Chapter 7 Peaches And Gunpowder
PEACHES AND GUNPOWDER
DANI
The penthouse door slammed behind us with the sound of something heavy being sealed. Coffin. Vault. Trap. Take your pick.
Something in me finally snapped.
My stilettos came off first. I kicked them like they’d personally offended me. One slammed into a marble column with a satisfying crack. The other skittered under the couch like it was trying to escape this circus too.
Good. Let something in this place run for its life.
“You almost got me killed over peaches!” I spun to face him, the words ricocheting off glass and stone and the quiet tick of whatever five-thousand-dollar clock lived in this museum. “Fucking peaches, Konstantin.”
Outside, beyond the floor-to-ceiling windows, snow dusted the city in fake innocence. Down there, people were probably slipping on ice and complaining about slush. Up here, I was yelling at a Bratva kingpin about Whole Foods.
Life came at you fast.
I couldn’t control being kidnapped from a Christmas tree lot. Couldn’t control being fake-engaged to a man who used words like “liability” and “acquisition” in sentences about me. Couldn’t control the way my body lit up every time he got within a two-foot radius.
But I could control this.
This fury. This ugly, blistering thing that felt a hell of a lot safer than the want underneath.
He watched me come apart like it was mildly interesting dinner entertainment.
Still in the suit from the restaurant, dark wool and darker shirt, he stood there in the entryway, snowmelt beading on the shoulders of his coat. Not even breathing hard. Like hauling me through a room full of wolves and back out into the freezing night hadn’t dented his heart rate.
“You’re being dramatic,” he said, voice calm enough to make my teeth grind. “No one almost killed you.”
Dramatic.
“Oh, I’m sorry,” I snapped. “Next time someone calls me a liability in front of a table full of armed sociopaths, I’ll just giggle and ask for the wine pairing.”
Something moved behind his eyes. Not amusement. Something darker, heavier.
He stepped toward me.
Predator-smooth. Like the space between us was a decision he’d already made.
“No one was going to hurt you,” he said.
“Bullshit.” I backed up, bare soles sliding on cold marble. The silk of the dress whispered around my knees. “I heard what they said. I saw how they looked at me. Like a problem. Like something that needed… handling.”
Like something that could vanish, and the room would shrug and order another bottle.
“What did you think would happen?” His voice roughened, that dangerous edge creeping in. “That you’d walk into my world and everyone would clap and throw confetti? ‘Congratulations, Konstantin, on your stray from the Christmas tree lot’?”
“I didn’t choose your world!” The words tore out of me, sharp and jagged. “You dragged me into it. You and your stupid fake proposal and your—”
“My what?” He closed the distance, winter coat brushing the silk at my hips. “My what, kotyonok?”
He smelled like cold air and expensive cologne and the restaurant’s wood smoke, all layered over the darker, male thing that had already become a problem for my nervous system.
Don’t say it. Don’t hand him the word. Don’t gift-wrap your insanity and tie it with a bow.
“Your everything,” I whispered.
It sounded pathetic even to me.
Silence fell heavy between us. The only sounds were the hum of the vents and the far-off city and my own heartbeat punching my ribs.
His jaw tightened. A muscle flickered. For a second—just one—regret ghosted across his face. Or hunger. With Konstantin, those two things lived in the same bone structure.
“You want truth?” he asked, stepping forward again.
I kept moving back until my shoulders hit cool glass.
Ice radiated through the thin silk, the opposite of the heat rolling off him as he caged me between his body and the window.
The Christmas tree glowed in my peripheral vision, white lights reflecting in the glass around us like we were standing in a snow globe.
“You were dead the moment you saw what happened in that lot,” he said, voice low. “Dead, Dani. Only reason you breathe now is because I decided you were worth keeping alive.”
Worth keeping.
Like a pet.
Like a particularly interesting coat.
“If I didn’t want you alive,” he went on, every word another nail in the coffin he’d mentioned earlier, “you’d be under snow already. In that same lot. With a bullet in pretty head.”
A smart woman would’ve crumpled. A sane woman would’ve begged.
Instead, something reckless flared in my veins, hot as gunpowder.
“Then stop acting like a man who’s already digging the grave,” I shot back.
There it was.
The thing neither of us wanted to say out loud: that I was one decision away from a shallow hole and some pine needles, and he was one bad day away from making that call.
His eyes flashed.
Beautiful, lethal, pale. Like winter light over frozen river.
The air between us crackled. All the things we weren’t saying—about bodies and choices and the way I’d let him fuck me against his bedroom wall and groan his name like it mattered—hung between us.
We were only a foot apart, breathing like we’d just run instead of verbally sparred. I could see his pulse beating in his throat. Feel the heat of him even through the layers of coat and silk. My own blood roared loud enough to drown out whatever common sense I had left.
He reached up.
Slowly. Deliberately. Giving me all the time in the world to duck, slap his hand away, ask what the hell he thought he was doing.
I didn’t move.
His fingers brushed my cheek. Callused pads dragging a line of fire across my skin as he tucked a strand of hair behind my ear.
I wanted to bite his hand.
I wanted to drag it down my body.
What was wrong with me.
My breath hitched. Anger didn’t drain away; it just mixed with something darker until I couldn’t tell which was which anymore.
“Tell me to stop,” he whispered, thumb tracing my jaw. “Say no. I walk away.”
Say it.
Say no. Say stop. Say you’re done lighting yourself on fire for a man who carries matches for fun.
Mouth opened.
Nothing came out.
The word sat there, heavy and useless, lodged in my throat. Because despite everything—the murder, the kidnapping, the dinner with men who thought “liability” was a polite way to say “problem to erase”—I didn’t want him to stop.
I wanted him to keep touching me like I wasn’t an accident. Like I wasn’t just “useful.” Like I belonged to something other than my own fears.
Logical thoughts flickered like dying Christmas bulbs.
He’s killed more people than you can imagine.
He controls every inch of your existence right now.
And when his hands slid from my jaw down to my waist—slow, deliberate, claiming—every one of those reasonable thoughts went up in smoke.
His palms landed on my hips, heavy and hot through the thin silk. He squeezed, pulling me closer until my chest brushed his coat.
For a heartbeat, I let myself lean into it. Into him.
Let myself imagine what it would be like to stop fighting the gravity between us. To let go and just fall, even if the landing broke every bone in my emotional body.
Then reality slammed back through my skull like ice water.
Image: him in the tree lot. Snow underfoot. Blood splattered across green needles and fake cranberries. Gun in hand, face blank. The mechanical way he’d checked for a pulse. The cool calculation in his eyes when they’d found mine and he’d decided whether I lived or died.
He was a killer.
Not metaphorically. Literally. Professionally.
Beautiful, dangerous, and absolutely capable of putting a bullet in me if I stopped being useful.
I shoved him. Hard.
Two palms to his chest. Every ounce of strength.
He stepped back a fraction, more because he allowed it than because I’d actually moved him. Space rushed in between us like oxygen in a suffocating room.
My skin burned where his hands had been. My body screamed at me for the loss of contact.
“Don’t,” I said, my voice shaking with a cocktail of fear and something I refused to name. “Just… don’t.”
Run, idiot.
Lock a door between you and whatever this is before you do something you can’t undo.
I turned and bolted. Bare feet slapping against the marble, dress hissing around my legs, the Christmas tree’s cold glow following me down the hall like a ghost.
I didn’t look back, but I felt his eyes on me all the way to the master bath.
I slammed the door. Twisted the lock like it meant anything against a man like him. My hands were shaking so hard it took two tries.
Breathe.
Just breathe.
The mirror over the vanity didn’t care about my directives. It shoved the truth in my face.
Smudged makeup. Hair mussed from his fingers, lipstick blurred at the edges from biting it in the car and at the restaurant and in here. Eyes too bright. Lips swollen.
I looked wrecked.
And thoroughly, shamefully, pleased about it.
The dress turned me into his idea of perfection—dangerous, slick, weaponized. Seeing myself like this, knowing what he’d already done to my body and what I’d let him do, made something sharp twist in my chest.
I pressed my palms to the cold marble counter. Let the chill seep into my bones.
I wanted him.
Simple. Brutal. Inarguable.
I wanted the man who’d stood in a Christmas tree lot, ordered a murder, and then dragged me out instead of putting a bullet in my head. The man who’d pinned me up against bathroom tile while water ran and my 911 call died between his fingers. The man who could end me with a word.
And the worst part—the truly terrifying, panic-worthy part—was knowing he wanted me, too.
Not just as a witness. Not just as a political solution. As a woman.
That knowledge crackled under my skin like static electricity. Every time he looked at me. Every time he said mine like a promise and a threat.
This wasn’t just survival anymore.
Wasn’t just about playing his fiancée until I found a way out.
This was about the way my pulse skipped when he said my name. The way my whole body tuned itself to his presence in a room. The way I’d backed up against glass instead of running the second we got through that door.
I was falling for my captor.
Becoming every cautionary tale I’d ever screamed at through a screen. “Don’t do it, you idiot. He’s the villain. Run.”
Through the door, I heard him moving around the penthouse. Slow, controlled steps. No raised voice. No slammed cabinets. Just that constant, looming presence pressing against my nerves like weight.
He was thinking.
Planning.
Deciding what to do with a fake fiancée who wasn’t acting like a convenient prop anymore.
Maybe that’s good, a traitorous voice whispered. Maybe if you’re too much trouble, he’ll decide you’re not worth the hassle.
He didn’t strike me as the type to let go of anything once he’d wrapped his hands around it.
Somewhere between the shower night and the restaurant and that almost-touch in front of the window, I’d become his.
God help me, I’d let myself become his.
The realization should’ve sent me tearing apart drawers for a weapon. Knives, razors, anything sharp enough to cut myself loose.
Instead, it sent heat racing through my veins and left me staring at the bathroom door, wondering what would happen if I opened it.
You’re losing your mind, I told my reflection. You’re catching feelings for a man whose hobbies include charity galas and collecting corpses.
The woman in the mirror didn’t look insane.
She looked hungry.
That was the most terrifying thing of all.
I don’t know how long I stayed in there, gripping the counter like it could anchor me to common sense.
Long enough for the snow outside to thicken, turning the city into a blur.
Long enough for his footsteps to fade into other sounds—the faint clink of glass, the low murmur of Russian into his phone, the soft click of the office door.
Eventually, the penthouse went quiet.
He was still here. I could feel it. Like gravity. Like a storm sitting just off the coast.
He was waiting.
He knew I couldn’t hide in here forever.
When I finally got my fingers to unclench from the marble and cracked the door open, the living room was empty. My discarded shoes sat near the doorway where they’d crashed, one heel chipped like a casualty.