Chapter Two
Alexei
Her name echoes through the hall, and when she steps forward to take her diploma, pride surges through me so violently it feels like pain.
My zayka…
She’s poised and beautiful, her hair swept back, chin high, voice soft as she murmurs thanks to the dean. She looks older, but her eyes… God, those dark, luminous eyes are still the same. Wide, bright, uncertain. The same eyes that haunted me every night for four years.
She doesn’t see me at first. Not until she turns, scanning the crowd, and her gaze catches mine.
For a second, everything stops. The applause. The noise. The damn air itself.
Her lips part, a small, startled breath slipping free, and I know she feels it too… that tether, that impossible pull that never broke even after all these years. Then she looks away, pretending she didn’t see me. Pretending I’m not there.
I push off the wall and head for the exit. I’ve seen enough. My mission here is done. I head straight for the underground garage where my driver is waiting.
“South Kensington,” I say quietly to Sergei as I slide into the back seat of the car.
“Yes, boss.”
I lean back in my seat with a sigh as the car starts to move, watching the city blur past the tinted glass.
Rain suddenly starts to fall—not like it's any surprise given how unpredictable London weather can be.
I close my eyes, letting the rhythm of it pull me under.
The memories come easily now—they always do when I let my guard down.
For four years, I’ve been waiting. Watching. Biding my time.
The time has finally come.
The first thing I did after Anya left New York was find out everything about her. Where she lived. Who she spent time with. How often she smiled…
I told myself it was protection. That I only wanted to make sure she was safe. But that was a lie.
The truth is darker.
I needed to know she was still mine.
And she was.
I watched her through quiet reports and the occasional photo.
She went to school, worked, sang, and even dated once or twice but never seriously.
Never long enough for any man to leave a mark.
Every time I got word she’d gone out, something inside me twisted until I made sure it didn’t happen again.
A subtle warning. A whispered rumor. The men left her alone after that.
My brothers joked about it, of course. They said I was obsessed. Maybe I am. But obsession is all that’s left when love rots in your hands and turns to something you can’t wash away.
When I told them my plan to come here and bring her back to New York, they laughed. But none of them dared tell me not to.
The rain thickens as the car slows. The traffic light in front of me turns red. I glance at my watch. It's early evening, still quite early in a city like London.
The neighborhood she lives in is quiet, respectable—a far cry from the dangers I’d feared when she first moved here.
But even in safe places, she’s too trusting.
Too unguarded. I should probably feel guilty for barging into her life like this and the selfish plans I have for her, but I'm not a man who indulges in trivial emotions like conscience. I've crossed worse lines than this.
I mean…I killed my own father.
The night I learned the truth still replays like a film loop, each detail sharper than the last. His slurred confession.
The stink of whiskey seeping from his pores, the white powder still dusting his nostrils.
The casual way he told me about the people he’d destroyed, as if he were reading a grocery list.
He told me about Ivan first—my older brother. He was just a sixteen year old who caught his father with a mistress… He was foolish enough to threaten Yuri. He was going to rat Yuri out to Natasha, our mother.
So Yuri staged a car accident.
He cried at the funeral.
But that night, he’d smiled, proud of himself.
Something broke in me then.
He bragged about killing Natasha, too, years later, when her father died, and there was no one left to protect her. He admitted to murdering Anya’s father, Petr Petrov, just to clear the way for Katarina. Then he took her, ruined her, discarded her, and killed her too.
Every wife. Every lover. Dead by his hand.
I was horrified to realize how much more depraved my father was than I’d ever imagined. The monster I’d feared as a boy was nothing compared to the man who bragged about murder like it was sport.
That night, when his words finally sank in, I decided he wouldn’t live to see another year.
But in the bratva, killing a pakhan isn’t a decision a man makes lightly—or without consequence. It’s treason. Even if it’s righteous, even if it’s deserved, it must be sanctioned, or the bullet turns back on the shooter.
So I planned. Quietly. Patiently. I built alliances with men who hated Yuri more than they feared him. I gathered evidence, proof of the things he’d done. When the time came, I would go before the vory at the next skhodka and lay everything bare. The council would give me permission to act.
That was the plan.
Until Yuri lost control.
He’d been in negotiations with an Italian, Giovanni Marino, for a marriage alliance. The bride was to be Elena Marino, Giovanni’s daughter. But when the deal soured, Yuri did what he always did when he didn’t get his way. He took what wasn’t his.
He kidnapped her.
If he’d hurt her…if he’d killed her, it would’ve started a war. One that would have burned the bratva and the mafia alike to ash.
There was no time to consider the rules. So I acted.
I didn’t have the council’s blessing or the time to ask for it. All I had was a gun, my brothers, and a lifetime of fury waiting to break loose.
When I found him, he was laughing. High. Drunk. Proud of what he’d done. He thought no one would dare touch him.
He was wrong.
I didn’t hesitate this time. I pulled the trigger. His end was quieter than I expected—for the end of an empire. It brought me no joy. Only silence.
But silence was better than the noise he’d made.
Taking over wasn’t as easy as killing him, though. His allies and enemies circled like vultures, testing me and waiting to see if I’d flinch. But I didn’t. I made examples of the first few who tried. After that, the rest remembered who I was. Who had made me.
It took months before I could breathe without looking over my shoulder. Months before I could think of anything beyond consolidating power. And when I finally did, it wasn’t power I thought of. It was her. My Anya.
I’d called her after Yuri’s death, needing to hear her voice and tell her she was free. Free from him. She would be safe now. But I hadn't dared to wait and hear her response. Because if I had heard her soft melodic voice, I'd have folded right there and then.
Instead, I forced myself to leave her be. She needed to finish school.
But she’s done now. She’s not a girl anymore. She’s a woman—my woman—and she’s coming home.
Not only to New York.
To me.
Soon, the car pulls up in front of her building. The streets are nearly empty now. A narrow row of Georgian townhouses, pretty on the outside, too trusting on the inside. That’s London for you. Too much glass. Not enough steel.
Anya’s flat is on the second floor. I know that because I’ve been here before…weeks ago. I didn’t go in then. Just watched. Learned her routines. The way she leaves her window cracked even in winter. The way she double-locks her door but never sets the chain.
Tonight, I’m not just watching.
I have my driver park in the shadow between two streetlights, then dismiss him.
After he leaves, I slip out of the car and cross the sidewalk.
The brass buzzer panel glints under my fingertips as I pass.
I take the back way, through the old, narrow service entrance—out of habit more than necessity.
The security camera above the main door hasn’t worked since last autumn.
I know because I paid someone to make sure of it.
Her lock is a joke—a standard Euro cylinder with an aftermarket deadbolt. It’s cheap, mass-produced, and very easy to pick. I could open it with a pin, but I use a proper pick set instead. It clicks almost instantly.
I’ll have to upgrade her security before she leaves. She can’t go through life this unprotected.
When I step inside, I’m met with warmth. The faint scent of jasmine tea, something sweet, and the ghost of her perfume—light, floral, familiar. It hits me harder than it should.
The flat is small but tidy. Cream walls hold framed music scores.
A secondhand upright piano sits in the corner by the window.
Her world feels lived-in, soft around the edges.
There’s a blanket folded over the couch, a half-read book on the coffee table, and a pair of fuzzy slippers neatly aligned by the door.
I don’t realize I’m smiling until I hear a sound—a low, irritated hiss.
I glance down and there, sitting squarely in the middle of the hallway, is a cat. It’s black as sin, with one ear nicked and a glare that could cut glass. Its tail flicks once, disdainfully, like it’s judging my very existence.
“Well,” I mutter, crouching down a little. “Who the hell are you?”
The cat blinks at me.
“You live with her, hm? Keep her company while she forgets me?”
Another flick of the tail.
“Figures,” I say, reaching out a hand. The cat takes one step forward, then smacks my knuckles with a swift paw, claws sheathed but firm.
I actually laugh. Can’t help it. “Protective little thing, aren’t you?”
My eyes catch the collar—red leather, soft and worn. A small silver tag dangles from it. I angle it toward the light, trying to make sense of the letters engraved on it.
A-l-y-o-s-h-a.
For a second, I forget to breathe.
It's my name– the name only she ever called me when she thought I couldn’t hear.
Alyosha.
It feels like being punched in the chest. I chuckle; a sound caught between amusement and amazement.
The cat stares up at me, unimpressed.
“You’re lucky, kotyonok,” I whisper. “You have no idea what that means.”
I straighten slowly, taking one last look around. Every inch of this place hums with her presence. Her music sheets scattered across the piano bench. Her perfume still floating in the air. Her life…unguarded.
I've stayed away for too long.
Not anymore.