Chapter 27
Kolya
Her body is warm against mine, her breathing slow and deep in the aftermath.
I trail my fingers along her spine, tracing each vertebra and marveling at the contradiction she represents.
This vibrant woman just took me inside her with a passion that matched my own, prompting me to imagine a life I’ve never considered.
I don’t understand anything about her.
Except for the metal beneath the sparkle, the iron core that refuses to break no matter what the world throws at her.
The safe house is quiet, her soft exhales and the occasional hum of the refrigerator in the other room the only sounds. Moonlight slips through the blinds, painting silver stripes across her naked back. I map one with my finger, following it up to where her curls spill across the pillow.
I should be sleeping or planning our next move. Figuring out who’s trying to kill us and how to keep us both alive long enough to find Roman’s diamonds before our enemies do.
I’ve read her wrong from the beginning. She’s not who I thought she was when Roman first sent me after her. Nor the fragile, ignorant civilian I expected to manipulate and discard once I obtained what I needed.
There’s steel inside her, polished bright enough to either blind you or reflect your own image back at you, distorted but real.
A few days ago, this realization would’ve terrified me, compelling me to put distance between us and to refocus on the mission. Now, I tighten my arm around her waist. Her skin is sticky with sweat, with me, with us.
Roman’s voice from years ago, when he gave me the signet ring I still wear, echoes in my head.
“The moment you care, you’re dead. Care about a woman, care about a friend, care about anything more than the job, and you’ve given someone a weapon to use against you. You’ve created a weakness. And in our world, weaknesses get exploited.”
He’d know. He lost his wife and daughter on that island, and his wounds will never stop bleeding.
I study Chloe’s sleeping face, peaceful in slumber. Even her forced cheerfulness carries a brittle edge. Asleep, the mask falls away. I see her as she might’ve been if the world hadn’t damaged her first. If she hadn’t been forced to witness horrors no child should experience.
Fuck Roman and his warnings. Fuck the code I’ve lived by my entire life.
I care. I’m attached.
Fighting that won’t change my fate. This woman, this impossible mix of sunshine and shadow, has burrowed under my skin. Trying to cut her out would cause more damage than allowing her to stay.
I trace my fingers along the soft skin of her jaw.
“You’re thinking too loud.” Her eyes flutter open, unfocused and drowsy. “I can hear the gears grinding.”
I almost smile. “Go back to sleep. We have a few hours before dawn.”
She shifts, propping herself up on one elbow. The sheet falls away from her breasts.
Despite everything we just did and the seriousness of our situation, desire stirs again.
She raises her eyebrows. “Already?” A grin curves her lips before her expression sobers. “What is it? What’s wrong?”
Everything.
Nothing.
I don’t know how to begin. How to unravel the tangle of lies and half-truths I’ve cloaked us in.
“I need to tell you something.” The words scrape my throat like glass. “Several things, actually.”
“Okay. I’m listening.” She sits up fully, pulling the sheet around her. Modest even after the intimacies we’ve shared. That might never change.
I hope it doesn’t.
I sit up, too, my back against the headboard, creating space between us. To tear down the last barriers, I need clarity and focus.
“My name is Nikolai Ilyin.” I haven’t given someone my full name in so long. “Everyone calls me Kolya. I work for the Kozlov Bratva, the Russian mafia. I’m not private security. I’m Roman Kozlov’s, the Pakhan’s, enforcer.”
Her expression doesn’t change. She doesn’t gasp or recoil. Just sits patiently.
“When Roman points and says take care of it, I take care of it. I’m very good at my job.” There’s no tactful way to put this. I need her to understand. “I hurt people. I kill people.”
“I know.” Chloe picks at the sheet, her fingers slow and deliberate. “I’ve seen you…handle things. You don’t move like someone who just happens to know how to fight. You move like someone who does it the same way I sort cubbies.”
A strange comparison, but true enough. “I was sent to find you because we have intel that leads us to believe you’re connected to the diamonds.”
Her eyes widen, just slightly. “I promise you, I don’t have any idea what you’re talking about. Are you sure it’s me you’re supposed to find?”
“Yes.” I twitch, uncomfortable with the memory of how I’d pushed her in my attempts to break her. “A while ago, one of our people, MJ Kozlov, was investigating that night on the island. The night you were there.”
Her brow furrows. “MJ?”
“A cousin. Found dead a few months ago. Official ruling was suicide, but his brother, Alexei, didn’t believe it.
” I wait for any sign that she recognizes the names, that she’s holding back.
But her confusion seems genuine. “MJ found a connection between that night and a cache of diamonds worth twenty million. Those diamonds went missing during the chaos. Roman’s diamonds. And somehow, MJ linked them to you.”
“Me?” She snorts and rolls her eyes. “I was nine years old. What would I be doing with diamonds? I don’t even… How many diamonds is twenty million? Or how big? Are they…big?”
I swallow a chuckle at how her attention shifts. “The connection could be coincidental. You might have seen something, or someone, without even realizing the significance. Children are used as mules sometimes…given things to carry without understanding what they are.”
Her hair swings around her shoulders as she shakes her head.
“I don’t remember much from that night. Just fragments.
The rain. Fire. Gunshots. People running.
” Her eyes glaze in that distant way that indicates she’s retreating into her memories.
“I hid under a porch. I saw a man with a gun, running low to the ground. Our eyes met. Then I ran too. Toward the beach. There were bodies…”
As her voice trails off, I fight the urge to touch her and retrieve her from the horrors she’s reliving.
Because we both need her to remember.
I snap my fingers to regain her attention. “Roman believes the Falcones, another crime family, are also searching for the diamonds.” There’s still no hint of recognition at the names. “Most likely, that’s who’s after us. After you.”
She’s quiet for a long while. “So I’m bait? You were sent to find me, use me to lure out these Falcones, or to find the diamonds, or both.”
I draw in a breath. “No. I was only tasked with finding you and retrieving the diamonds. I don’t know when, or if, the Falcones made the same connection MJ did. Or how.”
“And the rest?” Her eyes drop briefly to my bare chest, then return to my face. “Was that part of the mission too?”
The question hits like a fist to the nuts.
“No.” I hold her stare so she can see the honesty in my eyes.
“I didn’t plan for that. I’m not a good man, Chloe.
I’ve done terrible things. But none of this was scripted.
I planned to extract whatever information you had, locate the diamonds, and disappear from your life. ”
“What changed?”
The simplicity of the question undoes me.
I can’t lie to her.
“You.” The truth sounds so damn corny. “You changed everything.”
Her gaze never wavers.
Most people can’t maintain eye contact this long. They flinch away, uncomfortable with the intimacy, the exposure.
Not Chloe. She stares straight at me, unblinking. Pride warms my chest.
My little teacher is so much tougher than she gives herself credit for.
“When I was thirteen,” suka blyat, I can’t believe I’m telling her this, “my father died protecting Roman’s father, the previous boss.
He took a bullet meant for him. Roman told me my father died a hero, that there was no higher calling than protecting the Pakhan.
That was the day Roman became my mentor. Shaped me into what I am.”
I flex my hands and examine them. Scarred knuckles…calloused palms… Hands built for violence.
Her soft hand covers mine. She raises it to her face and nuzzles my palm, pressing gentle kisses along my scars.
My skin buzzes beneath her lips.
I need to swallow the compounding pressure in my throat before I can continue.
“I believed him. I thought if I was loyal enough, ruthless enough, I could honor my father’s memory.
Be worthy of his sacrifice. But it’s all bullshit.
My father didn’t die a hero. His loyalty to the Kozlov Bratva got him killed.
He died a disposable tool. Just like I am.
Just like we all are to men like Roman.”
The admission scalds my throat.
It’s not that I plan to be outright disloyal to Roman, although I’m going against one of his core principles.
“Attachments are weaknesses.”
“Attachments get you killed.”
But I view my feelings for Chloe as a strength.
Years of allegiance and belief crumble on my tongue, but relief swells too. I’m finally voicing doubts I’ve silently harbored for years.
“So what now?” Chloe prods gently. “What does this mean?”
“It means I’m breaking every rule I’ve lived by. It means I’m choosing you over Roman, over the Kozlov Bratva. It means I’m no longer just an enforcer following orders. I’m a coconspirator with my target.” I scrub my hand over my face. “It means I’m compromised in every way that matters.”
“And that terrifies you.” As always, she sees too much.
“Yes.” Have I ever been this scared? “It should terrify you too. I’m showing you the monster, Chloe. The real me. Not the lie I presented at the farmers market. Not even the controlled violence you’ve seen since.”
Her eyes, soft and accepting, remain locked on me, tracking every twitch on my face.
My heart starts hammering. Either I get this out now, or I never will.
“The truth is, I’ve killed without remorse. I’ve hurt people who didn’t deserve it. Spent my life in service to men who view me as nothing more than a weapon to be aimed and fired. Because that’s all I’ve ever been.”
No matter how much she likes to play dirty in the bedroom, she’ll never stain the rest of her life. She takes her shoes off by the front door, for fuck’s sake. I don’t even own a set of bedsheets without bloodstains.
She curves her hand over mine. “I see you.”
Three little words that knock the air from my lungs.
“I see you.”
Not the parts I show people, the ones easy to accept, but all of me.
The enforcer.
The killer.
The man who drugged and planned to use her. The man who’s now betraying everything he once believed in.
Baffled, all I can do is stare. She should hate me. “Why aren’t you running? Why aren’t you afraid?”
She releases a sad laugh. “Oh, I’m afraid.
I’m not stupid. But I’ve been running from fear my whole life, Kolya.
Building walls with chores and smiles to keep the monsters at bay.
It doesn’t work. The fear finds you anyway.
” Her fingers tighten around mine. “At least with you, the monster is right in front of me, where I can see him.”
I lace my fingers through hers. “What do we do now?”
“We survive.” Steel flashes beneath the softness. Her true glitter. “We figure out exactly what happened on that island. We find out who’s trying to kill us and stop them. And we do so together.”
Together.
The word tunnels beneath my rib cage and fills the hollow void in my chest. I’ve been alone for so long. Surrounded by people, yes, but fundamentally isolated. Even within the family, I’ve kept myself separate, distant.
Life is safer that way. Less messy.
There’s nothing safe about this woman and how she wormed her way past my defenses, forcing me to do the most dangerous thing I can do and care.
“Together.” I press my forehead to hers. “No more lies between us.”
She presents me with a genuine smile that reaches her eyes. “No more lies.” Then she plants a sweet, gentle kiss on my lips. A promise sealed in the dark.
I’ve betrayed Roman. Broken my code. Compromised my mission.
And holding this woman in my arms, I can’t bring myself to regret any of it.
For the first time in twenty years, I’m choosing my own path. Wherever it leads—to redemption or ruin—at least I’m walking by her side.