Chapter 12 Daniil
DANIIL
Naomi's voice is sharp with accusation and laced with fear. Her questions scrape raw nerves I thought I’d buried, and I don't have answers I can give.
Not ones that won't break her further. She doesn't see the full picture or understand the world she's been pulled into, and the enemies who would bleed her dry just to destroy me.
She stands across the room, her arms folded tight against her chest. Her eyes are wide, furious, and glinting with unshed tears. The ivory dress she wears clings to her curves, innocent and pure, while we discuss blood, violence, and the empire I've built on both.
I want to tell her everything. Tell her about this world and about Sasha.
Tell her I'm falling for her harder than I've ever fallen for anything in my life.
Tell her about the way my chest constricts every time I look at her.
I want to strip the world back to its bones and show her what it means to belong to me.
But the words are trapped behind my teeth.
My fingers drum against the edge of my desk, the only outward sign of the turmoil raging inside me.
She deserves honesty, but honesty might be the thing that drives her away forever.
And the thought of losing her now, when I've just begun to understand what having her means, makes my entire body go cold with panic.
“Daniil, did last night mean anything to you?” she demands, taking a step closer. “Are you even listening to me?”
Her question hits like a crack of thunder, loud and impossible to ignore.
Last night meant everything. It meant surrendering control for the first time in my adult life and allowing her to see past the armor I had spent years perfecting.
It meant feeling her body beneath mine and knowing that no amount of money or power would ever compare to the way she whispered my name in the darkness.
I nod once, my jaw tight. “I hear you.”
The response sounds inadequate even to my own ears. I hear the frustration in her breathing and see the way her hands clench into fists at her sides. She's fighting not to scream at me, and part of me wishes she would. Anger would be easier to handle than this desperate plea for connection.
“Then say something. Anything. Because right now, all I have is a hurricane in my chest and silence in return.”
Before I can find the words that have been eluding me, a low mechanical tone screeches through the estate.
The sound slices through the air like a siren, and every muscle in my body goes rigid with recognition.
The lights stutter, then turn blood red, bathing the study in an ominous glow that transforms Naomi's face into something ethereal and terrifying.
She gasps, backing up toward the window, her eyes wide with confusion and growing panic.
“What the hell is that?”
“Perimeter breach,” I growl, already moving toward her. My body shifts into combat mode automatically, years of training taking over. Every sense sharpens, and every nerve ending comes alive with deadly focus. “Stay down.”
Gunshots crack in the distance. Short bursts that echo through the corridors of the estate like the sky is cracking open. This isn't random violence or a botched robbery. This is war being brought to my doorstep.
My desk phone hisses to life, the secure line crackling with static.
“Perimeter breach, north wall,” Lex reports, his voice calm but clipped. “One team. Armed. Military-grade weapons.”
“Get them out. No survivors,” I order, my voice dropping to the tone that's ended more lives than I care to count.
Before I can reach Naomi, the tall window behind her explodes inward with a deafening crack.
The reinforced glass, designed to withstand most small arms fire, shatters like crystal, raining down in deadly shards.
A bullet punches into the far wall, missing her by just a few feet, leaving a crater in the plaster that would have been her skull.
“Naomi!”
She ducks instinctively, her reflexes better than I expected, but terror has frozen her in place.
Her mouth opens in a silent scream as she stumbles backward, glass crunching under her feet.
Another shot slams into the bookshelf beside her head, sending leather-bound volumes tumbling to the floor like fallen soldiers.
I grab her arm and yank her to the ground, dragging her behind the massive mahogany desk. I cover her body with mine, shielding her from the chaos, pressing her flat against the rug. Her heart is pounding against my chest like a caged bird, so fast I worry it might give out entirely.
“Don't move,” I murmur into her ear, my voice low and fierce.
Her breath comes fast and panicked, each exhale a tiny puff of warmth against my neck. “Daniil...”
“I've got you. I promise.” Rage blurs my vision around the edges, and I want to kill everyone responsible for putting that terror in her eyes.
Nothing will touch her while I'm breathing.
No one will take her from me. I've lost too much already to chance and enemies who strike from shadows. I won't lose her, too.
The room vibrates with the thump of heavy boots pounding past the study door.
More gunfire echoes from somewhere near the main hallway, punctuated by shouts in Russian that make my blood boil.
A door crashes open down the corridor, the sound of splintering wood mixing with the staccato rhythm of automatic weapons.
I grip the gun tucked in my waistband, the metal warm and familiar in my palm. It has been with me for fifteen years, since my father first put it in my hands and told me that mercy was for men who could afford it. Today, I plan to empty every round into whoever dared bring violence to my home.
Then, as suddenly as it began, silence falls over the estate like a shroud. The absence of gunfire is almost more unnerving than the battle itself. In the quiet, I can hear Naomi's ragged breathing, the distant hum of the security system, and the thudding of my own pulse in my ears.
A minute later, Lex's voice filters through the intercom again, steady despite whatever hell he's just walked through.
“All clear, pakhan. Perimeter secure. Three hostiles down.”
“Casualties?” My voice is scraped raw by adrenaline and the smoke that's starting to seep under the door.
“Timur took a graze to the shoulder. Maksim's fine. We have a problem, though. This wasn't random. They knew the weak spot in the north wall and exactly where to hit the motion sensors.”
The confirmation of what I already suspected makes my jaw clench. Someone on the inside fed them information. Someone I trusted has betrayed me, and that betrayal nearly cost Naomi her life.
I lift myself just enough to look down at her. She stares back at me, shaken but alive, the red glow dancing in her brown eyes like firelight. There's a small cut on her cheek from the flying glass, and a thin line of blood that makes rage surge through my veins like molten steel.
“Are you hurt?”
She shakes her head slowly. “No. But what…what the hell is going on?”
I help her to her feet slowly, my hands gentler now that the immediate danger has passed. She's shaking, fine tremors running through her body like aftershocks. Her fingers find my chest, clutching at my shirt as if I'm the only solid thing in a world that's suddenly become quicksand.
“Were they trying to kill you?” Her voice cracks on the question.
“No.” I wrap an arm around her, guiding her carefully through the debris toward the door. Glass crunches under our feet, and I make sure to keep my body between her and the shattered window. “They were trying to hurt you.”
Her head whips toward me, her eyes wide with disbelief and dawning horror. Her face goes pale, all the blood draining from her cheeks until she looks like a ghost. She stumbles slightly, and I tighten my grip on her waist, steadying her against me.
“Why?” The word slips out in a raspy whisper.
“Because hurting you hurts me. And right now, hurting me is worth more to certain people than killing me outright.”
She understands now what it means to be connected to someone like me. The danger isn't theoretical anymore. It has teeth and bullets and the willingness to use both.
Lex meets us in the corridor, his usually immaculate appearance disheveled from battle. His shirt is bloodstained at the shoulder where Timur leaned on him for support, and there's a cut above his left eyebrow that he hasn't bothered to clean.
“They wanted to make a statement,” he reports, falling into step beside us as we navigate the hallway.
“They made one,” I reply, my voice carrying the promise of retribution. “Now it's our turn.”
“Where to?” Lex asks, though I suspect he already knows the answer.
“Lake Forest.”
Lex raises an eyebrow, the only sign of surprise he allows himself. “You sure?”
Taking Naomi to the Lake Forest house means admitting that this situation has escalated beyond my ability to control from the estate. It means acknowledging that she's become more than just a convenient wife, more than a piece in the game. It means she's become someone worth protecting at any cost.
“She's not safe here. Not anymore.”
Ten minutes later, we're in an armored SUV, roaring away from the estate.
The vehicle is a fortress on wheels, with bulletproof glass and reinforced steel that could withstand a rocket launcher.
Naomi sits beside me, processing what just happened, trying to fit it into the framework of the life she thought she was living.
Her arms are folded defensively, but her body leans unconsciously toward mine, seeking warmth and comfort even as her mind rejects the reality of what I am.
The contradiction fascinates me. She should be running or demanding that I let her go.
Instead, she stays close enough that I can smell her perfume over the scent of gunpowder that clings to my clothes.
“This is who you really are,” she murmurs, not quite a question.
“Part of it,” I offer.