16. Chapter 16
16
Bella
T hirty minutes in, Konstantin is elbow-deep in dough, sleeves rolled up, forearms flexing like they’re getting paid to audition for a fantasy I am actively trying not to have.
I’m supposed to be helping.
Which is hard when my entire nervous system is busy tracking every movement of the man beside me like he’s a live wire and I’m a moth with a martyr complex.
He kneads the dough with brutal efficiency, veins rising along his arms like a roadmap to bad decisions. I try not to stare. I fail instantly. One particularly thick vein snakes up his bicep and disappears beneath the hem of his sleeve.
Oh God.
And then there are his fingers.
Jesus.
Those fingers. The ones currently stretching and folding dough like it owes him money. The same fingers that had me unraveling on satin sheets not even forty-eight hours ago. Fingers that had no business being that precise, that thorough, that devastating.
I should not be thinking about how they curl. Or how they press. Or how they linger— No. Stop it.
Bad girl.
This is pizza night. Family-friendly. Not pound-me-like-dough night.
I grab the bag of flour before my brain fully betrays me and dump half of it on the counter—and my tits. Excellent. Now I’m aroused and look like a failed Food Network contestant.
“Need help?” he asks, not even glancing up.
“I’m doing amazing, thank you,” I manage, brushing white powder off my cleavage while pretending I’m not mentally reenacting scenes from our wedding night—with dough as the stand-in.
Alya sighs from her perch at the island. “You’re not supposed to slap the flour bag.”
“It insulted me first,” I mutter.
Lev smirks from his stool across the island, elbow propped like he’s holding court. Nikolai stands beside me on the other side, close enough that I can feel his quiet judgment humming in the air like static. He’s pretending not to be amused—but I catch the twitch at the corner of his mouth as I fumble with the flour.
Small victories.
Konstantin is just to my left, and if I shift even a little, my shoulder would brush his arm. Which is not a thing I’m testing on purpose. Definitely not.
Okay, maybe a little.
Then, without warning, he shifts just slightly. Closer. Not much. Just enough that his arm brushes mine when he reaches for the olive oil.
I freeze. He doesn’t.
He sets the bottle down, wipes his hands, and finally— finally —glances at me. It’s brief. Measured. But there’s something in his eyes that says he knows. That he’s letting me squirm on purpose.
And the worst part?
I think he enjoys it.
He turns back to the counter, perfectly casual, and says, “Careful with the knife, Lev.”
“Oh! Maybe I can help you cut those—” I blurt, too fast, reaching automatically for the peppers like they’re a life raft.
Lev tilts his head at me, holding the knife with the kind of confidence that should not belong to someone who still has baby teeth in his yearbook photo.
“I’m good,” he says, slicing straight through a bell pepper like he’s done it a thousand times. “Papa taught me.”
I blink. “That’s great. Fantastic. I just— Wow, that’s a really sharp knife.”
Lev doesn’t even look up. “It’s my favorite.”
Of course it is.
Nikolai doesn’t react, but I see the faint smirk; like he knows exactly what this looks like to someone from a “normal” family.
Which I am realizing, in real time, I do not belong to anymore.
“That’s a boning knife,” I mutter under my breath. “In case anyone was wondering what kind of ambiance we’re setting here tonight.”
“It’s efficient,” Konstantin says, slicing dough like this is all perfectly normal and not mildly unhinged. “Why train them on dull blades?”
Oh. Okay. We’re just saying things like that now.
“Cool, cool,” I say, nodding slowly. “Totally fine. Just a casual Monday. Making pizza. Letting preteens wield specialty knives designed to cut muscle from bone. Normal. Everything’s fine.”
Alya doesn’t even blink. “It’s not that sharp. He sharpened it last week.”
“That’s supposed to make me feel better? ”
Konstantin hands me the cheese like it’s a peace offering—or a trap. I take it anyway because panic-grating dairy feels marginally safer than watching a 12-year-old julienne vegetables like he’s auditioning for Top Chef: Bratva Edition.
“I used to think pizza night meant frozen crust and a hotline to Domino’s,” I mumble.
Lev grins. “What’s Domino’s?”
And now I’m the fossil.
“Never mind. Keep slicing, assassin child.”
And then I realize— Oh, no.
I probably shouldn’t have said that.
Not because I offended anyone. But because all three kids just froze.
Alya lowers her tablet like she’s slowly recalibrating. Lev stops mid-slice. Nikolai raises one eyebrow, which, for him, is basically a full-body reaction.
Shit. This is it. I’ve officially blown it. Called the mafia boss’s son an assassin. While his father is, quite literally, three inches from my elbow and capable of making people disappear without Google Maps ever noticing.
I open my mouth to backpedal—maybe throw in a compliment, or a pizza pun, or fake a seizure—but before I can even start the damage control…
They all start laughing.
Like— really laughing.
Alya snorts. Snorts. Lev’s giggling so hard he almost drops his terrifying knife, and Nikolai actually leans on the counter like his legs gave out.
And I just stand there, holding a block of mozzarella like it’s the Holy Grail and I’ve been granted entry to some secret inner circle I didn’t know I was trying to get into.
“Assassin child,” Lev repeats between wheezes. “That’s so much better than what Papa calls me.”
“What does he call you?” I ask, still frozen, still half-convinced this is a setup.
“Reckless,” Nikolai says.
“ Uncontained liability ,” Alya adds helpfully.
Konstantin clears his throat like he’s considering both murder and fatherhood at the same time.
I glance at him, expecting to see annoyance—or worse, judgment.
But he’s not looking at them. He’s looking at me.
And for a split second, there’s something in his expression I haven’t seen before. Not irritation. Not amusement.
Pride.
Like he meant for me to find my footing here. Like maybe this was the test all along.
Lev’s still giggling when Alya reaches for a ball of dough and declares, “I’m doing toppings. Papa always lets me do toppings.”
“Because you overcheese everything,” Nikolai mutters, still leaning on the counter like the laugh took ten years off his spine.
“That’s not a thing,” she replies. “There’s no such thing as overcheese.”
“She’s not wrong,” I say, sliding the mozzarella toward her. “Also, as someone with a lactose addiction, I feel seen.”
Alya offers the tiniest smile. Barely a twitch of her mouth. But it’s there. It counts.
Konstantin gestures toward the tray with the crusts. “Everyone gets one. No arguing.”
“Oh, so now we’re democratic?” I ask, reaching for one and tossing it on the counter.
“Pizza is sacred,” he replies without missing a beat.
And there it is again—that dry, low humor that sneaks out when he’s not posturing for the world. I don’t think he even knows he’s doing it. But it lands. It lands hard.
The kids scatter across the island, grabbing toppings, arranging chaos. It’s loud, slightly unhinged, and surprisingly normal.
Lev’s cutting olives like he’s prepping for a mission. Nikolai is arranging mushrooms in perfect symmetry, the way some people lay out battle maps. And Alya—God bless her—is smashing a handful of basil straight into the center of her dough like she’s punishing it.
“Okay, basil assault is a choice,” I say, laughing.
“I like the smell,” she mumbles.
I glance at her and freeze. There’s flour on her cheeks now—smeared across her nose and left temple like war paint—but her expression has softened. Her edges have dulled.
She looks like a kid. Not a diplomat. Not a timekeeper. Just a flour-dusted, pizza-making 8-year-old who wants to overcheese the world.
“Come on,” I say gently, nodding toward the hallway. “Let’s go wash your face before you become a human cannoli.”
She huffs but follows me.
We pass through the side corridor and into one of the guest bathrooms—because of course this house has a marble-clad powder room with gold fixtures and a candle that probably was purchased without a thought for expense.
I dampen a washcloth and crouch in front of her.
“You have something right—here,” I say, dabbing gently at her cheek.
She flinches. Just slightly. Like the contact surprised her.
I don’t push it. Just keep wiping the flour away in slow, careful movements. Her eyes stay locked on mine the whole time, as if she’s studying me for weakness.
“You know,” I say softly, “you don’t have to be the adult all the time.”
“I’m not.”
“You kind of are.”
She shrugs. “Somebody has to be.”
The weight of that sentence sits in my chest like a brick. I know that feeling. Too well.
“You don’t,” I tell her. “Not with me.”
She blinks. For a second, she doesn’t say anything.
“I used to get in trouble for messes like this,” I say, keeping my voice light. “My mom was… big on clean.”
Alya tilts her head. “Did she yell?”
“Sometimes,” I admit. “But mostly, she just sighed. Like everything I did made her tired.” I pause, then add quietly, “She died when I was 16. Car accident. I never got to say goodbye.”
It slips out more easily than I expect. Maybe because her eyes don’t look away. Maybe because no one’s asked in a long time.
A beat passes.
Then—
“Do you think about your mommy a lot?”
There it is.
Soft. Small. Like it snuck out without permission.
I nod. “Every day.”
Alya looks down at her shoes. Her voice gets even quieter.
“My mommy left. When I was a baby. Papa says I was six months old.”
Six months. That’s it. That’s all she ever got.
“I don’t remember her,” she adds. “Just pictures. And one time, I had a dream about her, but I think I made it up.”
My throat burns. I don’t know what to say. What can you say to that?
She keeps her eyes on the tile.
“Do you think some mommies stay and some don’t?” she asks.
Oh God.
I can’t answer. Not really. So I don’t lie. I just crouch there, heart cracked wide open, and say, “I think the ones who stay… try really hard. Even when it’s messy. Even when they’re scared.”
She looks at me.
And in that look—I swear—there’s a question she doesn’t say out loud.
Not “Are you my mom?” But something quieter. Something like: “Will you stay?”
I don’t answer. I can’t. Not yet.
I just reach out and gently fix the cheese stuck in her hair.
She lets me.
By the time I get back to the kitchen, the maids have gone full Mission: Pizza Impossible —moving in synchronized silence, sliding trays into stone ovens with the kind of precision usually reserved for surgical teams and bomb squads.
Alya’s back at the island, fingers drumming on the edge of her stool like she’s already planning the next round of toppings. Lev is poking at stray bits of pepper like he’s bored again. And Nikolai’s just watching, eyes flicking between the rest of us like he’s clocking everything without giving any of it away.
I look at them—really look at them—and something shifts.
They don’t feel like strangers anymore.
They feel like a lot of things—too quiet, too smart, too sharp around the edges—but not strangers.
The maids are cleaning the counters like they were never used. One’s adjusting a timer. Another is arranging fresh plates on a long marble credenza that looks like it was carved from a glacier. The dining area opens just beyond—tall windows framing the cliffside, a view so dramatic it could swallow you whole if you let it.
I take the empty seat near the head of the table. Not at the head. I’m not delusional. Just… close enough to see everything.
Alya climbs up beside me like nothing happened.
I glance over at Konstantin. He’s speaking to one of the older housekeepers near the espresso machine, voice low, jaw set. His hands move as he talks—brief, precise gestures—and she nods like she knows better than to make him repeat himself.
It hits me quietly.
This man raised them.
As I watch him speak to the housekeeper, I notice something I missed before. The way Nikolai tilts his head exactly like his father when considering something important. How Lev’s hands move with the same confident precision when handling the knife. Even Alya’s steely determination—it’s all him, imprinted on them like a genetic watermark.
These aren’t broken children surviving a dangerous father.
They’re his legacy. Strong. Capable. Prepared for a world that shows no mercy.
The realization crashes into me like a wave. All this time, I’ve been seeing him as my captor, my inconvenient husband, the dangerous man who bought me with a contract.
When he turns and catches my eye across the kitchen, something electric passes between us. Not just attraction—though God knows that’s still humming beneath my skin—but recognition. I see the weight he carries. The fortress he’s built around his heart. The way he’s transformed his wounds into armor.
The towering, dangerous man who threatened me in hallways is the same one who kneaded dough with skilled hands and taught his son to slice vegetables with precision. Who created a weekly pizza night tradition in the middle of a life most people wouldn’t survive a day in.
I’ve been seeing him all wrong.
He’s not a monster allowing glimpses of humanity. He’s a father whose every brutal action has been to protect what’s his.
And I’m suddenly, terrifyingly aware that I’ve started to want to be one of those things worth protecting.