Chapter 26
GABBY
One day later…
I’m seated at the kitchen island with a mug of tea that’s long gone tepid. I haven’t seen him once since our fight last night. I took the day off, not feeling up to working, as much as I might’ve needed the distraction.
I take a sip, wondering what’s going to happen when I see him again. Is he going to apologize? Pretend nothing happened? Leaving has its appeal. I’ve got a little money saved up—more than enough to get a one-way flight somewhere far from here, maybe even out of the country.
What would happen if I left? Would he chase me to the ends of the earth? Or would he be secretly relieved that a huge burden had been removed from his shoulders?
I’m in the middle of putting my mug into the microwave for a reheat when Bogdan fills the doorway, sleeves rolled and tie gone. He flashes me a look, as if he can see right through me.
“Good evening,” I say as I press the power button on the microwave.
“What’ve you eaten today?”
“Huh?”
“Food. In your stomach. What’ve you eaten?”
It’s funny—there’s almost a motherly concern in his voice.
“Uh, not sure. Bagel this morning. Picked at a salad for lunch. Nothing since then.”
He shakes his head and clucks his tongue as he heads into the kitchen and to the fridge. He opens it and ducks inside, humming to himself as he grabs a few things.
“No soft cheese,” he mumbles to himself. “No cured meats, no raw anything.”
Once he has ingredients in hand, he opens a cupboard, taking out a plate.
Bogdan’s back is turned to me as he assembles whatever he’s making. I try to see what he’s preparing, but his broad body blocks my view. After a few minutes, he turns, plate in hand. I can’t believe what I’m seeing. Before me is a surprisingly neatly arranged charcuterie board.
“Alright. We have some cheddar and Gouda, seed crackers, a few apple wedges, Marcona almonds. Pregnancy-friendly, naturally.”
My eyes are wide as I look at him. “This is impressive, Bogs.”
“Bogs?” he asks, raising an eyebrow.
“Just workshopping some nicknames.”
He sets the plate down in front of me. “Davay yest. Go on and eat.”
I pluck one of the Gouda slices from the plate and pop it into my mouth. It’s so good, I want to cry. Next, I make a little stack with a cracker, apple slice, and bit of cheddar. That’s even more delicious. The appetite I’d been ignoring returns with full force.
“Good?” Bogdan asks. He opens the fridge and takes out a bottle of Perrier, cracking it open and pouring it into a glass, finishing it with a lime wedge.
“Amazing.” I eat another piece of cheese, follow that with some almonds, then wash it down with a sip of the water. “Okay, I have to ask—where did you learn to make a pregnancy-friendly charcuterie board?”
His mouth twitches a bit. “My sister’s had four kids.” He reaches into the fridge again and grabs a bottle of water for himself. “You learn things—what foods are okay, which aren’t. How to help out, how to stay the hell out of the way.”
I grin. “So you’re a body man and a professional doula?”
“Only a professional body man. Amateur doula.”
I take a few more bites, feeling my strength return. “At least one person in this apartment knows how to handle pregnancy.”
He chuckles softly, a rare flicker of warmth in his eyes. “Happy to help in whatever way I can.”
I sip and eat, sip and eat, my belly filling up more and more. “God, it’s like my appetite is endless.”
“Well, you’re eating for two. Wait—three.”
After nearly polishing off the entire board, I sit back contented. “You ever feel like you’re disappearing in all of this?” I ask.
He leans back against the counter. “Disappearing?”
“You know, like this Bratva thing is totally consuming you, like you forget who you are?”
Bogdan shrugs, reaching forward and taking a cracker from my plate. “That’s my job—to disappear. If I do my job the correct way, Sasha barely notices I’m there.” He pops the cracker into his mouth, crunching.
I look at Bogdan, really look at him properly.
The quiet edges, the calm patience. This man handed off his autonomy a long time ago.
Why? I want to pry for some reason, figure out how he’s come into this life, how he survives it.
After all, his position isn’t too different from mine, aside from being pregnant with twins, that is.
“He’ll come around,” Bogdan says. “I don’t want to speak out of turn here, but this is a lot for him to deal with. It’s a new dimension to life that he has to make space for.”
“I get that. It’s just… I don’t know if I can live like this.”
“I’m sorry you feel that way. But I still can’t let you leave.”
“I know. I understand. I just… I need to see Angie.”
His brows lift a bit. For him, that’s expressive. “Not possible.”
“Come on.” The words come out in a way brattier tone than I intend. “She’s my best friend, not some enemy operative.”
He shakes his head. “Sasha gave clear orders—”
“I know what he said.” I lift a hand as I speak, slicing the air. “But I’m going crazy. I can’t live my life in a cage. I’m going completely insane. I need her. She’s my normal.”
He purses his lips for a moment, as if seeing my point. I take this as my cue to keep going.
“Listen, the longer I stay locked up like this, the more nuts I’m going to get.
You don’t want me full-on disassociating or something.
And this can’t be good for the babies. Like, think of it as a release valve.
I spend a little time with her, take the pressure off, and that keeps me nice and calm and easy to manage, right? ”
He studies me like a map upon which he has to plan a battle strategy. Behind his eyes, he’s assessing risk, weighing pros and cons. My gaze stays on him, letting him know I’m not just talking.
“We do this smart,” I say. “Or I do it alone. You know I will.”
Something shifts behind those pale, watery eyes, like he finally gets it. He crosses his arms, settles back against the counter. “You’re asking me to defy orders.”
“No, I’m asking you to interpret them. Sasha said to protect me, right? Well, keeping me mentally stable is part of that.”
He watches me a long time, the silence stretching until I can hear the faint ticking of the clock in the den. “If something were to happen to you—”
“Nothing will happen,” I say before he can get going. “We’ll make it nice and quick. And you pick the place, control the timing, choose the car. You can even check the damn bathroom stalls before I go in.”
That gets me a small smile. “You’ve been around him for too long. His hardheadedness is rubbing off.”
“Please. I already had a ton of that on my own.”
He gives me another trying-to-look-through-me stare. “There’s more to it, isn’t there?”
No sense in lying. “Yeah, okay—there is. Don’t get me wrong; this is all about seeing Angie. But…”
“But?”
“Things have been awkward between Dandelion and AngelCorp since what happened between Sasha and Johan the day of the shooting. Sasha seems pretty confident they’re going to work it out, but I’m not convinced it’s as certain as he seems to think it is.”
“So you want to smooth things over.”
“Is that so bad? I can talk to Angie, maybe pass along a message to Johan. This merger is my baby, too. And there’s so much riding on it.”
I can almost hear the gears turning in his head. Bogdan’s a soldier, not a chess player. But even he knows when a move opens the board.
“And you trust her?” he asks. “I mean to say, you can rule out that she’s not working with Johan on some long-term scheme?”
“Of course I trust her!” The words come out totally shrill, embarrassingly so. “She’s been my best friend for years. I’ve known her for way longer than she’s known Johan.”
He drums his fingers on the counter. “You shouldn’t be involved in this, you know. Your job was to write the merger, nothing more. You’re not on the payroll to be some kind of corporate diplomat.”
“But I am involved in this. And besides, the corporate stuff… just think of it as a little bonus. The idea here is that I get some bestie time, so I don’t go completely insane.
If I manage to smooth things over a little between AngelCorp and Dandelion in the process, well, so much the better. right?”
His gaze sharpens as if something just came into focus. “You’re a stubborn woman, Miss Resse.”
I grin. “Consider it an occupational hazard.”
He pushes off the counter and steps over to the window. For a long while, there’s nothing but silence and that clock. Then he turns.
“One meeting,” he says. “Public place. I choose the location. No surprises.”
The relief hits so fast that my knees nearly give out underneath me. “Yeah?”
“Yeah.” He glares at me, steady as a rock. “But if you so much as step off the curb without my say-so, I’ll hog-tie you and carry you back here myself. And Sasha will hear about it.”
“I’d like to see you try,” I say with a small smile.
“You’ll lose that bet.”
“Alright, soldier. You win logistics. Whatever gets me to see my friend, I’m ready to do.”
He tilts his head one more time, as if trying to consider any other variables he might’ve forgotten about. No doubt he’s imagining all the different ways this could go sideways.
“Tomorrow afternoon,” he says. “We’ll leave work early and beat rush hour. Then we’ll be back here in time for dinner. Sasha’s going to be busy with meetings all day, so he won’t be around to notice.”
“I’ll text her tonight,” I say. “She’ll be down for meeting anywhere.”
He shakes his head. “No. I will text her, make sure she understands the rules and the stakes. Then I’ll get back to you. I supervise planning.”
Part of me wants to argue, but the bigger part is just happy he’s going to go along with it, so I just nod.
I can already see the checklist forming behind his eyes—route, car, backup, possible venues, exits. To be honest, it’s comforting to see that kind of competence at work.
“Okay,” he says. “Get some rest. We’ll talk about it more in the morning.”
“Got it. And thanks, Bogdan.”
He grunts in response. He’s not thrilled about the whole idea, I know, but he’s seeing reason.
I head to my room, excited for tomorrow.