Chapter 31 Petyr
PETYR
By the time I get home, I’m in a foul fucking mood.
This goddamn day. A list of problems a mile long and not a single damn solution. The missing shipment hasn’t been located yet and we have no solid leads. Just a handful of excuses from men who should know better. Every time someone swears they’ve got a trail, it turns out to be nothing.
By mid-afternoon, I’m pacing my office, wondering if I should start breaking fingers until someone remembers how to be useful.
Then Lev rolls up like the bird of ill fucking omen he is, and I know my day is about to get worse.
“You’re not gonna like this.”
“Tell me something I don’t fucking know.”
He hands me a thick folder. “We’re under attack, Petyr. It’s slow, but it’s starting.”
I crack it open. Inside are photos, names, dates. “Tell me what I’m looking at.”
“Hits,” Lev says simply. “Danilo hits.”
“What’s the damage?”
“Three separate businesses in Sidorov territory.”
I stare at the charred husks of buildings in the pictures. “That’s Sidorov’s problem,” I say, leaning back in my chair. “Not mine.”
“For now,” Lev warns. “But they’re edging closer. One more block and they’ll be knocking on our door.”
I narrow my eyes and follow the red circles on the maps. Lev’s right—they’re all creeping right up to our border.
“They’re not stupid enough to cross over,” I say. “Not yet. We’re fortified here, and Sidorov is still an ally.”
“Perhaps,” Lev says enigmatically. “But he wasn’t happy with how the wedding went down. And we already knew the Danilos would be pushing. Testing the waters.”
Testing me, Lev doesn’t say.
But I hear it anyway. The Danilos smell Gubarev blood in the water—the same goddamn blood they spilled themselves—and they’re not the types to let a good opportunity go to waste. Not when they’ve done everything in their goddamn power to bring about that opportunity in the first place.
This power vacuum is their doing.
If Anatoli manages to take over Boris’s territory, it’ll give him a foothold in my turf.
Once he’s dug in, getting him out will be twice as hard and twice as bloody as keeping him away.
I can already see the way it’ll unfold—alliances, betrayals, deals that won’t hold up in the face of their ruthlessness.
So I need to be the ruthless one.
But my throne still isn’t secure. Making bold moves requires having your back covered, and I don’t have that, not yet. Not when half my vory are waiting on the sidelines to see where the chips will fall.
Some of them have been there since Uncle Grigoriy’s time—they never wanted to see me in charge. Vladimir, they could tolerate. Dimitri, perhaps. But I was never raised for it, and Mikhael has an old birthright to support him. To them, he’s the legitimate heir.
And Mikhael knows that.
“Keep me posted,” I tell Lev. “And don’t let up on the shipment.”
“Yes, pakhan.”
By the time I’m behind the wheel heading home, I’ve got a headache pounding at my temples. My jaw’s so tight it feels like my teeth might crack. I pull into the driveway with both hands locked on the wheel, knuckles pale.
The house is quiet as I step in. Too quiet. On a better day, I might take a moment to appreciate it. Tonight, it just feels eerie.
“Sima?” I call out from the entrance.
For a second, no reply comes. My mind starts picturing scenarios: She’s been taken on her way from class, and Luka’s lifeless body is rotting in a gutter somewhere. Or she’s been ambushed here, and someone tied her up to a chair, waiting for me to get home so they could ambush me.
Or—
“In here!” Sima’s voice calls back.
I let my fists unclench. You’re on edge, man. Get a fucking grip.
I step into the living room, and there she is.
She’s curled up on the rug, next to the coffee table.
A pile of books and stray papers rests on the glass surface, together with a beaten-up laptop that has definitely seen better days.
A half-empty mug sits dangerously close to the edge.
She’s scribbling something in a notebook, pen tapping in quick bursts when she pauses to think.
A strand of hair falls into her face, and she tucks it behind her ear without looking up.
When she finally notices me, she straightens and gives me a small smile. “I already ate,” she explains apologetically. “But there are leftovers in the fridge. Want me to heat you up a plate?”
“Later,” I say, shrugging off my jacket and tossing it over the back of a chair.
Sima studies me for a second. “Lousy day?” she asks, offering an encouraging smile.
“You could say that.”
I drop into the armchair across from her. The remote is in my hand before I can think. I start flipping through the channels without seeing what’s really on, looking for a halfway decent documentary to turn my mind off, but nothing catches my attention.
The scratch of her pen is what draws me.
I turn. Sima’s bent on her books again, scribbling more notes. The soft, regular rhythm of her writing steadies me, slowly easing the knot between my shoulders.
She must sense that I’m looking, because her gaze darts up. “Almost done,” she promises.
“Don’t stop on my account.” It feels oddly domestic, to stay like this. Me watching TV, her studying, in each other’s presence without an ulterior motive. “Business comes first.”
“Business has come first since the crack of dawn today,” she informs me with a tired sigh. “As soon as I’m done with this chapter, I’m calling it quits.”
“I take it class didn’t go well.”
“It did,” she says, but the slight rise of her voice betrays her lie. “Or I guess it went as good as could be expected. I was not… very present.”
A slow smirk curls my lip. “You were distracted.”
“Shut up.” Her cheeks flush instantly. “It’s not like that.”
“I didn’t say what it was like.”
“Well, whatever you’re thinking, you’re wrong.”
My eyes rake over her. I can imagine exactly where her mind was at this morning. Same place mine has been since last night. Upstairs, in my bed, remembering how perfect we were together. How smoothly our bodies fit with each other.
But then I remember what happened afterwards. The missing shipment, the driver, Mikhael’s challenge.
I won’t let her distract me.
I turn away and tune into the History Channel. It’s a documentary I’ve seen before, about cheetahs in the savannah, nothing too gripping.
Before long, I find my gaze drifting to Sima again. Find myself watching her work, her brow furrowed in concentration, her eyes focused on the pages of notes scattered around her.
After a few minutes, she shuts her book. “Alright. I’m done cooking my brain for tonight. Want me to nuke you that plate?”
“I’m not hungry,” I tell her.
But the truth is, it’s just food I’m not hungry for.
“Okay.” She throws me a curious glance. I see her eyes linger on the tight set of my shoulders, the creases on my forehead. “You look… tense. Did anything happen at work?”
“A lot happens at work.”
“Fine,” she huffs. “Keep your secrets. But you still need to relax.”
I decide to focus on the last part of her sentence. “Relax,” I repeat.
“Yep. You know, that thing people do after work? Wind down, kick their feet up, crack open a cold one?”
“You’re describing beer and sports.” My face remains flat. “I don’t do beer and sports.”
“And while I’m eternally grateful for that, I don’t think the cute cheetos there are cutting it.” She points a thumb at the screen.
“Cheetos?”
“That’s what baby cheetahs are called.”
“I think David Attenborough would disagree.”
“C’mon. Help me out here. Solve this mystery for me.” She sits cross-legged on the carpet and opens her arms wide. “Is there anything I can do to make the great Petyr Gubarev relax?”
“Yes,” I answer before I can stop myself. “But you’re wearing too many clothes for that.”
I expect Sima to act offended. Blush that pretty pink that makes her cheeks look so positively edible and stomp away to stew. Better yet, laugh it off like I just made a joke—which I don’t, ever.
Instead, she tilts her head a fraction, like a curious little fox in the wild, and sets her pen down.
She pushes to her feet and, in one smooth motion, pulls her sweater overhead.
The jeans are next. She steps out of them slowly, peeling them off and folding them neatly on the couch.
“Better?” she asks with a cheeky grin, standing there in nothing but her underwear.
I grip the armrests, hard. “Come here,” I order.
She doesn’t make me say it twice.
She walks over, hips swaying just enough to make it impossible to look anywhere else. By the time she stops between my knees, I’m already hard.
My blood is pumping now. There’s no going back to pretending her presence doesn’t make me want to do unspeakable things to her every second that we’re together.
I tap the floor with the tip of my foot. “Kneel.”
Her cheeks flush that delicious shade as she lowers herself between my thighs.
Sima’s eyes flick up to mine. “I’ve, um… never done this before.”
“Then I’ll just have to teach you.”
I place her hand on my belt. My cock is straining in my pants, a very visible tent between us, but she doesn’t let herself be distracted. I can tell she wants to palm at it, touch it, work her mouth over the fabric and see how that feels.
“Undo the belt.”
She gulps, then does as I said. Slowly, her delicate fingers work my belt loose. She pulls it slithering out of my pant loops and drops it to the floor.
“Keep going,” I tell her.
The zipper comes next. The sound cuts through the quiet room, sending anticipation through my veins.
Her fingertips brush me over the fabric of my boxers, tentative, and I feel my jaw tighten.
She glances up at me. “Can I…?”
I give her a curt, commanding nod.