Chapter 35
Lev
It takes everything I have not to speak and air my grievances about this.
I know she wanted this, but the way it played out was not to my liking.
Baron is setting her up to fail. Yelena is ex-KGB.
She doesn’t fuck about with anything. Neither of us says anything until we are pulling into the driveway in Mayfair.
“You hate this,” she says.
“Observant,” I growl.
“You don’t have to like it, you just have to accept it.”
“I don’t like it. I don’t accept it. Yelena Markova is a terrible woman.”
“How so?”
“She makes grown men cry without raising her voice. She once got a man to confess to skimming money from a shipping account by asking him about his mother’s birthday and then staring at him for ten minutes. He pissed himself.”
Varvara goes quiet for half a second. Then she says, “You’re trying to scare me.”
“I’m trying to educate you.”
“It didn’t work.”
“You’ve got a fucking death wish where proving yourself is concerned.”
She turns in the seat to face me properly. “Or maybe I’m sick of being treated like something that has to be kept on a shelf.”
I kill the engine and look at her. “That isn’t what this is.”
“It is a bit.”
“No. What this is, is me knowing exactly how dangerous that house is, exactly how dangerous Baron is, and exactly how little mercy Yelena has for anyone who wastes her time.”
She studies me, that stubborn green-eyed fire burning brighter by the second. “You survived them.”
“I was born into them. You weren’t.”
“I’m here now.”
That shuts me up for a second because she is. She’s here. In my car. In my house. Under my skin. Under my name. And every fucking move I make now has her at the centre of it.
I get out before I say something worse and walk around to open her door.
She takes my hand when I offer it, and that one tiny act of trust defrosts the ice in my veins.
I close my fingers around hers and help her out.
She lands lightly, chin up, like she hasn’t just volunteered to walk into a den of vipers tomorrow morning.
I shut the car door. “Come inside.”
She gives me a sideways look. “That sounded ominous.”
“Everything sounds ominous when I say it.”
“That’s because you’re built like a hitman with an expensive watch.”
“I am a hitman with an expensive watch.”
A reluctant smile pulls at her mouth as I guide her into the house, keeping my hand at her back until the door closes behind us.
Pyotr appears with a tray in his hand filled with vodka, tea and chocolate. His eyes flick from me to Varvara and back again with professional calm.
“How bad did it go?” he asks.
“Bad enough that chocolate and vodka were a sensible prediction,” Varvara says.
Pyotr inclines his head.
“See?” I mutter. “That man knows despair when he sees it.”
Varvara snorts and heads for the morning room. I follow, taking in the set of her shoulders, the extra stiffness in her stride. She’s acting steady, but I know her now. She burns first and shakes later.
Pyotr follows and sets the tray down.
“Actually, it went fine,” Varvara states. “A bit scary, but fine.”
“And ‘fine’ in this scenario is good or not good?”
“Not good,” I say.
“Good,” Varvara says.
Pyotr looks between us once more, decides his lifespan matters, and withdraws without another word.
Varvara picks up the chocolate first, which tells me more than the vodka would. She tears the wrapper open and breaks off a square with unnecessary force.
I pour tea for her and vodka for me.
She notices. “A bit early to be hitting the hard stuff, isn’t it?”
“It’s not early. It’s strategic.” I pause and then grimace at her. “Vodka bitch, Varvara? Really?”
She shrugs. “I don’t know. It felt right.”
I knock the vodka back and set the glass down gently, resting my hand on the rim.
“You’re really angry,” she says.
“I’m really not thrilled that Baron has handed you to the most ruthless woman in his orbit and called it a learning opportunity.”
“He didn’t hand me over. He gave me a chance.”
“He gave himself entertainment.”
Her eyes narrow. “You think I’m going to fail.”
I step closer at once. “No. I think he wants you under pressure to see if you break.”
“And?”
“And if you do, I will have to kill her.”
She puts the mug down. “Lev, that’s the whole point. Everyone keeps deciding what I can and can’t handle before I even open my mouth.”
“You opened your mouth plenty in there.”
She snorts loudly, nervously. “I did have verbal diarrhoea. That silence…”
“I told you. Thank fuck you didn’t tell him you’d run operations out of fucking Mexico.”
“I think I did rather well. Considering.”
“Considering what?”
“Considering that he is a powerful Bratva pakhan, and it is the longest conversation we’ve had since I first met him.”
Grudgingly, I admit, she has a point. “You did do well,” I say. “That doesn’t mean I have to enjoy it.”
She eats another piece of chocolate and watches me over the edge of it. “You don’t.”
“No.”
“Are you going to brood all day?”
“I hadn’t planned not to.”
That gets a small laugh out of her, but it fades fast. She looks down at the table, then back at me. “You really think this Yelena woman is going to hate me on sight?”
“I think Yelena hates everyone on sight. You won’t be special.”
“Not even a little bit?”
“No. In fact, probably be the opposite.”
“Great,” she mutters.
I drag a hand over my jaw and force some of the fear down. Losing my shit at her won’t help. Baron has already made his decision. If I push now, he’ll double down out of spite. He loves being obeyed more than he loves being agreed with.
I pour myself another vodka and sit opposite her. “Listen to me carefully. Tomorrow, you get there early. Not on time. Early. Fifteen minutes. You wear something sharp and boring. Dark colours. Nothing tight enough to read as a distraction. Nothing soft enough to read as weakness.”
Her brows lift. “Sharp and boring. Noted.”
“You don’t speak unless spoken to.”
“That one might be harder.”
“I know.” I hold her stare until she stops looking amused.
“I mean it, Var. You don’t fill silences.
You don’t crack jokes because the room gets tense.
You don’t volunteer opinions. You observe.
You follow instructions. If Yelena tells you to sit on a cactus, you fucking plant your arse on that spiky fucker.
If she tells you to stand in the baking hot sun, that’s where you stand.
If she hands you a stack of files and says nothing, you don’t ask why. You figure it out.”
Varvara chews her lip. “What if I can’t?”
“Then you say, ‘Show me once, and I won’t ask again.’”
“That’s actually useful.”
“I’m full of surprises.”
She gives me a look over the rim of her mug, then takes a sip. Her throat moves. My attention catches there for one dangerous second before I force it back up to her face.
“Yelena won’t care who you are. That’s the problem. She’ll care whether you slow things down, ask stupid questions, get emotional in the wrong place, or create a vulnerability she has to manage.”
“I won’t.”
“I know you think that.” I pour another shot but don’t drink it yet. “But tomorrow is your first day in a world where weakness doesn’t get comfort. It gets noticed, catalogued, and used.”
Her expression tightens. “You really know how to pep talk a girl.”
“I’m not giving you a pep talk. I’m trying to make sure you walk in with your eyes open.”
She breaks off another square of chocolate. “And what if I do well?”
My mouth curves. “Then I get to watch my uncle realise he underestimated the woman I brought into his house.”
Her eyes hold mine. “You’d enjoy that.”
“Immensely.”
Some of the tension leaves her shoulders. Not all of it. Just enough that I know she heard what I actually meant. I’m afraid for her, but I’m proud too. Those two things sit badly together. They keep cutting at each other until I feel like I’m being skinned from the inside.
She reaches for the paper with Yelena’s details and taps it against the table.
“Second thoughts?”
“No. Decisiveness. But also realism. I won’t stay in if it becomes impossible not to cry. Does that work for you?”
“Anyone makes you cry, I spoon their eyes out.”
“Lev. I’m serious.”
“I know, and that’s why it hurts. I know you won’t let yourself cry, even if you want to.”
“I love you,” she says, blinking and then lowering her eyes to the tea. “Crazy as that sounds. No one has ever known me like you do. No one has ever cared. I might be a bit obsessed with you.” She smiles before she takes a sip.
I smirk at her. “Good. Because I’m a lot obsessed with you and I fucking love you so much, it might actually hurt.” I lean over and grip her fingers. “I never want to see you in pain, Varvara. I never want you to crawl back into the wardrobe because this world got too much for you.”
“That’s your fear.” She doesn’t ask it. She doesn’t need to.
I nod stiffly.
“I promise that if it gets close to that point, I’ll tell you. But you broke that cage, Lev. The darkness in you swallowed the darkness that haunted me. That is why I love you. You gave me my life back.”
“Fuck,” I mutter and pull her onto my lap, ignoring her squeak as the tea spills all over the rug.
I slide one hand up her spine and cup the back of her head. “Say it again.”
Colour rises in her cheeks. “Don’t get weird about it.”
“I’m already fucking weird about it.”
A laugh escapes her, soft and embarrassed. “I love you.”
I kiss her before she can look away. Hard. Deep. Possessive. I need to stamp this moment into both of us. My hand settles at her waist while the other stays in her hair, keeping her exactly where I want her.
Mine.
Loved by me.
Loving me back.
It should make me softer.
It doesn’t.
It makes me worse.
I’ve spent my life taking. Now I will only protect, and anyone who reaches for her will learn what forever means.