Valerie #2
It all started when my father suddenly told us we needed to move from our old apartment when I was about eight, and we moved to a nicer neighborhood. We were all happy because Dad got a new, higher-paying job, and we got to live among the wealthy.
Naturally, I had to go to school nearby, and that’s where I met Tash, a tawny but fierce kid who helped me out when others bullied me for being new.
“Get up, don’t be a mouse or they’ll eat you up!” She said, and I loved her since then.
We realized we lived in the same estate, and our friendship grew even stronger.
And when I realized who she was, or rather who her father is, it didn't stop my love for her one bit. Instead, I loved her even more. Because how can a girl raised in such a violent environment be so pure-hearted?
I snap out of my thoughts when I see something weird.
Huh?
Someone left a door propped open—probably maintenance. With my heart pounding so hard I can feel it in my throat, I slip into the private corridor.
It's different here. Darker. The art on these walls is violent—abstract pieces in reds and blacks that look like crime scenes. There are fewer cameras, or maybe they're just better hidden.
Every step I take feels like walking toward my own execution.
I try the first door. Locked. Second door. Also locked.
The third door opens.
It's a massive bedroom. The bed, made of dark wood and leather, could easily fit four people. One entire wall is windows overlooking the grounds, where I can see armed men patrolling.
But no desk. No files. Nothing useful.
Wrong room. Keep going.
I back out, and my hands shaking so badly.
The next door opens into darkness. I fumble for a light switch, find it, and freeze.
It's a bathroom. But calling it a bathroom is like calling the ocean a puddle.
Black marble floors. Stone walls with texture that looks expensive. A shower that takes up an entire corner, all glass and rainfall fixtures. Double vanity. A tub you could drown in.
And mirrors everywhere, reflecting me back infinite times—small and pale and so obviously out of place.
This is wrong. Get out. Get out now—
But there's a built-in cabinet, and I think about Patrick's text this morning: I'm waiting.
I move to the cabinet and start opening drawers with shaking hands.
Razors. Cologne. Watches in a case—four of them, the kind that cost more than a car. Prescription bottles with Russian labels I can't read.
Nothing. Nothing Patrick would want. Nothing worth—
Footsteps.
In the corridor.
Coming closer.
Oh God oh God oh God—
My heart stops. Actually stops. And then it's racing so fast I think I might pass out, and I look around frantically for somewhere to hide but there's nowhere, just the vanity and the tub and—
The door.
I slip behind it as quietly as I can manage, pressing myself flat against the wall in the narrow space between the door and the towel rack. My breathing sounds so loud I'm sure he'll hear it, but there's nowhere else, and maybe—maybe he won't notice, maybe he'll just—
The bathroom door swings open.
It misses me by inches, and I hold my breath as he enters.
Lev Volkov.
Through the crack between the door and the frame, I can see him. He looks more menacing than in his photos, and I've spent almost every second of every day researching him.
He's taller than I expected—well over six feet—and built like he was carved from stone.
Broad shoulders strain against his white dress shirt, sleeves rolled to his elbows, revealing forearms corded with muscle and covered in ink.
Dark hair sleeked back in a neat style, sharp jaw, cheekbones that could cut glass.
And a scar through his left eyebrow that should make him look damaged, but somehow makes him look more dangerous.
He's beautiful, the way a gun is beautiful. Designed to kill.
Move. Run. Slip out while his back is turned—
But I can't. My legs are frozen, and I'm trapped watching as he reaches up and starts unbuttoning his shirt.
No. No no no, he's going to—
The shirt comes off.
My breath catches, and heat floods my face even though I'm terrified, even though I should look away, should close my eyes, but I can't.
He's covered in tattoos. Not the decorative kind people get in college. Prison tattoos. Bratva tattoos. The kind that tells stories written in ink and violence.
Stars on his shoulders. Orthodox crosses on his chest. Script in Cyrillic running down his ribs.
A cathedral with domes spanning his back, partially visible as he moves.
And scars everywhere. Bullet wounds. Knife wounds.
One across his abdomen that looks like someone tried to gut him and nearly succeeded.
This man has killed people. Probably a lot of people. Probably with his bare hands.
And I'm supposed to betray him.
His hands move to his belt, and I should close my eyes, should look away, but I've never—I've never seen—
Oh God.
I grew up sheltered. Catholic school until I was eighteen, then straight to Columbia, where I spent four years with my nose in books because dating felt too complicated, too scary.
My parents were traditional, no boyfriends until after college, no sleepovers, no chances to make mistakes that would "ruin my future. "
And now I'm twenty-two years old, and I've never seen a naked man in real life, and Lev Volkov is undressing five feet away from me.
The belt slides free, and his pants drop.
I can't breathe. Can't think. Can't look away.
He's all hard muscle and brutal lines, and there are more scars on his legs, his hip, everywhere. And he's—he's—
Don't look don't look don't—
But I am looking, and heat is flooding through me in a way that makes no sense because I'm terrified, because he could kill me, because my father died a week ago, and I shouldn't be feeling anything except grief and fear, but my body doesn't seem to understand that.
My face is burning. My heart is racing. And there's a warmth low in my stomach that I've only felt alone in the dark, and I hate it, hate that my body is responding to this, to him, when I should be running or screaming or—
He steps into the shower.
The water turns on, cascading over his shoulders, running down the tattoos and scars, steam rising around him. Through the barely-frosted glass, I can still see his silhouette, the water streaming over hard muscle and brutal lines.
I should run. I should slip out now while he can't see me, while the water is running and covering any sound I might make.
But I'm frozen. Still watching. Still feeling things I shouldn't feel.
He tilts his head back under the spray, water running down his throat, his chest, and even through the steam and frosted glass, the image burns itself into my brain, and I hate myself for looking, for wanting to keep looking, for—
He goes completely still.
It's not a normal kind of still. It's predator still. The kind of still that comes right before something strikes.
Then his head turns.
Slowly. Deliberately.
And I see it. The mirror. There's a mirror on the wall beside the shower, angled just right to reflect— oh good lord.
Me.
Our eyes meet in the reflection. His pale gray and cold as winter. Mine wide and terrified.
For one frozen heartbeat, neither of us moves.
Then he explodes into motion.
The shower door slams open with a crack that makes me flinch, water spraying everywhere as he storms out. He's walking toward me and I try to move, try to run, but my body won't respond and he's so fast, so impossibly fast.
His hand shoots out to the towel rack.
No.
Not the towel rack. Behind it.
The gun was there. Hidden. Within arm's reach of the shower because of course it was, because this man doesn't feel safe even in his own bathroom.
In one fluid motion, he's got it in his hand, and then the barrel is pressed against my forehead, cold metal biting into my skin.
Water streams off his body. Off his hair. Drips from his fingers onto my face.
The world tilts.
I'm not here anymore. I'm in my living room. Dad's on his knees. Patrick raises his arm. The gun—the gun—the sound—
Please. Please don't.
"Talk." Lev's voice cuts through the memory. Low and cold and absolutely terrifying. Water drips from his hair onto my face. "Now."
I can't talk. Can't breathe. The metal is pressing into my skull, and I can smell gunpowder—is it real or am I imagining it—and Dad's blood is spreading across the carpet and the sound the sound the SOUND—
"I said talk." The pressure increases, and I feel the trigger guard against my skin.
A sound tears out of me. Not words. Just a broken, animal noise.
"Who sent you?" He leans closer, and I can see nothing but those ice-gray eyes. "Roman? Patrick? Gustav? One of the Italians? I have a million enemies, so talk, or I blow your fucking head off right here."
Patrick.
He said Patrick's name, and suddenly I'm back in that living room watching my father beg, watching the gun rise, watching—
"Please—" The word comes out as a sob. "Please don't, I'm just—I'm just new, I got lost, I swear—"
"Liar." His finger moves to the trigger, and I can see him deciding, calculating, the moment he's going to—
"NO!" I try to move, try to get away, but there's nowhere to go, and my legs give out, and I'm sliding down the wall, and the gun follows me down, pressed against my forehead the whole time.
"Please, I'm sorry, I didn't mean—I was looking for the linen closet, wrong turn, I'm new today, Marina Petrov's agency—"
"Marina." His eyes narrow. "Bullshit. Nobody gets lost and ends up in my private bathroom."
"I did! I swear, I swear on my father's grave—" My voice breaks completely, and I'm sobbing now, can't stop. "Please don't kill me, please, my mom can't—my brother—please—"
The barrel pushes harder, and I can't breathe, can't see through the tears, and all I can think is this is how I die, just like Dad, and Ethan will be next, and it's all my fault—
"Look at me."
I can't. Can't do anything but shake and cry and wait for the shot.
"I said look at me."
His other hand grabs my chin and forces my head up. His grip is iron, and I have no choice but to meet his eyes.
"Last chance. Who sent you?"
And something in me just... breaks.
Not breaks down. Breaks open. Like a door I didn't know was there suddenly swinging wide, and something fierce and sharp walks through.
For one heartbeat, fear drops out of my body like a stone. Not because I’m brave. But because something in me snaps, clean and quiet, and leaves nothing behind except a cold decision.
“No one sent me,” I say. My voice doesn’t shake. It scares me that it doesn’t. “But if you’re going to kill me, do it. Pull the trigger and explain to your daughter why there’s a corpse in your bathroom.”
His eyes change. Not softer. Never that.
Sharper.
Like I’ve finally stopped being an inconvenience and started being a question.
The gun stays up, but his stare pins me to the marble. Water runs down his chest, pools at our feet, and I realize I’m drenched, uniform plastered to my skin, my pulse loud enough to drown out thought.
Then he lowers the Glock. Slow. Controlled. A choice, not mercy.
“Get out,” he says. “Now.”
The air rushes back into my lungs so fast it burns.
I move. I don’t think, I don’t thank him, I don’t breathe like a normal person. I scramble past him, slip on wet marble, catch myself on the doorframe, and run like the hallway is on fire.
“Wait.”
My body locks. My blood turns to ice because, of course, he changed his mind, of course, this is where the bullet finds my spine.
“What’s your name?”
“V… Valerie.” My teeth click on the first syllable. “Valerie Novak.”
He repeats it like he’s filing it away. “Next time I find you somewhere you’re not supposed to be, I won’t hesitate.”
I nod so hard it hurts.
“Get out of my sight.”
I do.
I don’t stop until my door is locked and my back hits it. Then my legs finally give up, and I slide to the floor, hands over my mouth, trying to swallow the noise of my own collapse. The sobs come anyway. Ugly. Violent. The kind you can’t hide from your own ribs.
I make it to the bathroom and vomit until my throat burns. When it’s over, I sit on the tile with my forehead pressed to porcelain, and one thought beating through me like a drum.
I lived.
I almost died. He almost killed me.
And if I die, so would Mom and Ethan.