Chapter Eleven
Nora
"Don't worry. Your sister is safe," he says from the doorway, arms crossed, clearly having eavesdropped on the entire call.
I cross my own arms right back at him, closing the distance with what has to be actual fire in my eyes. "And how exactly do I know that? Is this connected to your Bratva? At all?"
His eyes narrow, his jaw ticking, like he's pissed I'd dare question my own safety, or my sister's. What does he expect from me, exactly—a thank-you card? To pretend his world isn't currently putting mine in danger? Not happening.
"You don't question your safety in my presence.
Or hers," he growls. "You see this estate?
Every man, every woman in it took a vow to put their body between you and a bullet if it ever came to that.
My world comes with darkness, little butterfly.
But none of it—not once—has ever been directed at you. When will you understand that?"
I can't believe he's scolding me right now. Like I'm the unreasonable one in this conversation.
"You're a Russian mobster," I snap, jabbing a finger at his chest. "Drugs, weapons, killing people, and God knows what else, and you expect me not to worry? You dragged me here with my hands tied behind my back, Slava."
"No." He steps closer, and I have to tilt my head back to keep meeting his eyes. "I'm not asking you not to worry. I'm asking you to trust me. Is that really so much?" he whispers, eyes searching mine.
I look away first, because trusting him has never been the hard part. trusting him has always come as easily as breathing, and that's exactly the problem.
"Is my sister in danger?" I ask the floor.
"Never."
"Is someone actually stalking her?" I finally look back up, and my hand ends up flat against his chest despite myself.
"Yes."
I shove off him and start pacing, three steps one way, three steps back, hands twisting into my own hair. I cannot lose her. She's the closest thing to a mother I've ever had.
Slava crosses the room in two strides and catches my wrist, gently pulling my hand out of my hair. That's when I realize I've been pulling hard enough to hurt.
"Don't do that. Don't do that to yourself." His thumb sweeps once over my knuckles. "I already told you, she isn't in danger."
"You just told me someone's stalking her. How is that not danger, Slava?"
"It's my second-in-command," he says, like that explains anything at all. "Ilya. I know this man. He won't go further than gifts and a stocked fridge. And killing anyone stupid enough to lay a hand on her."
The room tilts a little, and I sit down on the edge of the bed to process that sentence. His second-in-command. Watching my sister.
He drops to his knees in front of me without hesitation—this man who has men falling to theirs on command, kneeling for me—and takes both my hands in his.
"I give you my word it won't go past this. He won't push her toward anything she doesn't already want."
I laugh. "He's been stealing her underwear and dressing her in different pairs, Slava. Does that not count as 'pushing' in your world?"
"That is between the two of them. It isn't ours to interfere with."
My eyebrows climb straight into my hairline.
"Are. You. Serious?" I yank my hands back. "Private? Personal? There’s no way my sister being stalked in her own home is a private matter, Slava—"
"Your sister stopped locking her front door a week ago." His voice cuts clean through mine. "Ilya has been watching her for ten days. You do the math."
If I hadn't already been sitting, that sentence would have put me on the floor. "No way," I say.
"You don't get to judge her for this, little butterfly." His hand comes up to cup my jaw, forcing my eyes back to his. "Let her work out what she's feeling on her own time. Ilya would never hurt her, and—"
I stop hearing whatever comes after that, because he isn't lying. My possible future brother-in-law is named Ilya. Slava's second-in-command. Which means—if any of this actually sticks—my sister and I both end up Bratva wives.
Oh. God.
"Nora." He taps my shoulder, ducking his head to catch my eyes. "Nora. Are you with me?"
"Yeah." I nod too fast.
"Don't lie to me."
I blurt it out before I can stop myself. "Are we going to be okay? Safe? Both of us?"
He presses his mouth to my cheek, then my nose, then the corner of my mouth. "Yes. I promise you that."
"I feel like you have all the control here. All the power. And I have none of it."
The darkness in his eyes swallows me whole, and I don't look away from it this time.
"Did you notice the bald man downstairs? Tattoos across his scalp. Missing his left eye."
I get a small head rush at the whiplash of the subject change. I rack my brain, sifting through the blur of faces—but yes, actually, I remember him. "Yeah? What about him?"
"Pyotr. One of our best smugglers," Slava says.
"We run him through Mexico every three months for product.
He swallows more than should be humanly possible and walks it straight through customs, smiling the whole time.
If something happened to him—or to Dima and Yuri, the two men flanking him during your initiation—it would cripple the supply chain for months. "
"O-kay," I say slowly, no idea where this is headed, and not sure I want to find out.
"The older man. First to kneel for you." That one I remember without effort. I nod.
"Grisha. He still knows smuggling routes into this country that date back to the nineties. Routes no one can memorize but him. He is one of the most valuable men in this organization."
"And, and—what's the—"
I trail off, genuinely lost now, watching his face for some kind of clue. Why is he telling me any of this?
Then he reaches down, pulls the pistol holstered against his hip, checks the safety, and sets it flat in my open palms.
I’ve never held a weapon in my life. "These are just some of our best assets. I’ll tell you about the others later.
Pyotr. Dima. Yuri. Grisha. Take out those four men and you weaken the Bratva.
No one in this building would stop you. No one would even raise a hand against you. Not one of them would dare."
My mouth goes bone dry.
"Are you insane? Telling me to go kill your own men?"
"I'm not telling you to do anything. I’m just bringing to your attention how much power you have.”
My hands are shaking hard enough that I set the gun down on the blanket between us. "You'd really let me do that? Just to prove some point?"
"I'd let you do far worse than that, little butterfly." Something unreadable moves behind his eyes. "I'd hand you every gun in this building and every name in it. Anything but letting you go. There's nothing I wouldn't hand you other than a world without me."