it was the least we could do.
Maxim had called in a few favors with friends across the city and managed to find Dimitry a place at a rehab center. He was going to be there for three months to detox and work on his sobriety, cut off from everything that he had been using just to get by. I knew the real struggle would come when he was out again, when he was back in the world and exposed to everything he had tried to leave behind, but we could deal with that when we came to it. Right now, all that mattered was getting him in there, making sure he was locked down for the foreseeable future, and getting back to an exhausted, emotionally wrung-out Mina.
"We’re here," Maxim told Dmitry, who lifted his head and looked around. There was a flash of doubt in his eyes, but he quickly stiffened his resolve. I got the feeling Mina had made it clear that he was going to be dealing with us if he fucked this up for her somehow, and he didn’t want to find out exactly what that looked like.
"You ready?" I demanded, my voice terse. I hated having to give him this grace, but I had to remember that we were doing this for Mina; it wasn’t about how I felt, it was about what she wanted. Dimitry nodded.
"I think so," he replied. Maxim and I climbed out of the car and led him towards the door of the polished facility. As we walked, I leaned in close, making sure he could hear me.
"You fuck this up," I warned him, "and you’re going to have to deal with me. You understand that, don’t you?"
Dimitry nodded, not looking at me. I could see the sweat on his face as the withdrawals began to kick in. This part might be the toughest physically, but he had no idea what he would be dealing with if he let Mina down after she had given him another chance.
We arrived at reception, where a kind nurse checked Dimitry in, and Maxim and I watched as he was led down the sterile corridor towards his room.
"You think he’s actually going to be able to do it?" I asked Maxim. Maxim sighed and shrugged.
"I don’t know," he replied. "I think he’s got some damn good reason to try, though. Given it’s her."
"I don’t know why she—"
"We don’t need to understand why," Maxim reminded me, cutting me off before I could go spiraling down that rabbit hole again. "We just need to support her through this. Right?"
"Right," I muttered. "Come on, let’s get out of here. I hate the smell of these places."
We headed back out to the car, and I inhaled a lungful of fresh air. I was glad to be out of there, glad to have left it behind. I didn’t know what was going on in my head right now, but I knew this was a fresh start—a start for Mina, her father, and for Maxim and I.
The two of us drove home together, and I rolled down the window and let the cool air rush over my face. I didn’t know exactly what happened now. In theory, everything that had been going on with Mina was over; she didn’t need us to look out for her anymore. But … But in reality, I knew there was far more to this than just what practically needed to be done. No, when I thought of her, when I looked at her, I saw a woman I wanted to keep in my life.
The question was whether she wanted the same thing. I could tell it was on Maxim’s mind too, though he didn’t say anything to me. He didn’t need to. I always knew what was going on in his head, after all.
We arrived back at the penthouse, and Mina was waiting for us, pacing in the same spot we had left her. She looked up at us, eyes wide.
"Is he in?" she asked, and Maxim nodded.
"He’s in," he assured her, squeezing her shoulders comfortingly. She closed her eyes and let out a long sigh.
