Chapter 5 Pyotr
Pyotr
The federal warrant hit this week, and everything went to hell.
Dmitri called this morning with the news I’ve been dreading.
The authorities have started seizing accounts, freezing assets, and pulling transaction records that trace back to Daria’s name.
Investigators are building a case, and they don’t care whether she’s guilty or a victim. They want someone to blame.
I have two weeks left. Fourteen days to find proof of her innocence before Dmitri decides she’s too dangerous to live.
The pressure sits on my chest like a stone. Every hour that passes without answers brings her closer to a fate she might not deserve. I’ve spent the past week watching her, and nothing I’ve observed suggests she’s a willing traitor.
Nothing proves her innocence, either.
I’m reviewing financial documents at the kitchen table when I hear the crash in the bathroom.
My body moves before my brain catches up. I’m through the door with my gun drawn, checking for threats, intruders, or whatever made that sound.
What I find stops me dead.
Daria is frozen beside the shower with water streaming down the tiles behind her.
A shampoo bottle rolls across the floor, the source of the crash.
She’s wearing nothing but water droplets and a terrified expression.
Her brown eyes are wide as saucers, and her lips are parted in shock.
Her eyes flit to my weapon, and the terror on her face doubles even though the gun is pointed at the floor.
I relax my stance and drop the firearm the rest of the way.
I should turn around, apologize, and leave. I should do anything except stand here like an idiot, gawking at every inch of her exposed skin while my cock stirs behind my zipper.
But my training kicks in before my manners do, and I find myself assessing her body for injuries. For anything that might explain the fear that lives permanently in her eyes.
That’s when I see the bruises. They’re faded to yellow and green but still visible on her upper arms. The unmistakable shape of fingerprints is branded into her soft skin; four on the outside and one thumb-shaped mark on the inside.
Someone grabbed her. Someone hurt her. Someone wrapped their hands around her arms and squeezed hard enough to leave marks that are still visible.
My vision goes red.
“Get out!” Daria’s voice snaps me back to reality. She snatches a towel from the rack and wraps it around herself. “What the hell are you doing?”
“I heard a crash,” I sputter. “I thought someone was—”
“It was shampoo. I dropped the shampoo.” She clutches the towel against her chest like armor. “Now get out.”
“Those bruises on your arms—”
“Are none of your business,” she snaps. “Please. Just go.”
I retreat and close the door behind me. I’m shaking, and I don’t know if it’s from adrenaline or rage or something else.
Someone hurt her.
The thought bounces through my skull as I pace the small living room, unable to sit still. Someone put their hands on her. Someone left those marks on her skin. Someone made her afraid, and she’s been covering it up, acting like everything is fine.
Was it her ex-husband? The Bogdan guy she’s never mentioned but whose shadow seems to hang over everything in this apartment? His name appeared in her file—former spouse, no custody arrangement on record, and no contact information listed. Just a name and a marriage that ended three years ago.
I think about the blocked phone calls. The way her face drains of color every time her phone rings. The fear that never quite leaves her eyes, even when she’s smiling at her daughter or lost in a piece of music.
I think about Kira asking if someone hurt me like they hurt her mama.
I clench my fists at my sides. I want to find whoever did this, wrap my hands around their throat, and squeeze until they understand how it feels to be helpless and afraid. I want to make them suffer the way they made her suffer.
But I can’t do any of that. I’m here to investigate her, not protect her. I’m here to determine her guilt, not avenge her pain.
The bathroom door opens, and Daria walks out in sweatpants and a long-sleeved shirt that covers everything below her neck. She doesn’t look at me as she walks past, heading straight for the kitchen.
“Daria—”
“I don’t want to talk about it.”
“Someone hurt you.”
She stops with her back to me. Her shoulders rise and fall with a breath that seems to take enormous effort before she continues to the kitchen to prepare dinner.
She’s holding herself together through willpower, and I recognize the technique because I’ve used it myself.
After Syria. After Lana. After every mission that left scars on my soul that no one else could see.
She reminds me of a dove I found as a boy, one that had flown into a window and lay stunned on the ground.
It trembled in my hands when I picked it up, its heart beating so fast I thought it might die from fear alone.
I held it gently until it recovered enough to fly away.
Daria has that same quality—fragile and frightened, but with a quiet strength underneath.
Golubka, I think. Little dove. The nickname settles into my mind like it belongs there.
I don’t push, but I file the information away alongside everything else I’ve learned about Daria Kozlov.
Someone is hurting her. Someone is threatening her. Someone has left marks on her body and terror in her eyes.
And I’m starting to think that same someone is connected to the crimes she’s accused of.
That night, I lay in the narrow bed in the spare room and stare at the ceiling. Sleep refuses to come. I see her every time I close my eyes.
Her mouth parting when she saw me. The flush that spread across her chest before she grabbed the towel.
I shouldn’t be thinking about this. She’s my assignment. She’s potentially a traitor to the family I serve. But she’s also a frightened woman with a child who depends on her.
My cock doesn’t care about any of that.
I’ve been hard for hours, ever since I burst through that bathroom door and saw her standing there like something out of a fantasy I didn’t know I had. I try to ignore it. My body refuses.
I close my eyes, snake my hand under my waistband, and wrap my fingers around my length.
Wrong. Unprofessional.
But I’m only human, and I’ve been watching this woman for a week. Biting her lip when she’s concentrating on a difficult passage of music. Watching her hips sway when she walks and noticing the curve of her ass in her yoga pants.
I stroke myself slowly, hating my weakness even as I give in to it.
I imagine pushing her against the shower wall and the feeling of my chest hot against her breasts.
My mouth would find hers, and I’d kiss her until she forgets to be afraid, until the only thing she feels is want.
In my mind, one hand slides between her thighs, finding her slick and swollen, and I work her clit with my fingers until she’s grinding against my palm and begging for more.
I thrust into my fist, biting my tongue to keep from groaning.
My breath is ragged now. I’m close, and my cock throbs in my grip.
In my head, I’m inside her, under the running water, and she breaks with a gasp. Her nails rake my shoulders, and my name spills from her lips like she’s been waiting to say it.
Safe. Wanted. That’s how I’d make my little dove feel, until she forgets every hand that ever left bruises on her beautiful skin.
I come with a groan I can’t quite suppress, spilling over my fist in hot pulses. Her name stays trapped behind my teeth, bitten back so hard that I taste blood. Pleasure and rage twist inside me until I can’t tell where one ends and the other begins.
When it’s over, I lie there in the darkness, breathing hard and furiously.
I’m here to investigate her. Prove guilt or innocence.
Instead, I’m lying in her spare room with cum cooling on my stomach, thinking about killing whoever left those fingerprints on her arms.
The conflict between duty and desire tears at me. I want her. I want to protect her. I want to destroy whoever hurt her.
None of those align with my mission.