Chapter 8
Varvara
Dark helps.
It always helps.
It gives my body less to fight with. Less space. Less exposure. Less of him.
I curl up on the floor, with his clothes hanging above me and press my fist to my mouth so I don’t make any more humiliating noises. My chest burns. Every gasp halfway in, as if my lungs have forgotten the fucking assignment. I drag air in through my nose. Hold it. Push it out.
Again.
My throat stings every time I swallow. The cut stings. Not deep. Deep enough that when I touched it in the alley and saw blood on my fingers, old emotional wounds split open inside me.
My pulse comes down by degrees. Not properly, but enough that I stop feeling like I’m about to black out.
This room outside is huge. Too huge. I only saw a flash of the bed, the size of it, the dark wood, the clean lines, the navy blue.
It’s the kind of wealth that says nobody here has ever had to check their bank balance before buying olive oil.
I breathe again.
And again.
I count backwards from ten as I drag a long soft woollen coat from a hanger and wrap it around myself, curling up into the scent of his aftershave. For some stupid reason, I feel like I can breathe more easily again. It’s giving me something to focus on.
I snuggle further into it, pull it over my head as I cocoon myself in my safe place, in a stranger’s expensive coat in his wardrobe.
I should be doing the opposite. I should be panicking more, not less.
But my body has a mind of its own right now, and it senses safety rather than danger.
Danger is outside this space where bullets fly, and I nearly get killed for being in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Instead of fear, my body has decided that the man who held a knife to my throat is now the lesser threat.
Maybe that says more about the bullets than it does about him.
Maybe it says something worse about me.
I stay where I am until the shaking eases into dull tremors. My knees ache from the alley. My neck burns. My face feels tight from crying, and that humiliation lands harder now that the panic has loosened its claws enough for thought to get in.
I don’t know how long I sit there before I hear movement beyond the wardrobe door. Not rushing. Not stomping about. Just measured footsteps, then silence.
A knock sounds against the wood.
Not loud.
Just enough to make me draw in a shaky breath. Part of me thought he’d intervene sooner. All of me is grateful he didn’t.
“Varvara.”
His voice comes through the door, lower than before. No blade in it now. No barked orders. That almost makes me more suspicious.
I say nothing.
“I’m going to leave water outside the door,” he says. “And some painkillers.”
Still nothing from me.
A pause.
“Also, your throat needs cleaning.”
My hand flies to it at once, fingers hovering over the sting.
“I’m not opening the door,” he adds. “You can come out when you want.”
I shut my eyes. That shouldn’t matter. It does.
No more sounds come, dulled by the plush carpet I felt under my knees before I crawled in here.
I wait anyway.
One minute. Maybe five. Long enough that my breathing settles into something less pathetic. Long enough that the ache in my throat becomes a steady line instead of a flashing warning. I shift the coat off my head and listen hard.
Nothing.
I push the wardrobe door open an inch and eye up a bottle of water, a packet of painkillers, a pillow and a blanket.
My breathing stutters again.
How dare he? How dare he do that instead of making me feel like a freak? No. He has to be understanding and give me things to make me more comfortable in my dark cupboard while I have a meltdown.
If anything was going to bring me back, it’s that. The sheer audacity that he is kind.
And then I see him. He steps into view in expensive shoes and crouches down, staring into my face with an expression I can’t decipher.
“Too much?” he asks with an arrogant smirk.
“Just enough,” I say and sniff, pulling his coat tighter around me.
He notices it, his gaze skating over it.
His expression changes. It’s not anger, or annoyance, or amusement. It’s not even pity. It’s dark and possessive, and it scares me. After a beat, he holds up a first aid kit.
My fingers go to my neck again. “It’s fine.”
“Maybe, but if nothing else, it needs antiseptic.”
I glower at him. “Fine.”
He kneels and places the kit on the floor, then opens it and selects a wipe and some ointment.
He doesn’t speak, which is a godsend. I don’t need words. I don’t want to hear his voice. I sit very still while he opens the wipe, pulls it out of the packet and holds it where I can see it first, like I’m a cornered animal he doesn’t want to startle.
His eyes lift to mine for a second, then back to my throat. He moves carefully, dabbing at the cut with more patience than I would’ve given him if our positions were reversed. The antiseptic bites hard enough that I hiss and jerk back anyway.
He clenches his teeth, just once, just barely, then he finishes cleaning the cut and applies ointment with his fingertips. He has tattoos on his hands, and I can see the ones peeking out from his shirt on his chest. Warm skin. Steady pressure. I close my eyes. That’s a mistake.
He caused this problem, now he’s fixing it, and I’m letting him.
He pulls back and sits back on his heels. Up close, he looks even more dangerous. Dark hair slightly mussed, blue eyes fixed on mine.
“Do you want anything to eat?” he asks suddenly.
“I don’t even know your name, and you’re asking me if I want something to eat?”
He smiles. It’s slow and sexy, damn him. “Lev Voronov.”
“You say that like I’m supposed to know who you are.”
He narrows his eyes, assessing. It was some sort of test, and I’m not sure if I passed it or not.
“A lot of people in this city knows the name. Especially the diaspora. It surprises me when I come across someone who hasn’t.”
“Good for you.”
He snorts. “You are feisty for a woman who is curled up in my wardrobe in my cashmere coat.”
That hits me, making me flinch under the coat. He made me forget my breakdown with the pillow and blanket, the kindness and the offer of food. But there is no use pretending it didn’t happen. He saw it. He knows.
“I can’t say that I was expecting you to be accommodating,” I stammer. “It’s thrown me.”
I can’t look at him when I say that, so I stare at the ink on his hands.
“I’m not usually accommodating,” he says after a moment. His voice has gone quieter, but no less intense. “You should know that about me.”
“Then why?” I don’t actually want to know. Knowing means engaging. Engaging means staying in this conversation longer than I have to.
“Because this fucked up mess is nothing to do with you. You were in the wrong place at the wrong time. That’s it.
That’s the long and short of it. I was meant to kill the handler—the person who was meant to receive the USB drive.
No questions asked. If I hadn’t already known who you were, you’d be dead right now.
Do you get that? Do you understand the type of situation you are in? ”
I stare at him, the weight of his words settling like lead in my stomach.
“Yes,” I whisper. “I get it.”
His eyes don’t leave mine. “Then you understand why you can’t leave.”
That makes my stomach drop. “What?”
“You can’t go home, Varvara. The handler saw you with me. They know you have information, even if you don’t actually have it anymore. Your flat isn’t safe.”
“My flat?” The panic tries to claw its way back up my throat. “You can’t just keep me here.”
“I can, and I am.”
“No!” I say, shrugging his coat off me and getting to my aching knees. “I am not your prisoner.”
“No, you aren’t. But you are staying whether you like it or not. There is no discussion. You belong to me now, Varvara. That is a vow, and I don’t intend to break it. You can either get on board, or you can fight it. It doesn’t matter. It doesn’t end with you walking out that door.”
I stare at him, my heart pounding so hard I can feel it in my throat. “You can’t do that.”
“I just did. Fight me if you want, but you will find that the cage will only get tighter.” He stands, towering over me even though I’m halfway to my feet.
I push myself up properly, my knees screaming in protest. The coat pools at my feet, and I’m suddenly aware of how small this space is with him standing right there. How big he is. How close.
“I have a job,” I say, my voice shaking. “I have rent to pay. I have a life.”
“You had a life. Now you have this until I sort out the mess you’ve stumbled into.”
“And how long is that going to take?”
“As long as it takes.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“It is, and it’s all I’ve got, so again, you can fight it or get on board.”
“Mr Voronov!” I say.
“It’s Lev to you, and shouting at me won’t get you anywhere.”
“That’s not fair.”
“Life in the Bratva rarely is, Varvara.”
My hands curl into fists at my sides. The door is right there. I look at it, then at my legs, still shaking visibly beneath me, then back at him. His expression tells me he already thought of it in exactly that order.
“Try it,” he says.
“Why do you care?” I say in frustration. “Why not just let me go and who cares what happens to me?”
He steps forward, and I stumble back into the wardrobe. He reaches out and grips my upper arm to stop me from toppling before dragging me closer.
“Why do I care? Since I saw you the other night at the club, I haven’t been able to get you out of my head.
I have a file on you. I sat outside your flat and jogged after you.
You threatened to pepper-spray me, and I came home and jerked off in the shower with your image in my head.
That’s fucking why, Varvara. If none of that had happened, if I didn’t feel this way about you already, guess what, moya sladkaya? ”
“I’d be dead?” I spit out.
“Exactly.” He tightens his grip fractionally and then releases me.
I rub my arm and glare at him. “Don’t ever call me your sweet one again. I am not yours. I never will be. You are a fucking stalker.”
“What are you going to do about it, moya sladkaya?” He taunts. “Run?”
“Fuck you,” I say. “Fuck you, and this entire night.”
“If only it were that easy,” he says and turns to walk away. He leaves the bedroom, closing the door behind him.
My blood runs cold when I hear the lock engage.
“What?” I exclaim, moving swiftly to the door and trying the handle. “No! Let me out!” I bang my hand on the solid wood. “Let me out right now!”
Nothing. Just silence on the other side and the echo of my own panic bouncing back at me.
I spin around. My phone. Where’s my phone?
I pat down my apron pockets and drag it out. I unlock it and get ready to dial emergency services when it dies. Not runs out of battery, just… dies in my hand. It shuts down, then becomes nothing but a useless slab in my hand.
“Fuck!”
The walls press in on me again, and I force myself to breathe. In through my nose. Out through my mouth. I can’t afford to have another panic attack and crawl back into that wardrobe like some wounded animal seeking shelter. Lunging for the windows, I try to open them, but they are sealed shut.
Think, Varvara, think. What is the best way to play this?
There is only one way. I can’t escape. I can’t run or talk my way out of it. I’m trapped here with a dangerous man who claims he is in the Russian Bratva, with no choice but to comply.
But that doesn’t mean he gets off easily with abducting me and holding me against my will. He wants me to lie down and roll over, but that isn’t happening. Not while I have breath left in my lungs, even if that breath is shallow and panicked.