Chapter 10 – Anya
I stared at the quarterly financial reports scattered across my desk, numbers blurring together like watercolors in rain.
Milo’s voice still echoed in my head from our meeting an hour ago—profit margins, production costs, retail projections—but my mind refused to process any of it.
Instead, it kept drifting back to this morning, to the way Lev had looked at me when I’d mentioned Milo’s name.
That dark, possessive glare should have infuriated me.
Should have triggered every alarm bell I’d carefully constructed over the years about controlling men who thought they owned everything they touched.
I’d watched my friends suffer through relationships with men who monitored their every move, questioned their every decision, turned love into a cage.
But when Lev’s jaw had tightened at the sound of another man’s name on my lips, when his steel-gray eyes had gone molten with something primal and claiming, my traitorous heart had done a little flip instead of recoiling in disgust.
What the hell was wrong with me?
I closed my eyes and let myself remember the moment after Milo had called during our heated exchange this morning. Lev’s entire body had gone rigid, his voice dropping to that lethal whisper he used when he was about to break someone’s bones.
“Milo?” he’d asked, my name for my business partner sounding like a curse on his tongue.
I’d rushed to explain, words tumbling over each other. “He’s my business partner. We’re reviewing the quarterly reports today. He’s married to my best friend Irene. He’s not—there’s nothing—”
And Lev had simply nodded. That was it. No interrogation, no demands for proof, no insistence that I cut ties with any man who wasn’t him.
Just a single nod of acceptance, though I’d caught the ghost of a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth before he’d hidden it behind that impenetrable mask he wore.
That should have been a red flag too—how easily he’d accepted my explanation, how quickly that possessive fire had banked into something almost…pleased. Like he’d enjoyed seeing me flustered, enjoyed knowing that his jealousy affected me.
But instead of running, I’d found myself leaning into it. Craving more of that intensity, that focus, that feeling of being the center of someone’s universe, even if that someone was carved from shadows and violence.
God, I was losing my mind.
The sound of careful footsteps pulled me back to the present.
I looked up to see Sasha entering my office, her left shoulder hunched protectively, face pale but chin set with determination.
The white bandage peeking out from beneath her cream sweater was a stark reminder of yesterday’s attack, of how close I’d come to losing her.
I shot to my feet, papers fluttering to the floor. “Why on earth are you here? You should be home resting, not—”
Sasha waved me off with a half-smile that didn’t quite hide the pain in her icy blue eyes. She settled carefully into the chair across from my desk, moving like every bone in her body ached. “Anya Antonov can’t function without Sasha Drexel.”
I opened my mouth to protest, to insist that I was perfectly capable of managing on my own, that her health was more important than any work crisis.
But the words died on my tongue because we both knew it was true.
Today had been the first day I’d worked without hitting walls every five minutes, without second-guessing every decision, without feeling like I was drowning in responsibilities that used to feel manageable.
“You’re an idiot,” I said instead, but my voice was soft with affection. “A stubborn, reckless idiot.”
“Takes one to know one.” Sasha’s smile became more genuine. “Besides, someone needs to make sure you don’t accidentally bankrupt us while you’re distracted by your new husband.”
Heat flooded my cheeks. “I’m not distracted.”
“Right. And I wasn’t shot yesterday.” She pulled out her tablet with her good arm. “Now, can we please review these vendor contracts? Because three suppliers are threatening to pull out if we don’t respond by tomorrow.”
We worked in comfortable silence for the next few hours, falling into the familiar rhythm we’d developed over the past two years.
Sasha had always been more than just an assistant—she was my anchor, my voice of reason, the one person who could call me on my bullshit without making me feel defensive.
By the time the Chicago skyline was painted gold with the setting sun, we’d managed to salvage two of the vendor relationships and find alternatives for the third.
My phone had been buzzing intermittently throughout the afternoon, Maxim’s name flashing across the screen like an accusation.
Each time, I’d rejected the call without hesitation.
When it happened for the fifth time, Sasha looked up from her tablet. “You know he’s just worried about you.”
I shook my head, jaw clenching. “I won’t talk to him. He made me marry the person I hate the most.”
The words came out harsher than I’d intended, bitter and final. But even as I said them, something twisted in my chest. A voice in the back of my head whispered that maybe, just maybe, I was lying to myself.
Sasha tilted her head, studying my face with those perceptive eyes that missed nothing. When she spoke, her voice was gentle but relentless. “Are you sure you hate Lev?”
The question hit me like a physical blow. I felt my carefully constructed walls trembling, threatening to crumble under the weight of truths I wasn’t ready to acknowledge.
“Of course I hate him,” I said quickly. “He’s everything I despise about the Bratva world. He’s violent and controlling and—”
“And you can’t stop thinking about him.”
I glared at her. “That’s not—”
“And you married him instead of running away to Italy like you could have.”
“Maxim gave me an ultimatum. I didn’t have a choice.”
“There’s always a choice, Anya. You chose him.”
Before I could deflect or deny or build another wall between myself and the uncomfortable truth, my phone buzzed again. But this time it wasn’t Maxim’s name on the screen.
Eleanor.
I answered without thinking, pressing the phone to my ear. “Eleanor? What—”
“Anya.” Her voice sliced through the connection like a blade, sharp with panic and barely controlled terror. “Lev has been attacked. He’s been taken to Bratva Hospital.”
The world tilted sideways.
My heart slammed into my ribs so hard I thought it might burst. The phone slipped in my suddenly nerveless fingers, and I had to grip it with both hands to keep from dropping it.
“What?” The word came out as barely a whisper. “What do you mean attacked? How bad is—is he—”
“I don’t know the details. Drew called me. All I know is that there was shooting, and Lev was hit. You need to get to the hospital now.”
The line went dead.
For a moment, I couldn’t move. Couldn’t breathe. The office around me felt like it was dissolving, reality blurring at the edges as Eleanor’s words echoed in my head.
Lev has been attacked.
Lev was hurt.
Lev might be….
No. I shoved that thought away before it could take root. He was too stubborn to die. Too mean. Too determined to make my life complicated to just give up and leave me alone.
But the fear that gripped me was unlike anything I’d ever experienced. It was primal, visceral, a terror that reached down into the deepest parts of me and squeezed until I couldn’t think straight.
I moved without conscious decision, muscle memory taking over where rational thought had failed. My hands went to the bottom drawer of my desk, fingers finding the hidden catch that Maxim had installed years ago. The drawer slid open silently, revealing the arsenal I’d hoped I’d never need to use.
The black leather sheath held three throwing knives, their edges honed to surgical sharpness.
I’d learned to use them when I was sixteen, during one of Maxim’s paranoid phases when he’d insisted I know how to defend myself.
I’d hated every lesson, hated the feel of the blades in my hands, hated what they represented.
But now I tucked one beneath my wrist with steady fingers, the familiar weight both comforting and terrifying.
Next came the small Glock that Maxim had given me on my twenty-first birthday. “Just in case,” he’d said, and I’d rolled my eyes and shoved it in the drawer, never imagining I’d actually need it.
The gun felt heavier than I remembered as I checked the clip, muscle memory guiding my movements. Seven rounds. Enough to make a statement.
“Anya?” Sasha’s voice seemed to come from very far away. “What are you doing?”
I looked up to find her staring at me with wide eyes, face pale with shock. Right. Normal people didn’t keep weapons in their office desks. Normal people didn’t respond to a crisis by arming themselves for war.
But I wasn’t a normal person. I was Maxim Voronov’s sister, raised in the shadows of the Bratva world even as I’d tried to escape it. I was Anya Antonov now, whether I’d wanted that name or not.
And my husband was lying in a hospital bed, possibly dying, while his enemies circled like vultures.
I stood up slowly, shoulders squaring, spine straightening. The fear was still there, clawing at my insides like a living thing. But underneath it was something else. Something cold and sharp and utterly ruthless.
“I’m done being a delicate designer,” I said, my voice steady despite the chaos raging inside me. “I’m done hiding behind other people while they fight my battles.”
Sasha struggled to her feet, wincing as the movement pulled at her injured shoulder. “Anya, you can’t just—”
“Can’t what? Can’t protect what’s mine?” The words slipped out before I could stop them, and I felt something shift inside my chest. A lock clicking open. A truth finally acknowledged.
Mine.
When had I started thinking of Lev as mine?
“Stay here,” I told Sasha, tucking the Glock into the waistband of my skirt where my blazer would hide it. “Lock the doors after I leave. Don’t let anyone in except Eleanor or Drew.”
“Where are you going?”
I paused at the door, hand on the handle. When I looked back at her, I knew my eyes held the same cold fire I’d seen in Maxim’s when someone threatened our family.
“I’m going to the hospital. And if whoever did this to Lev thinks they can use him to get to me….” I smiled, and it felt like broken glass. “They’re about to learn why Maxim Voronov spent so many years teaching his little sister how to fight.”
I walked out of my office and didn’t look back.
The elevator ride to the parking garage felt endless.
My reflection in the polished steel doors showed a woman I barely recognized—sharp-edged and dangerous, with ice in her eyes and violence humming beneath her skin.
This wasn’t the sunny, optimistic designer who’d built a fashion empire on dreams and determination.
This was someone else entirely. Someone who’d been sleeping beneath the surface all these years, waiting for the right moment to wake up.
As the elevator doors opened and I stepped into the shadowy garage, one thought echoed in my head with crystal clarity:
I wasn’t just going to check on Lev.
I was ready to face whatever danger was out there and burn it all to the ground.
Because somewhere between hating him and marrying him, between fighting him and falling into his bed, Lev Antonov had become something I couldn’t afford to lose.
And I’d destroy anyone who tried to take him from me.