Chapter 15 #4
There I was at The Strand, laughing with my head thrown back, completely unaware of being watched.
Another showed me feeding Bear ice cream at Smorgasburg, Dmitry's arm around me, looking like any normal couple enjoying the day.
The timestamp showed 2:47 PM—while I'd been happy and carefree, someone had been documenting my every move through a telephoto lens.
"They know who you are," Alexei said without preamble. "Where you live, your routines, your connection to Dmitry. The USB's return bought us time but not safety."
More photos. Me entering Dmitry's building. Walking Bear in the morning. Even one through the apartment window, blurry but clearly showing me curled on the couch reading. The violation of it made my skin crawl—all those moments I'd thought were private, witnessed and documented by hostile eyes.
"So what do I do?" I asked, proud that my voice stayed steady.
"You have three options," Alexei said, his tone suggesting he'd already decided which one I should take. "One: we relocate you with a new identity, somewhere far from New York. You'd have money, papers, a fresh start, but you'd have to cut all ties. Including with Dmitry."
My hand found Dmitry's before the words were fully out. Not an option. Not after everything.
"Two: you stay with Dmitry but accept our protection protocols. Limited movement, security details, essentially living in a luxury cage until we eliminate the threat."
"How long would that take?"
"Months. Maybe years. The Morozovs are careful, and all-out war would hurt both families."
A cage, even a golden one, would kill me slowly. I'd spent too many years trapped in foster homes, then trapped by poverty and homelessness. I couldn't trade one cage for another, even for safety.
"What's option three?"
"You become family. Officially. Protected absolutely but also bound to us permanently.
You'd learn our operations, understand our business, become valuable enough that losing you would be seen as an act of war no one could ignore.
" Alexei turned from the window to face me fully.
"But understand—once you're family, you can never fully leave this world.
Even if you and Dmitry don't work out, you'd still be Volkov.
Still be ours. Still be tied to this life. "
The weight of that commitment should have terrified me.
A week ago, it would have. But I thought about Clara's words—about choosing monsters who were ours, about finding family in the strangest places.
I thought about the foster families who were supposed to care for me but didn't, the system that was supposed to protect me but failed, the normal world that had offered me nothing but survival.
Then I thought about Dmitry reading me fairy tales, building me forts, teaching me that I was worth protecting.
About Bear sleeping trustingly between killers.
About Clara offering me understanding and community in a purple-ribboned package.
Even about Alexei and Ivan, who'd shown me violence but also the logic behind it, the structure that made their world comprehensible if not comfortable.
"I've been alone my whole life," I said, the words coming slow but sure. "Been hurt by people who were supposed to protect me, abandoned by systems that were supposed to help. At least here, the rules are clear. The violence has purpose. The protection is real."
I turned to look at Dmitry, finding his dark eyes already on me, intense with something that might have been hope.
"If staying safe means accepting violence, if being loved means being part of this, then okay." I looked back at Alexei, meeting those arctic eyes without flinching. "I choose this. I choose you. All of you, even the parts that terrify me."
Silence stretched through the room, heavy with the weight of commitment. Ivan had stopped typing, watching me with something that might have been respect. Alexei studied me like I was a contract he was reading for fine print, looking for weakness or deception and apparently finding neither.
"You understand what you're agreeing to?" he asked finally. "This isn't a romance novel where love conquers all. This is real violence, real danger, real consequences. Can you live with that?"
I thought about Marcus's ear hitting plastic, about the casual efficiency of professional violence, about blood being cleaned from car seats like spilled coffee.
"I can," I said.
Alexei moved to his desk, pulling out a phone that he set to record. "State your name."
"Eva Serano."
"Do you willingly accept the protection of the Volkov Bratva, understanding the commitments and consequences that come with that protection?"
"I do."
"Do you swear loyalty to this family, to keep our secrets, guard our interests, and accept our justice?"
The formal words felt like a ceremony, like something more binding than any legal document. "I swear."
"Then you are Volkov now. Not by blood but by choice, which makes the bond stronger." He stopped the recording, and something shifted in his expression—still cold but somehow including me in its protection rather than evaluation. "Welcome to the family, sister."
Sister. The word hit unexpectedly hard. I'd been alone so long, the idea of belonging—really belonging—to something larger than myself felt like vertigo.
Dmitry pulled me against him, pressing a kiss to my temple that felt like a vow.
"Mine," he murmured against my skin, but it meant something different now.
Not just his Little, his girlfriend, his protected thing.
But his family. His to protect and keep and defend with all the violence this world contained.
Ivan stood from his monitors, approaching with something in his hand. A phone, I realized. Not just any phone—encrypted, military-grade, the kind that could only call certain numbers.
"For emergencies," he said, showing me three programmed numbers. "Dmitry, Alexei, and me. Anyone threatens you, anyone approaches you about the Morozovs, anyone makes you feel unsafe—you call. We'll handle it."
Handle it. Such a clean euphemism for violence, but I understood now that violence was just another language here, one that spoke of protection and consequence in equal measure.
"Thank you," I said, meaning it. "All of you."
Bear chose that moment to wake up fully, stretching and yawning before realizing we were in the scary room again. But instead of cowering, he trotted over to Alexei—the scariest man in the room—and put his paws up on his leg, tail wagging hopefully.
Alexei looked down at the puppy with something like bewilderment. "What does it want?"
"Attention," I said. "He likes you."
"Ridiculous," Alexei said, but he reached down to pet Bear anyway, careful and precise even in this simple gesture.
And that's when I knew I'd made the right choice.
In a world where the Pakhan of the Bratva would pet a puppy while planning violence, where killers built pillow forts for their Littles, where protection meant painting walls with enemy blood—this strange, violent, tender family was where I belonged.
"Come on," Dmitry said, arm around my waist. "Let's go home."
Home. Not his apartment but ours. Not hiding but protected. Not alone but family.
As we left the compound, Bear trotting between us, I thought about the girl who'd stolen a USB from a storage unit just trying to survive another day.
She could never have imagined this—being precious enough to protect, valuable enough to kill for, loved enough to be made family despite all her sharp edges.
But that girl was gone now, replaced by someone who understood that sometimes safety came painted in blood, love came armed with violence, and family was something you chose rather than were born into.
I was Eva Serano, but I was also Volkov now. And anyone who tried to hurt me would learn what that meant, written in a language of consequence that left no room for misunderstanding.