Chapter 6 – Anya #2
For a moment, I thought he might argue. His jaw worked silently as he weighed his options, clearly torn between following orders and recognizing the logical flaw in those orders. Finally, he gave a curt nod.
“Twenty minutes,” he said firmly. “If you don’t answer your phone when I call, I’m coming back here with reinforcements.”
I waved him off with false cheer, watching as he held the passenger door open for Sasha with old-world courtesy that seemed at odds with his dangerous reputation.
They pulled out of the driveway in formation—Sasha in my Audi, Drew following closely behind in his sedan—and I was finally, blessedly alone.
The silence that settled over the mansion felt different than usual. Heavier, somehow. Charged with the kind of tension that made the hair on the back of my neck stand up. I told myself it was just my imagination, a side effect of the stress and emotional upheaval of the past twenty-four hours.
I was wrong.
The first gunshot shattered my living room window, sending glass cascading across the hardwood floors like deadly rain. I dropped to my knees behind the couch, my heart hammering against my ribs as my mind struggled to process what was happening.
More shots followed—a steady barrage that turned my peaceful sanctuary into a war zone.
I could hear them hitting the exterior walls, the front door, the windows that faced the circular driveway.
Professional work, methodical and thorough, designed to pin down anyone inside while the shooters repositioned.
Through the chaos, I heard the distinctive sound of my Audi’s engine roaring as Drew executed what sounded like a desperate U-turn. Tires screamed against asphalt, and I realized with growing horror that they were still close enough to be caught in the crossfire.
My phone was in my hand before I’d consciously decided to reach for it, muscle memory taking over as higher brain functions shut down under the weight of pure terror.
There was only one number I could think to call, only one person whose voice might cut through the panic that was threatening to drown me.
“Lev.” His name came out as barely more than a whisper, my throat closed with fear.
“Anya?” The sound of his voice—sharp with immediate concern—made something inside me crack open. “What’s wrong?”
“Shooting,” I managed, flinching as another volley of bullets peppered the front of the house. “They’re shooting at the house. Drew and Sasha—they were leaving, and—”
“Where are you now?” His voice had gone cold and professional, the same tone I’d heard him use when discussing business with my brother.
“Living room. Behind the couch.” I could hear shouting outside now, voices calling orders in what sounded like Ukrainian. “I think they’re moving closer.”
“Stay down. Stay exactly where you are. I’m coming.”
The line went dead, and I was alone again with the sound of systematic destruction and my own ragged breathing.
Minutes stretched like hours as I huddled behind my inadequate shelter, listening to my beautiful home being torn apart by people who wanted me dead for reasons I couldn’t even begin to fathom.
When the shooting finally stopped, the silence was almost worse than the noise had been. I strained to hear footsteps, voices, any sign of what was happening beyond my shattered windows. Instead, there was only the distant sound of sirens and my own pulse thundering in my ears.
My phone rang, and I nearly jumped out of my skin before recognizing Drew’s number.
“Are you hurt?” His voice was tight with controlled urgency.
“No,” I whispered. “Scared, but not hurt. What about Sasha? Is she—”
“She took a bullet in the shoulder, but she’s conscious and stable. Paramedics are with her now.” I heard him speaking to someone else in rapid Russian before coming back on the line. “I’m coming to get you. Stay where you are.”
The next few minutes passed in a blur of sirens and shouted orders and the sound of heavy boots on broken glass. Drew appeared in my ruined doorway like an avenging angel, his clothes torn and bloodstained, but his movements steady and sure.
“Come on,” he said, extending a hand to help me up. “We need to get you somewhere safe.”
I let him pull me to my feet, my legs shaking with residual adrenaline as I surveyed the destruction of my sanctuary. Bullet holes decorated the walls like some kind of modern art installation, and glass crunched under my feet as we picked our way toward the door.
Outside, the scene looked like something from a war movie.
Police cars and ambulances lined the circular driveway, their red and blue lights painting everything in harsh, shifting colors.
Crime scene tape fluttered in the evening breeze, and uniformed officers moved with the kind of grim efficiency that spoke of experience with this type of violence.
I saw Sasha being loaded into an ambulance, her face pale but determined as a paramedic worked on her shoulder. Our eyes met across the chaos, and she managed a weak smile that made my chest tighten with guilt and relief in equal measure.
“This is my fault,” I said, the words scraping out of my throat like glass. “If I hadn’t made her take my car—”
“This isn’t your fault.” Drew’s voice cut through my spiraling guilt with surgical precision. “This is the fault of whoever ordered the hit. Everything else is just circumstance.”
Before I could respond, another car pulled into the driveway—sleek and black and moving with the kind of controlled aggression that I recognized immediately.
Lev emerged from the driver’s seat like something out of a nightmare, his face carved from stone and his eyes scanning the scene with predatory intensity.
When his gaze found mine, something shifted in his expression—relief so sharp it was almost pain, followed immediately by a fury so cold it made me shiver despite the warm evening air.
He crossed the distance between us in long strides, his hands reaching for me before he seemed to catch himself. For a moment, we stood frozen in the space between wanting and holding back, surrounded by the evidence of how quickly everything safe could be destroyed.
“Are you hurt?” His voice was rough, scraped raw with an emotion I couldn’t identify.
“No,” I said, and then, because I couldn’t help myself: “I called you.”
Something flickered behind his eyes—satisfaction maybe, that I’d turned to him when my world was falling apart. Before either of us could say anything else, my phone rang with Maxim’s distinctive ringtone.
I answered without thinking, my brother’s voice exploding from the speaker with a fury that made even Lev take a step back.
“What the fuck happened?” Maxim’s accent was thicker than usual, a sure sign that his temper was running white-hot. “Drew called me, said there was shooting. Are you hurt? Is Sasha—”
“I’m fine,” I interrupted, suddenly exhausted by the weight of everyone’s concern and guilt and barely controlled rage. “Shaken up, but fine. Sasha’s in an ambulance, but the paramedics said she’ll be okay.”
“This ends now.” Maxim’s voice had gone dangerously quiet, the kind of calm that preceded volcanic eruptions. “You have two choices, Anya. Marry Lev and move into his penthouse where he can protect you properly, or get on a plane to Italy tonight and stay there until this is over.”
The words hit me like a physical blow, each option more impossible than the last. Marriage to a man who thought I was a mistake, or exile to a foreign country, while everyone I cared about remained in the line of fire.
“Those aren’t choices,” I said, my voice rising with panic and frustration. “Those are ultimatums. I have a business to run, a life. You can’t just say the first thing that comes to mind and expect everyone to run with it!”
“Your life won’t mean much if you’re dead.” Maxim’s voice softened slightly, but the steel underneath remained unmistakable. “I’ll talk to Lev, and I’m sure he’ll agree to this. It’s for your own safety. I’m not negotiating on this, little sister. Choose, or I’ll choose for you.”
I looked around at the destruction of my home, at the blood on Drew’s clothes and the flashing lights that turned everything surreal. At Lev, who stood watching me with an expression I couldn’t read, waiting for me to decide between two different kinds of surrender.
The choice, when it came, felt less like a decision and more like gravity—inevitable and irresistible.
“Fine,” I said, my voice steady despite the chaos in my chest. “I’ll marry him.”
***
The courthouse was sterile and impersonal, all fluorescent lights and beige walls that seemed designed to drain the romance out of any ceremony conducted within them. Which was fitting, really, because there was nothing romantic about what we were doing.
I stood in front of a bored-looking clerk dressed in a polyester suit, still wearing the same clothes I had on when my house was attacked—jeans and a blouse now wrinkled and stained with dust from hiding behind furniture.
My hair was pulled back in a messy ponytail, and I hadn’t bothered with makeup.
This wasn’t a celebration. It was a transaction. ’’’
Lev stood beside me in his usual armor of expensive tailoring, looking like he’d just stepped out of a board meeting rather than the chaos we’d left behind. Only the tightness around his eyes betrayed any emotion at all—exhaustion, maybe, or resignation to a future neither of us had planned.
Maxim and Drew served as witnesses, both of them wearing expressions that fell somewhere between grim satisfaction and concern.
My brother had moved heaven and earth to make this happen within hours of my agreement, pulling strings I didn’t want to think too hard about to expedite the marriage license and find a judge willing to perform the ceremony after regular hours.
“Do you, Levente Mikhailovich Antonov, take this woman to be your lawfully wedded wife?”
Lev’s jaw tightened almost imperceptibly. “I do.”
The clerk turned to me, his voice maintaining that same monotone quality that suggested he’d performed this ceremony a thousand times and would perform it a thousand more. “Do you, Anya Maksimovna Voronov, take this man to be your lawfully wedded husband?”
I looked up at Lev, searching his face for some sign of what he was feeling.
But his expression remained carefully blank, those steel-gray eyes giving nothing away.
This was the man who’d held me through the night after his father died, who’d touched me with a hunger that had felt like salvation.
And now he was marrying me out of obligation, because my brother had demanded it and circumstances had left us with no better options.
“I do,” I whispered.
“By the power vested in me by the State of Illinois, I now pronounce you husband and wife.” The clerk closed his book with an audible thump. “You may kiss the bride.”
For a moment, neither of us moved. The air between us felt charged with all the words we weren’t saying, all the things that had led us to this moment—grief and desire and a single night that had complicated everything.
Then Lev’s hand came up to cup my jaw, his thumb brushing across my cheekbone with unexpected gentleness. He leaned down slowly, giving me time to pull away if I wanted to. I didn’t.
The kiss was brief and chaste, nothing like the desperate claiming from that night in his bed. But I felt it everywhere—the warmth of his lips, the familiar scent of his cologne, the way my heart stuttered in my chest like it was trying to remember how to beat.
When he pulled back, his eyes held something that might have been regret or longing or some combination of both. Then the moment passed, and his expression shuttered closed again.
“Congratulations,” Maxim said, his voice carrying none of the warmth the word should have held. He pulled me into a brief, fierce hug. “You’re safe now. That’s what matters.”
Safe. The word echoed in my head as Lev signed the marriage certificate with bold, confident strokes. As Drew clapped him on the shoulder with careful neutrality. As we walked out of that courthouse into the Chicago night, we were legally bound to each other but felt more like strangers than ever.
I was safe. Protected. Sheltered under the shield of Lev’s name and reputation.
But as I climbed into his car and watched the courthouse disappear in the rearview mirror, I couldn’t shake the feeling that I’d just traded one kind of danger for another—this one far more insidious because it lived inside my own heart.