Chapter 15
Maya
Brand was looking for me, and it was serious.
Even though I was snuggled up next to Kostya all night, I struggled to sleep. I couldn’t help but worry.
I felt as though I was missing something. As though there was something Kostya wasn’t telling me.
My life had taught my to read micro-expressions like vital signs.
The slight tension in someone's jaw meant elevated stress response.
A pause before answering suggested cognitive load from deception.
Eyes tracking left indicated memory retrieval versus right for fabrication.
Survival had turned me into a human polygraph, and yesterday, Kostya had failed the test.
His "promise" had come too quickly. No hesitation, no qualification, just immediate reassurance.
But promises required calculation—weighing variables, assessing probability of success.
The kind of promise he'd made should have taken at least three seconds of processing.
His had been instant. Reflexive. The kind of thing you said to keep someone calm while the building burned around them.
I shifted slightly, studying his face in sleep.
Even unconscious, there was a furrow between his brows that hadn't been there three days ago.
Whatever Brand had escalated to, it was worse than "actively looking.
" The bounty was probably higher than standard.
The trackers more professional. The net closer than Kostya wanted me to know.
Part of me wanted to shake him awake, demand the truth. The same part that needed to know exact medication dosages and surgical outcomes, that couldn't tolerate uncertainty in diagnosis. But the other part—the exhausted part—wasn't ready. Sometimes not knowing was its own kind of mercy.
Zmeya chose that moment to announce herself, stalking across the bed to head-butt my chin with demanding affection. The movement woke Kostya, his arm tightening automatically before his eyes opened.
"Morning, kitten," he murmured, voice rough with sleep.
The endearment made something flutter in my chest, chasing away the darker thoughts. "Morning."
He studied my face with those gray eyes that missed nothing. "You're thinking too loud."
"Occupational hazard." I forced lightness into my tone. "Medical brain never fully shuts off."
He made a noncommittal sound, but I felt him catalog my deflection. We were both lying now, dancing around truths too heavy for morning light.
"I want to go," I said, changing the subject with all the subtlety of a defibrillator. "To Sophie's nursery. Today."
Relief flooded his features, genuine and immediate. This wasn't calculated—this was real. "Good. That's—good. She'll be happy."
I took a breath, gathered courage for the harder admission. "I want you there too."
His eyebrows rose slightly.
"Not the whole time," I clarified quickly, words tumbling over each other. "I need to do this with Sophie first. Need to prove I can be vulnerable with someone who isn't you. But at the end?" My voice dropped to barely a whisper. "I want my Daddy there."
The word still felt strange outside of sex, outside of that desperate space where titles became prayers. But his eyes darkened with something tender, something that made my chest tight.
"What time?" he asked, like it was that simple. Like I hadn't just asked him to witness me in a space designed for regression, for the parts of myself I'd hidden from everyone except him.
"You said two o'clock? Maybe come at three-thirty? That gives me an hour and a half with Sophie first."
"Three-thirty," he agreed, then pulled me closer, pressing a kiss to my forehead. "I'll be there."
The certainty in his voice made my eyes burn. No hesitation about entering a pastel nursery that seemed antithetical to everything he was. No concern about how it might look—the Besharov enforcer playing with stuffed animals. Just immediate agreement because I'd asked, because I needed him there.
"Thank you," I whispered against his chest.
"You don't thank me for giving you what you need," he said, fingers playing with my hair. "That's my job."
We lay there for another few minutes, the kittens creating chaos around us while we pretended the world outside didn't exist. But eventually, reality intruded. Kostya had meetings—family business he couldn't discuss. I had an afternoon appointment with vulnerability I wasn't sure I was ready for.
He got up first, moving through his morning routine with military precision. I watched him dress—dark jeans, black henley, shoulder holster he'd remove before coming to the nursery. The transformation from sleepy lover to bratva enforcer happened in layers, each piece of clothing adding armor.
When he was ready to leave, he came back to the bed, cupped my face in those massive hands.
"Three-thirty," he repeated, like a promise.
I nodded, not trusting my voice.
He kissed me then, slow and thorough, the kind of kiss that felt like claiming and comfort in equal measure. When he pulled back, I almost asked. Almost said, "How bad is it really? What aren't you telling me about Brand?"
But the words stuck in my throat. Because asking meant shattering this fragile peace we'd built. Meant acknowledging that our bubble was temporary, that violence was coming whether we named it or not.
So I let him go, watched the door close behind him, and tried not to think about the danger I was in.
I had a nursery to visit.
The lavender door mocked me with its cheerfulness. I'd been standing outside Sophie's nursery for a full minute, hand raised to knock, heart hammering against my ribs like it was trying to escape.
Tachycardia, my medical brain supplied helpfully. Pulse probably one-forty. Palmar hyperhidrosis evident. Classic presentation of acute anxiety response.
Knowing the clinical terms didn't make my hand any steadier.
This was different from meeting Sophie before, when she'd been the Pakhan's wife checking on her husband's enforcer's new woman.
This was personal. Intimate. She was inviting me into her most vulnerable space, and I was about to walk in carrying all my damage like an uninvited guest to her careful peace.
My hand was still raised. Still not knocking. Respiratory rate elevated. Mild tremor in extremities. If I was my own patient, I'd prescribe Ativan and tell myself to breathe.
Instead, I knocked. Three quick taps before I could lose my nerve.
Footsteps inside, soft on what sounded like carpet.
The door opened, and there was Sophie—all five-foot-four of her, round with pregnancy, wearing soft pink pajamas covered in tiny clouds.
Her blonde hair was pulled into a messy bun, and her smile was warm enough to thaw something frozen in my chest.
"You came," she said, and there was genuine surprise in it. Like she'd been worried I wouldn't. "I'm so glad."
She looked so young. We were close in age—she was maybe a year younger—but standing there in cloud pajamas with her hand on her pregnant belly, she looked impossibly soft. Vulnerable in a way that made me want to protect her, even though she was married to one of the most dangerous men in New York.
"I almost didn't," I admitted, because apparently my mouth had decided honesty was the only option.
"I almost didn't invite you," she admitted right back, and somehow that made everything easier. We were both scared. Both taking risks with our vulnerability.
She stepped aside, and I got my first real look at the nursery.
My throat closed up.
It was perfect. Not in a pristine, magazine-spread way, but in the way that safety looks when someone makes it physical.
Pale yellow walls like sunshine through hospital curtains.
A daybed piled with stuffed animals that had clearly been loved, not just displayed.
Bookshelves lined with picture books whose spines showed wear from repeated reading.
A corner with child-sized table and chairs, coloring books scattered across the surface with boxes of crayons in every possible shade.
Soft rugs covered hardwood floors. Twinkle lights strung along the ceiling like indoor stars. A rocking chair by the window with a blanket draped over its back. Everything soft, gentle, designed to make the world feel less sharp.
"It's beautiful," I whispered, and my voice cracked on the second word.
Sophie took my hand. Her fingers were small, warm, steady despite the fact that I could feel her pulse racing too. "It's ours now," she said simply. "Yours and mine. If you want."
Ours.
Hearing the word made me want to cry. I'd been alone with this need for so long—the desperate craving for softness, for someone else to make decisions, for a space where I could stop calculating survival odds and just exist. Even with Kostya, there was an element of caretaking.
He needed me functional enough to not add to his burden.
But this—this was just for us. Two women who understood why sometimes your brain needed to be quiet, why sometimes being small was the only way to feel safe.
"I don't know how to do this," I admitted. "Be Little with someone who isn't . . ." I trailed off, not sure how to describe what Kostya was to me.
"Your Daddy?" Sophie supplied, and there was no judgment in it.
Just understanding. "It's different. With Nikolai, there's always that dynamic of care and control.
But this?" She gestured to the room. "This is just us.
No expectations. No performance. Just two people who need the same kind of peace. "
She was still holding my hand. I realized I was gripping back, probably too tight, but she didn't pull away.
"Come on," she said gently. "Let me show you everything."
She led me into the room, and the door closed behind us with a soft click. The sound felt final in the best way. Like shutting out everything that hurt, everything that demanded I be competent and capable and functional.