Chapter 4
LILY
"You've got to be fucking kidding me," Nadia hisses into her phone in the middle of the living room.
"Какого хрена мы не знали, что за нами следят?
" She leans into her hip, eyes narrowing on the space in front of her shaking her head violently.
"В моей руке умерли и посильнее мужчины — за куда меньшие проступки. "
I smile to myself, adjusting my absurdly heavy tote bag full of books from one shoulder to the other.
My Russian isn't perfect—I chose to study sign language in high school and Italian in college—but I'm pretty sure Nadia just said something along the lines of I've killed stronger men for less. And that's the PG version.
She storms off toward the right wing of the house, leaving me standing in the foyer of what can only be described as a mansion—definitely not what I expected for a safe house. I'd pictured something grimy and half-abandoned, maybe with duct-taped windows and the smell of boiled hot dog water.
But this place? "Nice" doesn't begin to cover it.
It reminds me of the apartment the Petrov siblings gave me for college.
I told Nadia and Nik that a penthouse with three bedrooms, three and a half bathrooms, grey granite countertops, a gas stove, weekly maid service, and stainless steel everything was completely over the top—but the second they told me to take it up with Aleksandr, I suddenly had a bodyguard too until up to a year ago.
This place is kind of like that—just overly opulent.
In the foyer alone, a chandelier hangs from the ceiling, rose gold with perfectly white lights that glow soft and even, like something out of a luxury hotel.
The split staircase is carpeted in something plush and dark, the kind of velvet you'd expect to find in an old movie theater, and the banisters gleam like they're polished every morning.
There's a massive mirror framed in what looks like real gold leaf, and beneath it, a marble-topped console table with a crystal vase full of white orchids that look too perfect to be real.
Everything smells faintly of jasmine, vanilla and cashmere. It's the kind of clean that makes you nervous to touch anything.
I shift the weight of my tote bag—still stupidly heavy with books, because apparently I don't know how to pack like someone in hiding—and step deeper into the house.
My footsteps echo a little too crisply off the marble as I follow the hallway into what I assume is the sitting room, though it looks more like the lobby of a boutique hotel than any living space I've ever seen.
There's another chandelier in here, because of course there is, and a low-slung velvet couch arranged around a glass coffee table that probably costs more than the old chevy my dad left me. Everything is symmetrical, spotless, and impossibly expensive.
This kind of over-the-top elegance? It's textbook Petrov. Yachts in Capri. Ski trips in Argentina. That one absurd New Year's Eve party on a rooftop in Tokyo. They've always had a taste for the dramatic—Nadia especially—and for whatever reason, they always dragged me along.
Me, with my worn-out sneakers and my single father and our decent little apartment in the Bronx. Not bad, not poor, just… regular. We had linoleum floors and mismatched mugs and a TV with bad reception if it rained too hard.
And yet, somehow, I ended up as an honorary tag-along with the world's most intimidating power siblings.
I lower myself onto the edge of the velvet couch, suddenly aware of the coffee stain on the hem of my jeans, and I feel out of place like I always do in the world of the Petrov siblings. The velvet of the couch is stupidly soft, like sitting on the inside of a cake, and my body sags with relief.
I yank off my boots and haul my tote into my lap, rifling through it until I find the familiar cracked spine of my comfort read—Carmilla by Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu.
Carmilla is one of the earliest works of vampire fiction even predating Dracula by over two decades, it follows the relationship between an isolated and shy woman named Laura and the ethereal, beautiful and mildly strange Carmilla.
It's the battered copy I've had since high school, pages annotated in different colored pens depending on the emotional crisis I was working through at the time, because I always found Carmilla's emotional intensity to be comforting.
I run a thumb along the frayed edge of the cover before opening to the first chapter, the one that always makes me feel like I've slipped through some velvet-draped curtain into a world that feels like a dream.
"If you are panicking, telling me you are panicking," Nadia's stern voice yanks me from my Carmilla spiral, and I look up at her from over my glasses. She looks minorly fuzzy, but I see her silhouette, and know she is scowling at me.
"I'm not panicking," I say, my voice pitching up at the end and I flinch at the sound.
"You know you're such a terrible liar," Nadia hisses, and I push up my glasses to her moving across the room in that model-esque walk she has, it's all hips, and highlights her coke-bottle figure.
"I don't know why you think I am lying?" My voice is basically a squeak and I smack myself in the forehead because why do I sound like some prepubescent boy.
"You are reading Carmilla, which means you are panicking, sad, or trying to convince someone why all vampires are queer, and only two of those things are happening right now," she lightly pokes the top spine of my book, and sits on the edge of the couch.
I place the copy on my lap and turn to Nadia. "One, the foundation of vampirism is queer, as are most monsters."
Nadia rolls her eyes in that way she does when she's trying not to smile, arms crossed like she's already two seconds from mocking me.
"And two," I continue, undeterred, "I am not sad or panicking. I am just reading."
"Your comfort book?" she asks, raising an eyebrow like that's the real crime.
"It's my dumplings," I say, holding up the book like a shield. "When you have a bad day, you eat dumplings. When I have a bad day, I read Carmilla and pretend I'm a moody lesbian vampire haunting some poor aristocrat in a lace nightgown."
She snorts. "You're so weird."
"Pot, kettle," I mutter, flipping my book back over just as the front door opens.
"Gio!" A voice rings from the foyer, and I make sure to put my old book back into my bag because I don't think after witnessing a murder I could also lose my beloved book.
A boy with black wavy hair and an olive complexion comes walking into the room, with his nose in a book and him lazily dragging a suitcase behind him.
"Gio, what have I told you about reading and walking?" Nadia taunts, getting up off the couch and walking over to Nikolai's son.
"I am three pages away from the end of this chapter," Gio grumbles back, ducking from Nadia's hand as she reaches out to ruffle his hair.
"What are you reading, G-bear?" I call out making my way over to him and getting a peak at the book in his hand.
"Catcher in the Rye?" I blink, glancing over to Gwendolyn—Nikolia's wife, and somehow the calmest woman in a room full of overachievers and low-key war criminals.
"He's already skipped two grades," she says evenly, adjusting their baby boy, Toni, higher on her hip like it's nothing.
Her voice is soft as she shakes her head and tucks a dark curl behind her ear. "His teachers said it was fine."
"I skipped two grades in middle school and I didn't read Catcher and the Rye until sophomore year of high school.
He's ten! That book is not really appropriate," I squeak, staring between her and Gio, who's now flopped dramatically onto the couch, tucking a pillow up under his chin as he lays across the couch on his stomach.
"I'm going to graduate middle school in six months. I can't read A-Z Mysteries for the rest of my life. Besides, Salinger is one of my favorite writers," Gio mumbles into a pillow.
"You're raising a literal genius, Gwen," I whisper, eyes wide.
She lets out a sigh—long, quiet, and far too elegant to be called exasperated—as she kneels down and gently sets Toni on the floor. He toddles off instantly, busying himself with a nesting tower and a squeaky dinosaur that looks brand-new in the corner of the room.
"Don't remind me," she says, brushing a dark curl from her cheek.
Gwen looks like a woman who belongs on the cover of Vogue.
She's wearing socks and cream suede birkenstocks, along with soft cream linen pants that swish slightly when she moves, paired with an oversized oatmeal-colored sweater pushed up at the sleeves.
Her dark curls are piled in a loose bun on top of her head, a few tendrils escaping to frame her face, and somehow, despite her toddler and the chaos of three kids under twelve, Gwen still looks like she belongs in a serene lifestyle blog.
"Where's Aleksandr?" Nik asks as he enters, carrying a sleeping Mia. Her honey-blonde curls flop over her forehead, and she nuzzles deeper into Nik's neck like a kitten.
"I don't know," Nadia shrugs, looking at the watch on her wrist. "He was supposed to be here five minutes ago."
"Give him another ten and then sound the alarms," Nik commands, adjusting Mia on his shoulder.
Nadia narrows her eyes on him, one hand on her hip, the other cradling her phone like she might throw it or use it as a weapon—both equally likely.
The transition from Nik being head of the Bratva to Nadia has been a shaky one.
Not because she isn't capable—if anything, she's more dangerous than he ever was—but because Nik never fully stopped acting like he's in charge.
Old habits, old instincts. And Nadia? She doesn't exactly do "deferred authority". Not even for her brother.
Nadia exhales through her nose, a tight, controlled sound. "Say that again in a tone I like."
Nik raises a brow, and speaks through gritted teeth. "If he is not here in the next ten minutes I recommend sounding the alarms. The police could've picked him up."