Chapter 11 Sasha
Sasha
Dmitri doesn’t waste time.
Two days after we return from London, he summons us to his office with new orders. A gallery in St. Petersburg has been flagged for suspicious transactions, and he wants us to investigate. The assignment means another trip, another hotel room, and another stretch of hours alone with Tony.
I tell myself it’s just work. The flutter in my stomach when Tony’s thigh brushes mine in the back of Dmitri’s SUV says otherwise.
Now, we’re on a train speeding north, and Tony is cheating at cards.
“You’re counting,” I accuse as I watch him lay down another winning hand.
“I’m just paying attention.” He gathers the cards and shuffles with the ease of someone who’s done this thousands of times.
His hands are big, and scarred across the knuckles, and I’ve been trying not to stare at them for the past hour.
“My uncle taught me this game when I was ten. Said it would teach me to read people.”
“Did it work?”
“You tell me.” He deals another round, and the cards snap against the small table between our seats. “What am I thinking right now?”
I’m thinking that I want to climb into his lap and finish what we started in my apartment, but I keep that thought to myself.
“You’re thinking about how to win again,” I say instead.
“Wrong,” he says. “I’m thinking about your mouth.”
His gaze flicks to my lips. “You bite it when you’re focused.”
I stop immediately, and he laughs. The sound transforms his face, softening the hard edges and making him look younger, almost boyish. For a moment, I can picture him as a ten-year-old kid in Michigan, learning card games from an uncle who probably had no idea what his nephew would become.
“Tell me more about him,” I prompt. “Your uncle.”
Tony’s smile fades, but he doesn’t shut down the way he usually does when personal questions come up.
“He was military. Vietnam. Came back with demons he never talked about and a drinking problem he talked about too much. But he took me in when my parents died, even though he had no idea how to raise a kid. Taught me to fix engines, shoot straight, and never trust a man who won’t look you in the eye. ”
“He sounds like Boris.”
“Boris? Dmitri’s head of security?”
“Yes, he’s been with our family since before I was born. Taught me most of what I know about surviving this world.” I pick up my cards and study them. The hand is decent. Not great. “He’s the closest thing to a father I’ve had since mine died.”
“How old were you?” he asks.
I rearrange my cards, buying time before I answer, “Seven. Dmitri was seventeen. He basically raised me and Alexei after that.”
“That’s a lot of responsibility for a teenager.”
“Dmitri doesn’t know how to be anything other than responsible.” I lay down three of a kind. “Your turn.”
Tony inspects his cards, then sets down a full house. “I win again.”
“You’re definitely cheating.”
“Prove it.”
I can’t, which is frustrating. But watching him shuffle the deck with a small smile playing at the corner of his mouth, I realize I don’t mind losing. Not when the alternative is sitting in silence for the remaining two hours to St. Petersburg.
“One more round,” I demand.
“You’re a glutton for punishment.”
“I’m a fast learner.”
This time, I watch his hands instead of my cards. The way he holds certain cards slightly longer before discarding. The barely perceptible twitch of his thumb when he draws something good. By the fourth hand, I’ve figured out his tells.
“Full house.” I spread my cards on the table. “I win.”
Tony’s eyebrows rise. “You caught on.”
“I told you. Fast learner.”
“That you are. Your brothers trained you well.”
“They trained me to survive. Reading card sharks wasn’t in the curriculum.”
“Same skill set, different application.” He gathers the cards and tucks them into his jacket pocket. “You’d make a decent operative, you know. If you ever get tired of authenticating art.”
“I’ll keep that in mind if the gallery business dries up.”
The train sways as we round a curve, and I watch the Russian countryside rush past the window. Snow-covered fields. Bare trees. The occasional village with smoke rising from chimneys. It’s beautiful in a stark, unforgiving way that reminds me why I left for London.
“You’re quiet,” Tony notes after a moment.
I shrug and reply, “Just thinking.”
“About?”
“About how this feels less like a work assignment and more like something else.”
He doesn’t pretend to misunderstand. “Is that a problem?”
“I don’t know yet.”
We sit in comfortable silence for the rest of the journey. When the train pulls into the St. Petersburg station, Tony grabs our bags before I can reach for mine. A small gesture, but it makes something warm bloom in my chest.
The gallery is in a converted warehouse near the Neva River. The owner, a nervous man named Deny, meets us at the entrance and starts talking too fast.
“The Kozlov family has always been valued clients,” he babbles as he leads us through the main exhibition space. “I can’t imagine what irregularities you’re referring to. Our records are impeccable.”
“Then you won’t mind if we review them,” I respond.
Deny’s smile becomes strained. “Of course. Whatever you need.”
The financial records tell a different story than his confident assurances.
Three hours of reviewing transaction logs reveal a pattern of money movement that’s systematic and sophisticated.
Art pieces purchased at inflated prices.
Funds routed through shell companies. Commission structures that don’t make sense.
“Someone’s been laundering money through this gallery,” I tell Tony quietly while Deny hovers nervously near the door.
“You’re sure?”
“The transaction codes don’t match any Kozlov operations I’m aware of. And these shell companies?” I point to a series of names in the ledger. “I’ve never seen them. Someone’s been using our family’s reputation to legitimize their illegal activities.”
“Piggybacking on the Kozlov name to avoid scrutiny.”
“Exactly.” I close the ledger. “Whoever’s doing this knows enough about our operations to make it look convincing, but they made mistakes. Small ones that only someone intimately familiar with how we do business would catch.”
The muscle in Tony’s jaw ticks. “So, we’re looking for someone with inside knowledge but not complete access.”
“Or someone who got their information secondhand. Through a contact, or a mole.”
The word settles between us. We’ve been dancing around this possibility since the apartment shooting, but saying it out loud makes it real.
“We should take copies of everything,” Tony suggests. “Let Dmitri’s people analyze it more.”
I nod and photograph the relevant pages while Deny watches with poorly concealed panic. By the time we finish, the gallery owner is sweating through his expensive shirt.
“We’ll be in touch,” I tell him as we leave. “Don’t destroy anything.”
“I would never—”
“Don’t.” Tony’s voice carries a threat that makes Deny flinch. “Ms. Kozlov’s brothers don’t take kindly to people who waste their time.”
The evening air is cold and crisp outside. St. Petersburg in winter has a brutal beauty that Moscow lacks. The buildings are more elegant, and the architecture is more European. I’ve always loved this city, even if I rarely get to visit.
“You hungry?” Tony asks.
“Starving.”
“I know a place. Small restaurant near the Hermitage. Best pelmeni in the city.”
“You’ve been to St. Petersburg?”
“A few times.” He doesn’t elaborate, and I don’t push. Whatever brought him here before is part of the life he had before me. The life I’m still trying to understand.
The restaurant is what he described. It’s tiny, and tucked into a basement beneath a bookshop, with maybe ten tables and a menu written in chalk on the wall. The owner greets Tony by name and leads us to a corner table with a view of the kitchen.
“You come here often?” I ask as we take our seats.
“Not for years. But some places stick with you.”
We order wine and food, and the conversation flows more easily than it should between two people who are technically working together under suspicious circumstances.
Tony asks more about my time at Christie’s.
I tell him about the forgeries I caught, the genuine masterpieces I authenticated, and the satisfaction of building something entirely my own.
“You miss it,” he observes.
I take a sip of wine and nod. “London was the first time I felt like I wasn’t just Dmitri Kozlov’s little sister. I had a reputation I built myself. Colleagues who respected my work, not my family connections.”
“So why come back?”
The question cuts deeper than he probably intends. I set down my glass and stare at the ruby liquid inside.
“Guilt,” I admit. “My brothers spent years protecting me. Sending me away to keep me safe. And I took that safety and used it to build a life that had nothing to do with them. While they were here, dealing with threats and violence and everything that comes with our name, I was in London pretending I was normal. Pretending I didn’t come from blood money and power.
When I came back for Alexei’s wedding and saw the trouble they were facing, I couldn’t walk away. ”
Tony reaches across the table and takes my hand.
His palm is calloused and warm. “Your brothers wanted you to have options. They sent you away so you could become something other than a Bratva princess. And you did. You became brilliant at something legitimate that has nothing to do with crime or violence.”
“But I abandoned them—”
“You did what they wanted. You built something safe. Something clean. That’s not abandonment; that’s honoring the sacrifice they made to give you choices.”
My throat tightens. Nobody has ever framed it that way. In my head, leaving Moscow has always been an act of selfishness. Running away from responsibility while my brothers shouldered the weight of our family name.
But Tony’s right. Dmitri and Alexei pushed me toward London. They paid for my education, my apartment, and my entire life there. They wanted me to escape the world they were trapped in.
“How do you understand that so well?” I ask. “Family loyalty, I mean. Most people don’t.”
“Because I had someone who sacrificed everything so I could have options, too. My uncle could have sent me into the foster system when my parents died. It would have been easier for him. But he took in a traumatized kid and taught him how to survive. Gave up his quiet retirement so I could have a chance.”
“And you became CIA.”
“I became a lot of things. Not all of them good.” He releases my hand and picks up his wine. “But I understand what it means to owe someone everything. To feel like you can never repay what they gave you.”
We finish dinner talking about lighter things. Favorite cities. Worst travel experiences. Movies we’ve seen too many times. By the time we leave the restaurant, it’s nearly midnight, and the streets are quiet and cold.
The hotel is a short walk away. It’s nice, but not extravagant. Dmitri booked it through a shell company that can’t be traced back to our family.
Tony opens the door to our room, and we freeze.
A single piece of paper lies on the carpet just inside the threshold. White, folded once, with my name written on the front in neat cursive—too neat. Like someone practicing being anonymous.
Tony pulls me back into the hallway and draws his weapon. He clears the room quickly, checking every corner before returning to the doorway.
“It’s empty.”
I pick up the note with trembling fingers and unfold it.
You should have stayed in London, little Kozlov. Now, it’s too late.
The words are simple, but the threat is not.
“Someone knows we’re here,” I say.
“Someone knows everywhere we go.” Tony takes the note from my hand and studies it. “This is escalating.”
Part of me is scared. But standing in this hotel doorway with Tony’s body angled protectively in front of mine, I realize something unexpected.
I’m falling for a man who makes me feel safe without making me feel weak. A man who understands family and sacrifice and the weight of impossible choices.
A man who might be lying to me about everything.