Chapter 3
Chapter Three
Anya
When I was little, my mother used to call me her little firefly.
Because I was so tiny, I practically flew about the house or yard, skipping rocks by the creek or climbing one of the huge maples that overlooked our backyard.
But if I got angry—usually at my older brother or the injustice of a situation—my temper would flare.
“Be careful, my little firefly,” she’d say after another one of my tantrums, running her hand down the back of my head over my hair. “One day, that temper might get you in trouble. And I won’t always be here to save you.”
Her voice still echoes in my mind, each word a ghostly reproach as I tug her threadbare coat tighter around my shoulders and brave the biting wind.
She’s gone, and I failed her.
It’s so frigid I feel like my nostrils are sealed together when I breathe; any bit of exposed skin aches when the wind touches it.
But we haven’t had a car in years, and I don’t have the money to hire a ride.
The wind knifes through me, stealing the air from my lungs, but it can’t compete with the storm in my chest.
Every step toward the pub is a battle—against the cold, against the pain in my legs, against the fury that tears me apart.
Each frozen breath is a vow: I’ll make him listen.
Maybe the mile-long walk to the pub will cool my raging temper.
His response was immediate.
Iron Birch. Come now and come alone.
Oh, I’ll come alone alright. Who else will I bring, me and my battery of alliances and besties?
Ever since I had to quit college and work in my family’s business, my time with friends has dwindled to nearly nothing.
Ophelia’s the only one left. And while I know she’d pick up if I called her at any time of day, I also know she’ll do her best to talk me out of what I’m about to do.
Rage and desperation are powerful fuel.
I have to confront him.
“Hey, gorgeous. Need a ride?” I shiver and keep my head down, ignoring a man standing in a doorway. I’m so desperate for warmth that I almost entertain the thought but manage to keep some semblance of self-respect.
I look at the number on the building to my left. Only fifty more to go.
“Hey,” he calls after me but doesn’t follow. I pick up my pace.
By the time I get to the Iron Birch, I’m shaking, disheveled, and angrier than before I left. How dare he and his stupid family come after mine? After all he did to us?
How dare he?
I shove open the bar door. It swings on its hinges, the overhead bell jingling.
Chatter dies down, but when the people inside see it’s just me, it quickly picks up again.
I’m short and slight and hardly someone any of them would be concerned with.
But I don’t care. My mother always said good things come in small packages, and Semyon Kopolov is about to meet his match.
I hate him.
I hate him for ruining my family. I hate him for dragging my brother into the depravity of his world, for ignoring my mother’s pleas to keep my brother out of it. I hate him for pulling the trigger that caused my mother’s death.
And I hate him now for putting my family in this position.
So I march straight to the bartender, who eyes me with mild curiosity. A man in his early fifties with short, salt-and-pepper hair, he holds a beer mug in his hand as he dries it. “May I help you?”
I lean in, bracing myself on the shiny lacquered bar top. “The Kopolov family is expecting me.”
His bright blue eyes widen as he processes my request. Leaning in closer to me, his voice lowers to a whisper, and he gestures for me to come closer. “Are you sure about that? If you’re in trouble… if you need help…”
I lick my lips and swallow, completing the sentence. “There would be nothing you’d be able to do about it. Would there?”
His response is all I need. I blow out a breath and blink back tears. I wasn’t expecting kindness in a moment like this, and it almost undoes me. “Tell me where they are, please.”
Placing the glass down on the bar top, he nods and points to a hallway behind him. “Down that hall, third door on the left.” He blows out a breath. “Be careful.”
My heart pounds as I storm down the hallway.
The door isn’t even shut, wide open for any fool to see.
I take in a deep breath. I conjure up a picture of my mother and take a quick moment to brush my palm against the fabric of the coat she once wore, a fleeting anchor to steel my nerves.
I lift my head high. I march straight into the lion’s den.
The sharp, synchronized clicks of guns being cocked pierce the air. It seems every weapon in the room is trained on me, the cold metal mirroring the ruthless eyes of the men who hold them.
The room itself feels like a loaded gun, the weight of every man’s stare pressing down on me. My heart pounds like a war drum as the silence stretches. And then I hear him, his voice sharp enough to cut diamonds.
“Guns down.” They instantly obey.
I don’t flinch under the weight of his stare. I take a step forward. I will not back down.
Semyon sits at the head of the table, his ice-blue eyes locked with mine. Gone is the warmth I remember, and in its place, nothing but piercing and unrelenting cold.
For a moment, I forget the danger. I forget the guns, the men, the risks, and my errand. Because there he is—the boy I used to know, now the man I hate.
How can he still make my heart ache after all he’s done, after all that’s happened?
I forgot how mesmerizing he is, how his presence makes my heart seize in my chest. How my mind goes blank when he’s near, just as it did when I was a child.
For one fleeting moment, I’m the little girl by the creek again, watching him bask in the golden heat of a summer day.
I wished then that he would smile at me, but Semyon never smiles.
When I was a child, he was a superhero in my mind. He even looked like Clark Kent with his black hair and ice-blue eyes, as cold and unforgiving as a Siberian winter. I imagined when he took off his glasses he became Superman.
Even seated, he commands the room with an effortless dominance.
His sleeves are pushed up just enough to reveal inked forearms, the dark lines of tattoos twisted over taut, hard muscle.
Every movement is controlled, precise. The tats on his hands are a quiet, lethal promise.
He looks like a man who never raises his voice… because he never needs to.
He lifts one dark brow curiously.
“You,” I spit out, my voice shaking with fury. “You sit here on your throne of lies and power, manipulating everyone around you for your own gain. How dare you?”
The room falls silent, the tension crackling like electricity, finally broken by a low whistle. I look over to see Semyon’s younger brother Rodion, a few years older than I am, shaking his head. Rodion is the family wildcard, defined by his athletic build and charm, a perpetual smirk on his face.
He's Semyon’s opposite in every way.
“This her, brother?” he says, shaking his head. “You’ve got your work cut out for you.”
What the hell is he talking about? Semyon shakes his head once at Rodion, who quickly clams up. I turn back to him.
“You’re the reason my mother is dead. You’re the reason my brother is drowning in debt.
You ruined us.” My voice shakes with fury.
“And now you threaten to take away our only means of survival?” I’m shaking with fury as Semyon’s icy blue gaze settles on me.
Before he responds, he takes a long, slow sip from his drink.
“It’s been a while, Anya. How nice to see you. It seems you’ve forgotten your manners.”
Rodion stifles a snort, and someone in the back morphs a laugh into a cough.
I stare at him and don’t respond. I expected anger, outrage, a scathing remark—anything but this cool, collected indifference.
“I’ll allow your disrespect to go unpunished this once,” he says coldly. Holding up a hand, he gestures for someone in the back, who immediately rushes forward to refill his drink. “If you tell me the truth, please. It wasn’t your brother who texted me, was it?”
I shake my head.
“So you lied to me,” he states, his cold voice dropping a few degrees. I swallow hard and stifle a shiver.
“I didn’t lie to you. I texted you from my brother’s phone.”
“Pretending you were him, knowing full well, I wouldn’t have disclosed my location to you.”
My temper flares. The goddamn nerve of the insensitive prick. “Because I’m a woman? Because I don’t deserve to be in the presence of men like you?”
“No,” he says without a trace of dishonesty. That’s one thing about Semyon—he never lied. To a fault, even. Sometimes it hurt that he didn’t. “Because I would never have allowed you to come out alone into a dangerous place like this unaccompanied. You ought to know that.”
I can’t help but scoff at him. “As if my safety’s any of your concern.”
He lost that privilege a long time ago.
He rises slowly. I swallow. Semyon’s bigger than I remember, bigger than when he was a boy.
Stronger. Taller. Even from here, I can see the corded muscle at his neck, the veined strength of his hands.
The room falls silent as he draws himself to his full height.
He wears a black button-down shirt. Even in my fear and anger, my eyes are drawn to the way his rolled-up sleeves reveal the dangerous mark of the Bratva, every deliberate movement like the clanging of a warning bell.
“You’ll see very soon that it’s of my utmost concern.”
What?
I don’t understand what he’s saying—it’s incomprehensible, infuriating. The anger that simmered like molten lava inside me as I stormed up here erupts, scorching through reason, and the final thread of self-control snaps, as fragile as fishing line pulled taut under heavy weight.
I somehow find myself standing inches away from him, unaware of how I got here, fueled by desperation and fury. I’m blinded to the danger around me, only dimly aware of six strong men who rise to their feet and Semyon’s flip of a palm that holds them all back.