Chapter 25
Roman
“Long story and above your pay grade,” he grits out.
“Does Baron know?” That’s all that really matters. Keeping this from the Voronov pakhan is an entirely different war to hiding it from my dad.
“He does…”
“Moscow?” I ask, far brighter than the situation warrants.
“Mind your business,” he growls. “How is Zoya?”
“She is mourning the man she thinks took a bullet on a golf course and died,” I reply, my voice flat. “She is currently trying to decode your little puzzle to save her own skin because she believes she is alone in this world.”
Static crackles down the line. “Good. That fear keeps her sharp.”
“It keeps her broken,” I counter, staring at the grey horizon. The anger flares suddenly, hot and bright. Zoya is in her room, counting graph squares and holding back tears, while her father plays chess with shadows. “Why play dead, Mikhail? Nik is a nuisance, not a reaper.”
“Nik is a puppet. The strings go higher, as I said. The funeral proceeds. She must believe I am gone. Her grief has to be real, Roman. If she fakes it, they will know I am alive, and they will come for her harder than ever before.”
Why?
It’s a question for another time. He won’t answer me. He answers to Moscow. That’s it. End of story.
“You want me to lie to her.” It isn’t a question.
“I want you to keep her alive. That is the vow we made. All of this was planned years in advance, Roman. The vow was made for her protection. At. All. Costs.”
The vow. The brutal fucking vow that now puts me in a position over her that I hate.
I tighten my grip on the plastic casing until it groans. Lying to Zoya now, after she gave me her trust—gave me her body—tastes like filth. But the alternative is painting a target on her back that I cannot wipe off.
“She is safe,” I tell him, my tone final.
“She had better be, or Baron owes me, and then you owe him. It’s not a pretty circle, Roman.” The line goes dead.
With a growl of disgust, I chuck the phone back into the box. It clunks against something heavy under the fabric surrounding the black foam, and I inhale deeply, fury embedded in my soul. I snatch the phone back up and rip the fabric away. A gun with a Post-it stuck to it.
For Zoya.
The audacity is stunning.
I stare at the yellow sticky note, the handwriting a sharp, jagged scrawl. The arrogance radiates off the paper. He trusts me to keep her breathing, yet hands her a weapon to ensure it. Does he think I won’t do the job? Or does he expect the threat to come from inside my walls?
“Sir?” Andrei steps closer, eyeing the pistol in my hand.
“It’s a message,” I mutter, ripping the note off and crushing it in my fist. “And a complication I didn’t ask for.”
I eject the magazine, check the chamber—loaded, of course—and slide it back home with a sharp click. It’s a compact Sig Sauer P365. Easily concealed, lethal at close range. Perfect for a woman’s hand.
“Destroy the phone,” I command, shoving the pistol into the waistband at the small of my back. “I want nothing left.”
“Understood.”
Rain finally breaks, cold droplets pelting the stone folly as I turn back towards the house.
The weight of the gun against my spine feels like a betrayal.
I am walking back to a woman I just claimed, a woman who is tearing her mind apart, grieving her father, and I have to look her in the eye and say nothing.
Mikhail wants real grief. He wants a performance.
So why has he contacted me? Why not just let us all believe he was really gone? Because dead men can’t verify loyalties, and Mikhail doesn’t gamble on faith.
But the answer is clear. He needed to know she was with me and that she was safe. The box wasn’t for me. It was for my walls, proof that if I failed, he could reach her anyway.
I storm through the rear entrance, shaking off my coat, the warmth of the house doing nothing to thaw the ice in my veins. If Zoya finds out I knew and kept this from her, the truce we built in my bed will turn into a bloodbath. And I wouldn’t blame her.
I pause at the foot of the stairs, smoothing my jacket over the hidden weapon.
I will give her the gun. But the truth? That stays buried until she no longer has to put on an act for Nik.
If anything was going to make me accelerate his demise, that was going to be it.
Unfortunately, Baron’s orders are to let the service and succession go ahead.
I am going to have to stand there and pretend to the woman that I’ve fallen hard for that her father is dead.
With a curse, I stride into my office and stand to stare at the monitors where Zoya is staring out of the window, hands on her hips, restless, but needing to think. She leans over and picks up a notebook, scribbles something, and a smile passes over her face. She sits and goes back to work.
I nod with a slow inhale and then turn from her.
Pulling out my phone, I sit heavily in my chair and bring up a video of her from five years ago, when Baron and Mikhail first made the vow of protection.
It wasn’t about cash. It wasn’t about territory.
It was about her. Keeping the Antonov heir safe until she was ready.
Mikhail couldn’t be seen to be guiding her into the role of pakhan.
It is unheard of. But he knew. He knew she would be fierce and take the mantle that was given to her, but she needed to be ready.
She needed me. So no, this isn’t about territory, exactly, but it is about two powerful Bratva families forming an alliance that cannot be broken.
Watching the video of Zoya on Oxford Street, shopping without a care in the world, I smile.
Every boutique she went into, I followed after she left and demanded measurements, sizes, and preferences.
What did she purchase? If she didn’t buy something, why?
Sometimes the answers were easy, sometimes a mild threat was needed to get the information.
She looks so carefree. Only twenty-three and no idea what her entire world would explode in half a decade to elevate her to a position that will put a target on her back, but will make her a queen.
She needs me.
Without me, she is a mafia princess shopping and going to Pilates.
I pull up another video of her in Pilates, her lean body holding poses that hone her muscles, strengthen her body, make her a goddess to look at, and a tigress in my bed.
I swipe the screen dark. The pixelated memory of her flexibility does things to my blood pressure that I don’t have time for.
I need to focus on the flesh-and-blood woman upstairs who is currently plotting to crack a code that will make all of this worth it.
Too bad Mikhail hung up. I could’ve asked him for the damn code and been done with it.
I stand and adjust the Sig Sauer against my spine. It feels cold, foreign. It belongs to her father, a ghost haunting us both, but now it has to come from me.
Taking the stairs two at a time, I compose my mask. Indifference. Control.
When I enter the room, Zoya is bent over her graph paper. She looks frantic, beautiful in her desperation.
She jumps, spinning in the chair. “You move too quietly.”
“Or you are too loud.” I walk to the table, ignoring the smell of roast chicken that Katya must have delivered while I was dealing with the bomb scare. I pull the gun from my waistband and place it on the table. The metal clatters against the wood, loud and final.
Zoya freezes. Her gaze locks onto the weapon. “What is this?”
“You wanted trust,” I lie smoothly. I hate how easily it comes. “You wanted to feel safe. Take it.”
She reaches out, touching the barrel with a tentative finger. “Is it loaded?”
“Fully. One in the chamber.” I grip the back of the chair opposite her. “If Nik tries anything at the funeral, you don’t wait for me. You shoot.”
She looks at me, eyes wide and trusting.
It makes me sick. It makes me want to burn the world down to keep that look directed at me.
I am arming her with her father’s love while letting her believe she is an orphan.
It is a necessary cruelty. One I will carry to my grave if it means keeping her out of one.
Zoya wraps her fingers around the grip. Her movements are fluid, practised.
Mikhail taught her well, even if he kept her in the dark about the endgame.
She weighs the weapon in her palm, checking the safety with a familiarity that reminds me she is Bratva born, regardless of her Pilates classes and Kensington townhouse.
“Thank you,” she says softly, meeting my gaze.
“I want you to survive.” I step around the table, encroaching on her space. The proximity hums between us, a live wire of tension. I cover her hand with mine, adjusting her grip so the slide won’t bite her skin.
“Firm. Don’t anticipate the recoil. Let it surprise you.”
Her pulse flutters under my touch. She thinks this is intimacy. I know it’s preparation for war.
She tucks the weapon into the waistband of her jeans. It’s reckless, sexy, and terrifying.
I smile. “Use it on me, and I will tan your hide.”
She giggles. “The thought never even entered my head.”
“As if I believe that,” I murmur and grasp her chin lightly, tilting her head back. I brush my lips over hers lightly, giving her the opportunity to deepen it if she wishes.
She does, sweeping her tongue over my lips until I open up and devour her.