Chapter 14 - Avgust
I hadn’t planned on taking her with me.
The morning was already mapped out in my head.
I had a list of meetings, surveillances, and a few loose ends that needed to be tied up quietly and efficiently.
I had been inside the house for too long now, and it was about time I stepped out again.
These were the kind of errands that didn’t belong anywhere near someone like Ilana.
I wanted to keep her as far away from the bratva world as I possibly could. Especially after what she had suffered.
“Where are you going?” she asked, standing barefoot inside my closet as I stared at my reflection in the mirror. Dressed in a monochrome black suit, I looked every bit the Bratva enforcer I was. The Bratva enforcer I missed being. I was itching to get back to work.
“Work.”
“What do you mean work?” she asked, her tone slightly suspicious. I watched her reflection in the mirror. She was wearing a pink, silk skirt that reached her knees and a blouse that fit her a little too perfectly for my liking. She was making it impossible for me to leave the house.
“I have to get a few things done,” I replied, turning around to look at her.
“I want to come with you.”
I looked at her squarely, her bare face looking as beautiful as ever in its soft pink glow.
“No,” I said immediately.
She didn’t flinch.
“Why?”
I wish I could tell her how this was not her world, and I had no desire for it to stain her. The Bratva world was the kind of world that was impossible to unsee once you had seen the ugly, gory details, which made it what it was. And Ilana did not deserve to go through that darkness. Not again.
“It’s not safe for you,” I replied instead, knowing she would only argue if I decided to explain my reasons to her.
Her mouth curved, not amused or offended, but simply thoughtful.
“You say that like I don’t already know who you are or what the Bratva means. I am certain I will be able to handle it.”
I studied her for a long moment. Most women who asked questions in our world did it out of curiosity or fear.
Ilana asked questions because she truly wanted to understand.
She always had. From the first night she had sat across me and listened, I had known.
It had felt as if she was cataloguing pieces of me I hadn’t even offered her.
She had already been through so much from the auction till the running away and then witnessing Timofey’s injuries, but she had held strong through it all.
I already knew she would be able to handle it, but the thought of something happening to her scared me.
“Come on, say yes,” she croaked, looking at my expression with a pleading lip.
“I don’t know. You have a tendency to get in trouble.”
“If Zhenya had asked you, would you not have taken her?” The mention of my sister’s name from her mouth made me feel something I couldn’t name.
She knew my family, even if they did not know her yet.
An intimacy had been established between us that neither of us could deny, and she was right. I would not have said no to Zhenya.
“Zhenya has grown up in this world and understands things. She knows how to fire a pistol and how not to run in the face of danger.”
“I want to learn too,” Ilana said, stepping closer to me. “After all, marrying you makes me a part of this world as well.”
“Fine.” I gave up. “But you’ll stay right beside me. At all times.”
“Done and done,” she clapped like a little girl, a huge smile tugging at her lips.
“And if I say we leave, we leave. No questions.”
She nodded once. “Deal.”
That should have reassured me, but instead something tightened in my chest.
***
The city felt different with her beside me. It wasn’t quieter or gentler; it was sharper instead. As if I was suddenly aware of every turn, every passing car, and every man who might linger around her without my permission. She noticed everything.
Her fingers brushed mine naturally, and I noticed how well she fit in beside me.
When we stepped down, and the doors opened onto my private garage, she took in the black cars, the men, the unspoken hierarchy with a calm that reminded me unpleasantly of Zhenya when she was young.
She had been just as observant and unafraid.
Ilana had been strictly inside the house and hadn’t noticed the army of men that was around the safe house at all times.
This was all new to her, but she seemed to be taking it all in pretty well.
The first stop was brief.
A Morozov contact, one of their Miami men, had to meet us outside a café that pretended to be legitimate. I parked my car across the street, waiting for him to make his way to me.
“Who is he?” Ilana asked, not missing a single beat. She had noticed the man immediately.
“Someone who works for the Morozovs.”
“The most important Bratva family in Miami?” she asked, her memory already impressing me.
“Yes.”
She stayed quiet as the man tapped on my window, and I pulled it down.
He passed me a wrapped bag, and I did the same, without so much as a single word exchanged between us.
I nodded at him, and he quickly turned around and walked away.
She watched the entire exchange closely, sharply, her shoulders tense until the man had finally disappeared back inside the restaurant.
“Is it always like this?” she asked quietly.
“Like what?”
“So… orderly.”
I almost smiled.
“It has to be,” I said. “Chaos gets you killed in our world.”
She absorbed the statement without comment while we headed towards our next errand, which I already knew would take a little longer.
It was nothing but low-level surveillance, but I had been entrusted with the job, so I had to do it correctly.
It was a man who thought he was clever enough to slip through a net that had been tightening for weeks, and Iosif either wanted him arrested or dead.
I parked the car a block away, turned off the engine, and kept the windows down.
“You’re staying right here,” I said.
Her lips pressed together, but to my surprise, she nodded.
I watched her through the reflection in the windshield as I tracked the target, noticing how her eyes followed me. She was alert, but I knew she trusted me to keep her safe. When I came back ten minutes later, she looked up, as if she had been waiting for me to give her a report on my findings.
“Well?” she asked when I stayed quiet.
“He’s predictable.”
“And is that good?”
“For us, yes. We know exactly where he is going next.”
Her smile flickered, small but almost pleased.
It surprised me how much I liked that. As if I had been looking for her validation all along.
By the time we stopped near the waterfront, I’d already adjusted my plans.
I had shortened routes and cut out anything unnecessary. I told myself it was all for her.
But it wasn’t.
I was actually enjoying this.
She leaned beside me, watching the man across the street without being told, subconsciously mirroring my posture and gaze.
“Is that the man we are following?” she asked under her breath.
“Yes.”
Her eyes lit up just a fraction.
“Like this?”
I glanced at her. “What do you mean?”
“This,” she said, gesturing vaguely. “Quietly just watching and waiting for his next step.”
I should have shut it down.
But I nodded instead. “Yes, and you’re doing really well for your first time.”
The pride that crossed her face was quick and restrained, but it hit me harder than it should have.
Again. She belonged at my side far more easily than I was ready to admit.
And the thought of it terrified me. My gaze shifted back to the man in front of us, years of cultivated instinct moving inside me. The man was smarter than I’d expected.
Not smart enough, but definitely aware.
I felt it before I saw it. That subtle shift in posture. The way his shoulders suddenly stiffened, his pace changed by half a beat. He glanced into a shop window, not to look at himself but to check the reflection behind him.
He saw the car. I moved first.
“Stay here,” I told Ilana, already stepping outside.
She didn’t argue or freeze. She simply watched, her eyes sharp.
The man turned sharply into an alley, hand dipping into his jacket. Amateur mistake. I followed, silent, efficient, the world narrowing into movement and intention.
He spun and drew the knife out rather clumsily.
I knew Ilana might be watching, but I did not have the time to spare her this scene.
I broke his wrist, driving him into the wall hard enough to knock the breath from his lungs.
He lashed out anyway, reminding me how fear makes men stupid.
It was only a matter of seconds as I pulled him closer and broke his neck in one swift motion, ending it before it had even begun.
He had to die anyway. Better now than later.
I turned and returned to the car.
“Are you hurt?” Ilana asked as soon as I sat down. I shook my head. “You killed him.”
“Yes.”
There was a long moment where I waited for her panic, or revulsion, or breaking point. But none of it came. Instead, she exhaled slowly, like she was grounding herself.
“He would have hurt you otherwise,” she said. It was not a question.
“He was going to try.”
She nodded once, accepting it with a composure that unsettled me more than fear would have.
“Okay,” she said.
I took her face in my hands without thinking, thumbs brushing her jaw, searching for cracks.
“Look at me.”
She did.
“I need to know if you want to go home,” I said. “I can take you right now.”
Her eyes didn’t waver.
“I want to stay with you.”
Something in my chest gave way, but I could not decide whether it was relief or something heavier. I nodded and picked up my phone to call Iosif to inform him about the slight change in orders. He answered on the second ring while Ilana waited quietly beside me.
“Report?” he asked, in typical Iosif manner.
“One neutralized,” I said. “Spotted me early.”
A pause. Then, “Cleanup?”
“I have already informed my men. It will happen shortly.”
Another pause, a little longer this time.
“Where are you?” he asked.
I glanced at Ilana, looking out on the deserted street before us. I had pushed the body into the alley to keep it out of sight, even if someone spotted the man before the body was removed.
“Out,” I said.
Iosif exhaled through his nose. “You’ve been out a lot lately, Avgust. What is wrong?”
“Don’t start.”
“I’m not,” he replied calmly. “As your older brother, it is my responsibility to keep a check.”
I didn’t answer.
After a second, he said, “Be careful, Avgust.”
The call ended, and Ilana finally looked at me again.
“That was your elder brother?” she asked.
“Iosif. Yes.”
“Is he… like you?”
I huffed a breath that might’ve been a laugh. “Much worse, actually.”
“Does he have a wife?”
“He does. Her name is Clara, and she is an angel.”
Ilana smiled at that. “I’d like to meet them one day.”
“I would like for you to meet them, too.”
I pulled the car out as soon as I noticed the van arriving and a few of my men pulling out. They noticed my car and nodded at me, and I quickly turned around and left. They would handle the rest of it while I would handle another task for the day. The only task I had been dreading.
“Alright, Bratva man, where to now?”
The next target wasn’t supposed to involve her, but it did anyway. I kept driving until we were a little closer to my own safe house, but Ilana hadn’t noticed it. She was clearly not aware of the routes of Miami, which was strange if she had lived here all her life.
“Just one more thing to do.”
I parked the car in an empty parking lot, my gaze on the man across the street.
I did not tell her that the man leaning against the car in front of us, while pretending to scroll on his phone, had been there at the auction.
That I had seen him in the footage, and he had been one of the assholes who had bid on her.
Instead, I kept following from a distance.
I stepped out of the car, and she stepped out too, pretending to look at the basketball match happening on the court beside us.
She walked beside me easily, close enough that I could feel the warmth of her arm through her coat.
Then she stopped.
Abruptly.
Her fingers closed around my wrist.
“Avgust,” she whispered. “That man.”
I looked down at her, realizing her face had gone bloodless.
“What about him?”
“I recognize him. From that night. I am sure he was there, and he was bidding on me.”
I swore under my breath. I had been hoping she wouldn’t notice.
“Ilana—”
“I don’t feel good,” she said, already stepping back. “Can we please leave?”
That was it. No argument. No pushing. I nodded at her and pulled my phone out, dialing a number without taking my eyes off her panicked expression. Nothing was more important to me than Ilana feeling her best.
“Timofey,” I said as soon as he answered. “I need you to take over the surveillance in the Bay Area for me. Same location. Same target.”
I could see him nodding on the other side. “Copy.”
I hung up and turned to Ilana immediately, one arm already around her shoulders.
“We are done for today,” I said firmly. “Let’s get you back home.”
She nodded, her breath coming out shallow but controlled.
She allowed me to guide the way as I took her hand and zigzagged back to the car without exposing us to the man.
He would recognize both Ilana and me immediately, and Iosif needed some information on him.
I did not know the details behind this, but I would have to find out later.
Because this was a man I would personally enjoy torturing and killing later.
I opened her door, and she sat inside the car, making me realize something with unsettling clarity.
She hadn’t panicked because of the violence.
She had panicked because the violence that had touched her past had resurfaced all of a sudden.
Ilana had been right all along. She fit this world a lot more perfectly than I could have ever imagined or guessed, and I was a little afraid to admit just how much I loved that.