♞Chapter Five♞
Mikhail
The city sprawls beneath my office window.
It’s always been clear how my life swings between two worlds: the one I built with my own hands and the one I was born into.
My construction company looks clean on the surface, but deep down?
Nothing is ever truly clean when your family name is tied to the Russian mafia.
My phone buzzes, the screen flashing my brother’s name. Roman. I take my time answering, leaning back in my leather chair, fingers steepled beneath my chin. I already know what this is about.
“Brother,” I say.
“Mikhail. Are you busy?”
“I am.”
“You’re always busy.” A pause. “I need a favor.”
Of course he does. Today’s workload is hectic, my schedule packed.
This is the world I built for myself—one that, no matter how far I run, never keeps me from picking up when he calls.
My brother, the pakhan. The head of it all.
I don’t ask what the favor is. We both know he wants me to launder money again. “How much?” I ask.
“Ten million. Needs to be clean by next quarter.”
“You’re pushing it.”
“You can handle it.”
“That’s a big number, Roman. It takes time.”
“We don’t have it. The shipments are coming in, and we need the books clean before they do.” He grunts.
“I’ll see what I can do.”
“You’ll handle it just fine, like you always do,” Roman mumbles. As much as I’m not a fan of it, I’ve never let them down before.
“Oh, by the way, how’s the girl?”
“What girl?” I spit.
Roman scoffs. “The one with the mouth who follows you like she owns you.”
You may distance yourself from the mafia, but they never distance themselves from you. Eyes are everywhere, all the time. My fingers flex against the desk. “She’s nothing.”
“Sure. Just remember, women make men sloppy.”
The line goes dead. I almost break the phone in half.
If my brother ever found out about our little game, it would be disastrous.
He wouldn’t see her as a passing amusement.
He’d see her as leverage. A pressure point.
A weakness. She can’t be any of those things.
I push away from my desk. It doesn’t matter.
She doesn’t matter. But even as I tell myself that, I feel the flicker of something sharp and alive in my chest.
Anticipation.
I know she’s been inside my apartment again. I know she’s been watching. And despite how fucked up this is, I find myself looking forward to whatever game she’s playing next.
I grab my keys and head for the door. Not even ten minutes have passed since I arrived when there’s a knock at my door. Light. Playful. Predictable. I wrench it open to find her beaming at me. “Dinner,” she announces. “You’re coming over.”
“No, I’m not.”
“Come on, big guy. You’ve got to eat.”
I arch a brow. “You suddenly care about my diet?”
“Always have.” She winks at me. “But mostly, I just don’t want to eat alone.”
I should let her go before this gets messier than it already is. But I don’t. “Fine.”
She does a little happy dance before dragging me into her apartment. “Make yourself at home,” she quips, moving toward the kitchen. “Oh wait. I forgot—you don’t do ‘homey,’ do you?”
I ignore her. Her apartment is very similar to mine, but she’s added touches that make it hers. The first thing I notice is the paintings. A shit ton of them. It’s like a gallery in here.
“You cook?” I ask.
“Wouldn’t call it that. More like… experimenting.”
“Sounds promising.”
She laughs, shaking her head. “You’re so encouraging.”
I watch as she hums to herself, pulling open a drawer. Then she pauses, noticing how I’m focused on the paintings.
“I painted them, you know.”
I’m thrown for a second. But it fits; her hands are always moving, her energy spilling out in a thousand directions.
But shit. Painting means art. And art means something very specific to my family.
Forgery . My stomach knots. If my brother catches wind of this, things will get even more complicated.
He’d try to exploit her little talent. He’d think that if he got her in it, I’d follow.
“All you paint are pretty little sunsets?” I grumble.
“Naked men, actually.”
“Of course you do.”
If she actually does, I’ll hunt down every subject she’s ever had. Fuck. I’m already too involved.
“Ever want to model, big guy?”
“You don’t want me sitting still long enough for that, sweetheart.”
Her eyes glaze over, but she pushes whatever she’s feeling away and goes back to work.
“You want help?” I ask.
She tosses me a look over her shoulder. “Oh? Mr. Broody wants to help? How domestic of you.”
I roll my eyes. “Forget it.”
She grabs something from the counter before walking up to me, holding out a cutting board with a bell pepper on it. “Chop this.”
I stare at it, unimpressed.
“Scared of a little knife work, big guy?”
I take the board from her and grab the knife. “Just don’t bitch if they’re uneven.” We work in tandem. She stirs something in a pan while I dice the pepper.
“So,” she says while washing her hands, “do you always make a habit of helping random women cook, or am I just special?”
“You’re something, all right.”
“Flatter me more.”
“Careful, sweetheart. You might start thinking I actually like you.”
She laughs, bumping her hip into mine before turning back to the stove. Eventually, she plates two servings of creamy Cajun shrimp pasta for us.
“Not bad,” I admit after the first bite.
She gasps dramatically. “Was that… a compliment?”
“Don’t get used to it.”
We eat in comfortable silence for a moment before I nod toward her. “So, tell me about this painting thing. What do you actually work on?”
She twirls her fork in her pasta, eyes lighting up. “Abstract art, mostly. It helps when I need to get out of my head.”
I file that information away. “Big projects?”
She shrugs. “A few commissions. Nothing massive. Yet. It’s why I moved to New York, actually.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. Needed to be somewhere that could actually push my career forward. This city has everything. Opportunity, inspiration… even grumpy assholes like you.”
“Lucky me.”
I can practically hear the screws turning in her head. “What?” I mutter, setting my fork down.
Her lips curl. “I want to paint you.”
“No.”
“Oh, come on. You’d make a great subject. The whole broody, mysterious thing? Artists would kill for that.”
“Not happening.”
“What if I promise to make you look good?”
I scoff. “I already look good.”
“Arrogant.” She grins. “Come on, handsome.’”
She called me handsome.
“Still no.”
“Pretty please?” She pouts.
I don’t answer.
“So, you’ll do it?”
“I never said that.”
“But you didn’t say no this time.” She pushes her plate aside. “Come on, Mikhail. What’s the harm?”
The harm is that this is a bad idea. She already has too much of my attention. Still, when she looks at me like that, expectant, amused, waiting for me to break…I do. “Fine.”
She claps her hands. “Perfect. Let’s do it now.”
“Now?”
“No time like the present.”
I don’t let people drag me anywhere. Yet somehow, she gets me off my seat and into the living room. She directs me toward the couch.
“Take your shirt off.” She orders.
“Excuse me?”
“For the painting,” she says innocently. But her eyes? They’re anything but.
I reach behind my head and pull my shirt off. Her mouth falls open, but she recovers quickly.
“Nice,” she teases, before settling in front of her easel.
She picks up a pencil and begins sketching, her eyes flicking between me and the canvas.She’s taking too damn long. And the way she watches me, like she’s stripping me down further with nothing but her gaze?
It’s torture.
I shift. “You done yet?”
“Art takes time, Mikhail.”
“Feels like you’re dragging this out on purpose.”
“And what if I am?”
“I’d say you’re playing a dangerous game.”
“I like danger.” She bites her lip. “I need you to sit still.”
“I am.”
“Liar. You keep tensing up,” she says, sketching another line. “Relax.”
Relax. Right. Easy for her to say when she isn’t the one being watched like a fucking specimen.
“You know, you’re a very good subject.”
I puff out my chest at the compliment.
“Most men would take this opportunity to flirt with me.”
I glare. “I’m not most men.”
“Mm,” she hums. “Shame.”
There’s no shame in the way I want her. And it’s getting harder to fucking hide. She’s looking at me too much. Studying too closely. And my body betrays me before I can stop it.
Her eyes dart down and she sees my erection. But she doesn’t comment. Instead, she just smirks to herself and keeps drawing.
Like she’s won.