Chapter 4
Sergei
"You smell like expensive perfume and bad decisions."
Elena's voice cuts through the morning air before I'm even out of the car.
She's standing on the front steps of her brownstone, arms crossed, dark hair pulled back so tight, it looks like it hurts.
Still beautiful in that cold calculated way that used to work on me before I figured out beauty with teeth is just another predator.
Now it just makes me tired.
"Good morning to you, too." I keep my voice neutral, controlled. Everything with Elena requires strategy, like defusing a bomb that wants to detonate.
"Don't." She descends the steps, heels clicking against stone like a countdown. Her brown eyes sweep over me, cataloguing evidence. Building her case. "You reek of sex and someone else's sheets. Where were you last night?"
"Not your business anymore."
"It is when you're picking up our daughter." She moves closer, invading my space like she still has that right. Like we're still married instead of two years divorced. "What kind of example are you setting, Sergei? Rolling up here straight from some woman's bed—"
"I showered." I did actually. Izzy's penthouse has three bathrooms, and I used the guest one while she was still sleeping, because I didn’t want to wake her. Trying not to go back for round three. "And my personal life stopped being your concern the day you signed the divorce papers."
Elena's smile could draw blood. "Your personal life became my concern the moment you helped create Mila. The court might be interested to know you're still engaging in reckless behavior."
Ice floods my veins. "Careful."
"Or what?" She tilts her head, daring me. Wanting me to snap. "You'll do what you do best? Break something? Someone?"
Her voice drops, venomous. "I know what you were, Sergei. What you still are under all this domesticity. The Wolf doesn't just retire."
My jaw locks. She knows exactly where to stick the knife and how deep to twist it. "I'm here for my daughter."
"Who deserves better than a father who smells like whore's perfume—"
"Mama!"
We both turn. Mila stands in the doorway, backpack clutched to her chest, dark hair in the braids I taught her how to do. Those hazel green eyes, too old, too watchful, dart between us.
She heard.
Of course, she heard.
Elena's expression shifts instantly to maternal and concerned, like flipping a switch. "Sweetheart, go wait in the car. I need to speak to your father."
Mila doesn't move. She's eight, but reads people like they're books written in her native language, always figuring out where they fit, where they're broken, where the plot turns dangerous. Right now, she's assessing whether this argument will escalate into something worse.
"Hey, ptichka." I use the nickname I gave her when she was born. Little bird. "Go ahead, I'll be right there."
She hesitates, then nods, slipping past her mother without looking at her. Smart girl. The car door closes with a soft click.
Elena waits until we're alone again. "Two more incidents, Sergei. Two more times you step out of line, and I'm filing for full custody."
"I haven't stepped out of line."
"You went home with some woman last night." Her smile is poisonous, practiced. "That shows poor judgment. Instability. The court won't like it."
"I'm allowed to have a life."
"Not when it affects our daughter." She straightens her already perfect posture, like she's posing for a portrait titled Concerned Mother. "Every other weekend, that's what the agreement says. But if I decide you're unfit—"
"You won't." The words come out harder than I intend, edged with something that sounds like a threat because it is. "Because you know I'll fight back."
Something flickers in her eyes. Not fear. Elena doesn't do fear. But recognition. A reminder that I'm not just the domesticated ex-husband she's trying to mold me into. That underneath the pancakes and puzzle nights, there's still something with teeth.
The Wolf doesn't retire.
He just learns to wear different skin.
"Mila deserves stability," she says quietly, like she cares. "Not a father who can't control himself."
"I control myself fine."
"Then prove it." She turns back toward her perfect brownstone; her perfect life built on blood money and social climbing. "Stay away from trouble. Stay away from dangerous women. Or I'll make sure you lose her."
The threat hangs in the air like smoke from a gun barrel. Then she's gone, the door closing behind her with aristocratic finality.
I stand there for three breaths, forcing my pulse to steady. Forcing my hands to unclench. Elena knows exactly how to twist the knife, and the worst part is she's right. My past isn't dead. It's just waiting. Patient. Hungry.
I get in the car. Mila's buckled into the back seat, staring out the window. Too quiet. I meet her eyes in the rearview mirror.
"You okay, ptichka?"
She nods, but her fingers twist the strap of her backpack. "Mama was mad."
"Mama's always mad at me." I start the engine, pulling away from the brownstone and Elena's poison. "It's her natural state."
A small smile tugs at her mouth. "Like Grumpy Bear?"
"Exactly like Grumpy Bear." I glance back at her. "What do you want for breakfast?"
"Pancakes?"
"Pancakes it is."
The drive to my place takes twenty minutes.
I live in a fortress disguised as a normal apartment because, even out of the game, I'm not stupid.
Reinforced doors, panic rooms, security that would make paranoid billionaires jealous.
The kind of normal I'm building for my daughter comes with steel bones.
We make pancakes together. Mila insists on adding chocolate chips, way too many, until the batter looks more like dessert than breakfast. She chatters about her friend Marina, about the escape room birthday party next week, about the mystery book she's reading, in which the detective is a girl with a magnifying glass.
I listen, flipping pancakes, and try not to think about Izzy.
Try not to remember the taste of her mouth. The way she gasped my name against the window thirty-eight stories above Manhattan. The desperation in her eyes when she asked me to make her forget.
One night. That's all it was.
But the memory of her curves pressed against me, of her nails digging into my shoulders, drawing blood as she came apart, isn’t going anywhere.
After breakfast, Mila spreads her puzzle across the living room floor. Five hundred pieces, all ocean and sky. She likes the challenge, the way chaos becomes order when you find the right fit.
Just like her father.
"Papa?"
"Yeah, ptichka?"
"Do you miss Mama?"
The question lands like a bullet. I set down the edge piece I was holding and look at her. She's not looking back, focused on sorting blues, but her shoulders are tense. Waiting.
"I miss who she used to be," I say carefully, because lying to Mila never works. "Before things got complicated."
"She's mean to you."
"Sometimes people hurt each other without meaning to."
"She means to." Mila's voice is flat, matter-of-fact. Eight years old and already reading subtext like a professional. "I can tell."
I move to sit beside her, helping to sort pieces. "Your mama loves you very much."
"I know." She finds two pieces that connect, pressing them together with satisfaction. "But she doesn't love you."
"No. She doesn't."
We work in silence for a while, building the puzzle piece by piece. Outside, the world continues. Traffic, voices, life moving forward without caring about my past or my mistakes, or the fact that I can still feel Isabelle Davenport's skin under my hands.
I used to be The Wolf. Bratva enforcer, the guy you called when someone needed to disappear permanently. I earned my freedom by saving the Pakhan's nephew from a rival family's ambush. I took three bullets doing it, then walked away from that life covered in blood and promises I intended to keep.
But Elena's right about one thing.
You don't just retire from being a monster.
"Papa?"
"Hmm?"
"The lady whose perfume you smell like." Mila fits another piece into place without looking at me. "Is she nice?"
My hands still. "What makes you think I smell like perfume?"
"Mama said. And you do. It's pretty, like flowers and vanilla."
Isabelle's scent. Still clinging to my skin despite the shower, despite trying to wash her off.
"She's..." I search for words. "Complicated."
"Complicated like Mama?"
"Complicated like a puzzle with missing pieces."
Mila considers this, then nods like it makes perfect sense, because to her, everything is a puzzle. "Will I meet her?"
"No." The word comes out too fast, too firm. "It was just one night, ptichka. Nothing serious."
But even as I say it, I know I'm lying.
Because Isabelle Davenport, with her blue eyes and raw-edged grief, with her desperate need to forget, and her dangerous taste in men, is not just one night.
She's trouble.
The kind that gets under your skin and stays there.
And trouble has always had a way of finding me.
Or maybe I have a way of finding it.
Either way, I'm fucked.