Chapter 6
CHAPTER 6
MARINA
“ W elcome home.”
Two words coming from the darkness.
That was all it took for my stomach to plummet and my breath to catch in my throat as I’d cautiously opened my apartment door, hoping against hope that the place was as empty and still as it appeared from outside.
I had spent hours riding the train, switching cars, changing lines, doubling back, walking in circles through Grant Park until my feet ached, convinced I had finally shaken him.
I hadn’t.
I had played right into his hands.
I wasn’t dressed for the late-night temperature drop.
My thin sweater and yoga pants were no match for the brutal wind slicing off the lake. My body ached for warmth, for comfort, for the simple luxuries of the spiced cider from that overpriced neighborhood café I liked to splurge on when I was home, and an hour wrapped in my favorite shawl with a book.
Was that really too much to ask?
Of course it was.
Because I had been so focused on losing him, I hadn’t stopped to consider the obvious.
If Kostya knew where I worked, he’d already known where I lived.
I had been running in circles for nothing.
For a split second, I considered turning around and bolting right back out the door.
But where would I go?
What could I possibly do to shake him now?
This was the end of the line.
I squared my shoulders and tightened my fists at my sides.
He wouldn’t get the satisfaction of seeing me tremble before him.
I wouldn’t give him that.
Kostya sat sprawled in the rocking chair I had found at a garage sale for five bucks. Making himself at home in the middle of our thrift-store mishmash of an apartment like it was his personal throne room.
The custom-tailored wool of his suit was crisp, pristine, far too fine for the shabby living room. He looked as flawless as ever, as if he hadn’t spent his night out in the cold hunting me down. He was perfectly warm, perfectly composed, perfectly him.
And I hated him for it.
I hated him .
And I hated myself more for noticing how good he looked.
My thoughts barely had time to register before my eyes caught something else?—
My roommates.
The two of them lay on the floor, unconscious, tied up, their arms and legs wrenched behind their backs.
My stomach turned.
And Kostya?
Kostya just sat there, unbothered, as if holding men captive at his feet was nothing more than a mild inconvenience.
My heart pounded as I forced out a question I already dreaded the answer to. “What did you do to them?”
I inwardly grimaced when my voice came out as a high-pitched squeak.
His gaze flicked to me, sharp, assessing. Unimpressed.
“Never mind what I did to them,” he said. “If I were you, I’d be more concerned about what I’m going to do to you.”
And then he stood, unfolding himself from the chair like a predator rising from its perch.
My body stiffened as he passed close by me to slam the door shut. I jerked at the ominous metal click from the deadbolt sliding into place.
My nails bit into my palms as I tried to calm my racing heart. I needed to think. There had to be a way out of this. He’d come close—never this close—but close to catching me before and I always got away. Think!
The aged floorboards creaked under his weight as he moved to stand behind me. His breath ruffled the curls around my ear.
“How dare you live with men?” His voice deepened, low and cutting. “Why would you put yourself in that kind of danger?”
Fear strangled my breath in the seconds it took for rage to replace it.
Turning on him, I snapped, “Excuse me?”
His expression hardened. “There’s no excuse for living with men. Especially weak, sniveling ones who couldn’t possibly protect you from?—”
“ You are the only one I need protection from!” The words ripped from me, hot and furious, echoing off the walls.
I was furious. Furious at his audacity, at his arrogance, at the absolute insanity of him.
“You’re the one who chased me down on the L!” I seethed. “You’re the one who followed me all the way from Moscow!”
The truth hung between us, raw and electric.
His lips curled slightly. Not quite a smirk. Not quite anything.
But the gleam in his eyes?
It was dangerous…and hungry.
Shocked, I stepped back, almost stumbling over one of my roommate’s bent legs.
It couldn’t be.
I was imagining it.
He’d been married to my sister. My dead sister.
There had always been a strange tension between us from the moment we met, but I’d always assumed it was in my imagination. Wishful thinking. A stupid crush on a handsome and powerful brother-in-law. Something to be felt in silence, too forbidden to even think of.
“And you see how well they protected you from me,” he sneered, as if I had just proven his point for him. “Speaking of home, we are leaving. Now.”
I crossed my arms over my chest, forcing my spine straight, but the heat creeping up my neck betrayed me. My cheeks burned with anger and something else I refused to name. “I’m not going anywhere with you.”
His expression didn’t change. If anything, he looked bored. “You can come willingly, or you can throw a fit like a child and I’ll throw you over my shoulder and take you anyway. Your choice, moy zaichonok .”
My stomach clenched at the pet name.
My little rabbit.
I hated it.
Hated how easily it rolled off his tongue, how effortlessly he made it sound like I belonged to him.
“I’m not leaving.”
I jutted my chin up, defiant, and then I stomped my foot like the child he was accusing me of being.
Kostya inhaled deeply, his chest expanding beneath that infuriatingly perfect suit.
Oh, shit.
The nerve I had managed to summon vanished instantly as I remembered exactly how big he was.
How intimidating he could be. His sheer size. The way he took up space. The way he could take if he wanted to. How easily he could grab me, lift me, pin me against any surface he wanted .
I swallowed hard.
It was the thing I had fantasized about most before…No.
I couldn’t go there.
“I will not tell you again,” he said, his voice terrifyingly calm. “We’re leaving.”
Panic took over.
“No.”
And then, in a moment of sheer, idiotic survival instinct, I bolted.
I ran upstairs and slammed my bedroom door behind me, locking it. My back hit the wood as I squeezed my eyes shut and panted, deeply regretting my lack of cardio, mentally kicking myself.
Every horror movie I ever watched where a girl ran upstairs instead of out the door I had screamed at the screen, “Why would you do that?”
Now, I understood.
Adrenaline replaced intelligence in a crisis.
And I had just trapped myself.
Kostya’s heavy, deliberate footsteps echoed down the hall. Unrushed.
I had no doubt he was enjoying this.
I ran to the window, shoved it open, and looked down.
The Chicago air was sharp, cutting straight through my sweater, but I barely felt it.
I was only on the second floor but right below my window a wrought iron fence jutted up, its pointed tips gleaming in the dim streetlight.
No safe way down. No way out .
When I picked this room, I thought the fence would add security. Be a deterrent.
Now, it was a prison.
I turned, scanning the room, and my stomach sank.
Kostya had been in here.
My things had been moved.
The book I had left on my nightstand was now neatly stacked on the bookshelf.
And the shawl—the one I wrapped myself in every night—was draped over my desk chair, as if he had touched it.
Touched my things.
My skin prickled.
I had never felt more exposed in my own room.
“Open the door, Marina.”
His voice was right outside.
I squeezed my hands into fists. “Go to hell!”
A pause. Then, “Open the door, or I swear to God, when I get my hands on you?—”
I spun toward the door, my chest heaving. “You’ll what? Kill me like you did my sister?”
My hand flew to cover my mouth. I couldn’t believe I just said that out loud.
Great idea, Marina.
Piss off the already pissed off scary giant by accusing him of murder.
The only way out was through that door.
And Kostya was right on the other side.
I was trapped.
And I had let it happen.
That didn’t mean I had to make this easy .
Yes, he was bigger than me. Yes, he was the man I pictured every single time I read a spicy romance novel. Yes, he had haunted every single one of my fantasies, whether I wanted him to or not.
But that didn’t mean I had to give in.
I knew what would happen if I left with him.
And I would not die the same way my sister had.
Not without a fight.
“Open the door,” he said, irritation lacing every syllable.
“Fuck you,” I screamed back.
His silence was dangerous.
Then, “Little girl, if you talk to me like that one more time?—”
“Fuck you…you…murderous asshole.”
What the hell was wrong with me?
Shut up , my mind screamed. Stop baiting the bear!
One hit.
That was all it took.
One powerful strike, and the door exploded off its cheap hinges and hit the floor with a deafening crash.
I barely had time to suck in a breath before his voice curled around me like smoke.
“You want to try that again, moy zaichonok ?”
My pulse thundered.
But I lifted my chin, refusing to let him see the fear—the heat—coursing through me. “I’m still not going with you. I know you killed my sister.”
His expression didn’t change. “Your sister was killed by a man named Aleksandrovich Solovyov. Not me.” His voice was calm. Matter-of-fact. “I’m here to retrieve what she stole from Solovyov…and you.”
I hated how steady he was.
How effortlessly he took control of the conversation, of everything.
“Liar,” I spat, even though I knew his words weren’t entirely false.
I’d suspected Solovyov may have been the one to kill Veronika. I knew she had been playing a dangerous game, toying with men as if they were no more than chess pieces, cheating death with every reckless move. She had thrived on the danger. The higher the stakes, the bigger the thrill. I’d discounted it as wishful thinking, my traitorous mind trying to absolve Kostya of guilt.
But I wanted him to be the one who murdered my sister.
I needed him to be the one.
Otherwise…
Dammit. It was just like my selfish sister to leave behind such a twisted, fucked-up mess for me to handle.
She had never loved Solovyov. Just like she had never loved Kostya.
I wasn’t even sure Veronika was capable of love.
But Kostya was the only thing we had ever fought about.
I had begged her to be a good wife. To respect him.
She had been given something most women in our world would kill for.
Not an old, graying man with a gut and a violent temper. Not a drunken brute who would beat his wife into submission .
No.
She had been given him.
Handsome. Powerful. Dangerous in all the ways that made my blood heat.
Still, it wasn’t the life she wanted, and she had always been so brash, so impulsive, that when I heard she had moved out of Kostya’s home and was staying with someone else, I wasn’t surprised.
I was mad; I told her she was being silly, but honestly, I was just upset that she was wasting an opportunity to have one of the most gorgeous men I had ever seen in her bed.
It wasn’t as if she could have just passed him up and I could take him instead.
No, he was bratva and high enough that his position required the connections that only Veronika had from her birth mother’s family.
He would have given her everything her imperfect and vain heart wanted. Wealth, children, a home her friends envied, social position. And she had thrown it away.
It had made me furious.
Not just because she had walked away from him.
But because I couldn’t take her place.
Kostya wasn’t for me.
I was too soft. Too immature and unsophisticated. Too wrong.
He’d needed Veronika’s statuesque, ice-blonde perfection.
Not me.
Never me.
But when he stepped into my room now, closing the distance between us in three long, unhurried strides, none of that mattered.
I was caged.
He braced his hands on the wall, trapping me between his strong arms, his body radiating heat, overwhelming me with his presence.
I hated how my body reacted.
How my breath stuttered.
How warmth coiled low in my belly.
Kostya hadn’t even touched me.
He was trying to intimidate me. Trying to scare me.
And yet?—
The thudding of my pulse had nothing to do with fear.
My thighs pressed together as that terrible, forbidden ache built between them.
I hated him.
I hated myself more.
“I am many things, moy zaichonok .” His voice dropped lower, became rougher. “A liar is not one of them. And if you suggest otherwise again, I will bend you over my knee and spank you like the brat you’re being.”
Heat licked down my spine, hot and humiliating.
My traitorous body responded to the threat.
Kostya saw it.
Of course he did.
His mouth curved slightly, but there was no humor in it, only satisfaction.
“I still don’t believe you.” The words came out breathless, weak.
“You don’t have to believe me,” he murmured, inching closer, his scent invading my lungs, sending shivers over my skin. “You just have to obey me.”
“Never.”
It was barely more than a whisper.
My gaze dropped to his lips, full and firm, and I bit my own.
I could feel his breath against my skin, warm and steady, and my knees almost buckled.
I didn’t know who moved first.
Did he lean down? Did I push up onto my toes?
I couldn’t be sure.
All I knew was that his lips crashed against mine in a searing kiss.
Not gentle. Not coaxing.
Possessive. Claiming. Demanding.
And God help me, I kissed him back.