Chapter 2
ALEXEI
As Rurik’s car glides away from the curb outside Danyl’s house, I stand on the sidewalk a moment longer than necessary.
I should have insisted on taking her home. But we didn’t go in my car and my Pakhan had to get to another meeting. His time is more valuable than my curiosity about a girl who might soon be my wife. I’m a good soldier in the brotherhood, but regret still fills my chest.
“Problem?” Danyl asks over his shoulder as he walks toward his house.
“None,” I say and fall into step behind him, boots crunching over the gravel.
The night is raw and damp, the kind of cold that seeps through clothing and into the bone.
The security lights around his house flare to life as we approach.
Their brightness reveals the stone walkway, and cameras turn silently to follow our path.
I should know. I managed the installation of Danyl’s security system at his new home.
The house is enormous, but not ostentatious. It has iron railings and is built of white brick. A dark gray door that could probably stop a bullet or two mark the entrance. Two men in dark jackets that hide their weapons flank the door. They nod to us as they pull the heavy steel open.
Warmth hits my face, along with the smells of something baking.
Lemon and sugar, and butter. It doesn’t fit with the image in my head of how I usually spend my time with Danyl.
As his enforcer, I do the violence while Danyl wields the words.
But now that he is married, Danyl has one foot in darkness and the other in bliss.
We shrug out of our coats in the entryway. I hand mine to the waiting man dressed as a butler, but with a shoulder holster. I loosen the top button of my shirt and roll my shoulders once, twice. The tension across my back has been there since we walked into the bar and I saw Rosie.
I could tell she was tired and bothered by the phone buzzing in her back pocket like a mosquito. But she smiled at the regulars, wiped the tables, acted like the world was not sitting on her shoulders.
When she looked at me, fear flashed in her pretty sky-blue eyes, but there was also a glimmer of something else.
No, I cut off that thought. This is transactional, and I can’t afford wishful thinking about emotions that were not there.
“Office,” Danyl says, already moving down the hall.
I follow him past framed photographs of him and Liza at a beach, of a blurred toddler running through sprinklers, and of all three of them at a picnic.
I catch myself looking, cataloguing the details, then force my gaze away.
Danyl is my cousin, actually second cousin, but blood is blood, but although we are family, his life is not something I should covet.
Although he and Rurik, Danyl’s first cousin and our Pakhan, both grew up on the streets of Moscow, my life’s path started in an even darker place. Too dark for ever having what they both have now, genuine families.
In the office, the door clicks shut behind us. The desk is a solid slab of dark wood. The shelves lined with books and files and small pieces of art that probably cost more than my first car.
Danyl drops into the chair behind the desk and gestures for me to take a seat opposite. I stay standing instead, hands loose at my sides.
He studies me with that flat, assessing look that runs in the family. His eyes have the same shape as mine, but where mine are gray and cold, his blue ones have a spark of amusement most days.
Not tonight.
“Sit, Alexei,” he says. “You make me nervous when you stand. Like you’re about to pounce on me.” He says it with a smile because he knows I would never turn on him. Even if we were not related by blood, he’s family, my brother because of the brotherhood we’re in.
The Bratva.
I lower myself into the chair. It creaks under my weight.
He steeples his fingers. “Well? What do you think of her?”
My jaw tightens. He doesn’t have to specify who. We didn’t go to the bar by accident or to see the owner. Tonight was all about Rosie Morgan.
“She works hard,” I say. “Keeps an eye on everyone. Knows when to cut people off. Smart enough not to ask questions she doesn’t want answers to.”
“And?”
I meet his gaze. “She is her father’s softest spot.”
“Weak spot,” Danyl corrects me and smiles, slow and sharp. “And definitely his softest one.”
He leans back, chair groaning quietly. “I told Rurik you are ready to move beyond breaking bones. He approves because he thinks you have both brains and muscles, but this arrangement is also a test.”
“I am not here to be tested,” I say, before I can pull the words back.
Danyl quirks an eyebrow. “You’re here because you want to stay.”
Silence stretches between us.
He is right. I do want to stay. It’s not like I need a visa to do the work I do, but I want a bank account that doesn’t get frozen every time some bored immigration officer decides my last name sounds too foreign.
And when I need to leave the country, I want to be let in again without having to buy a fake passport because my legal one has overstayed its welcome.
Technically, I could get a work visa through one of the brotherhood’s many shell companies, but we don’t want immigration—or any government agency—to scrutinize them too closely.
To make things easier, I need permanent residency, a green card, but even better would be dual citizenship.
I exhale through my nose. “Let’s hear the plan.”
“She’s the perfect candidate.” His mouth curves. “Rosie is twenty -two and has no criminal record. She’s a naturally born citizen with clean credit, well as clean as it can be with a father like hers.”
“She is a bartender,” I say. “She makes minimum wage and tips.”
“You make more than enough for both of you,” he counters. “And with your new responsibilities, your income increases. We’re not talking about money here, we are talking about legitimacy.” He opens a drawer, pulls out a thin folder, and slides it across the desk toward me.
I don’t touch it.
“Her father’s debt is getting too high,” he says.
“We’ve given him grace because of the jobs he’s done for us.
We’ve restructured the loans, lowered the interest rates, but instead of making the payments, he keeps gambling.
” He grimaces, the disgust over Rose’s father’s vices clear on his face. “But you know all this, already.”
I do know. I have seen the records and I’ve been to the meetings where the man negotiated for another extension.
Every time he signed the papers, he promised it would be the last time.
Promised that this time, he would make the payments on time.
“And now?” I ask, silently wondering how many promises he’s broken to his daughter.
If he’s stupid enough to lie to himself and to the Bratva, how much does he deceive his family?
“And now it stops. We have to make an example of him or we’ll look weak to our other customers and partners.
” Danyl taps the folder. “Drew Morgan doesn’t have the funds to pay us back.
His choices are broken bones, or a forgiven debt on the condition that Rosie Morgan marries you.
You get your residency. Her father gets to keep his kneecaps, but we never loan him money again. ”
I let out a rough sound that might be a laugh. “You think she will be happy to marry a Bratva enforcer she met only ones?”
“She will be happy not to watch debt collectors strip her father’s home,” he says calmly. “She will be happy not to visit her father’s hospital bed, or his grave.”
Anger flickers in my chest, quick and hot. Not at Danyl, but at the weak Drew and the situation. At the way the world works. At how easy it is to leverage love, especially when those we give it to don’t deserve it.
“She is not the one who borrowed,” I say.
“She’s his family,” Danyl replies. “The only collateral Drew has left.”
He isn’t wrong. That’s the worst part.
Images flash in my head uninvited. Rosie behind the bar, jaw set, wiping down the counter like she’s trying to scrub the entire world clean. Rosie’s hand brushing mine when she gave me the vodka. The way she straightened when I mentioned walking her home, defiance and fear warring on her face.
Mine. The word slides through my thoughts like a blade, and warmth spreads through my chest.
I cut it off.
“This is not a…normal marriage,” I say carefully.
Danyl snorts. “You were never going to have a normal marriage, cousin.”
True.
Men like me do not get white picket fences and couples’ vacations, and shared Netflix accounts. We get women who understand discretion and the value of cash. Once upon a time, that was also Danyl’s life.
As if on cue, there’s a gentle knock. The office door opens, and Liza stands in the doorway, hair in a messy braid, a smear of flour on one cheek. She’s wearing leggings and an oversized sweatshirt. Her feet are bare.
She looks at Danyl first, and her whole face lights up. “Hey,” she says, smiling. “I made lemon bars. Do you want some?”
The hardness melts off Danyl’s whole body. His shoulders lower and his eyes brighten. “In a minute, milaya,” he says. “We’re talking business.”
She nods and her eyes flick to me with easy warmth. “Hi, Alexei.”
“Evening,” I say.
“You sure you don’t want some before they get cold?” she asks Danyl, teasing. “You complain when the glaze hardens.”
He huffs, but he’s smiling. “Bring two pieces. And some tea.”
“Yes, boss.” She gives a small salute, then disappears down the hall, bare feet padding on the hardwood.
Silence again. The air feels different.
I watch the door for a second longer, then look back at Danyl. He’s still smiling faintly, but then catches me looking. “What?” he asks, trying to wipe the smile off his lips, but they still quirk.
“Nothing,” I say.
He studies me. “You think I have gone soft.”
“I think you have something most men like us do not,” I say. “I think you should not assume I can have the same.”