THIRTY-ONE
Nastasya
M y phone connects with my nightstand and promptly slides off to hit the carpet with a dull thud. I don’t care enough to pick it up. I don’t care enough to do much at all. Benito left in the early hours, as agreed, and my fucking heart went with him.
If I could have curled into a tiny little ball and slipped myself in his pocket, I would have.
But I can’t. So here I lie, ruing the fucking house I woke up in while he’s out fuck knows where doing God knows what.
I should be there to help him, but that’s the sickly truth of my existence—nobody needs me to do shit. Although my office team sends me copies of anything they deem relevant, they’re content to operate my business without me. My father tells me jack-shit about the marriage agreement he included me in.
And my only true friend lies six feet under God only knows where.
Breath shudders into my lungs as I stare at the creeping crack in the plaster above my bed. I haven’t felt this isolated since Mama died. Alone, sure. But isolated? Nope. I had my ways and means of pretending I was a part of something—my business being chief among those.
Nothing to fool you into thinking you matter, like surrounding yourself with false friends.
Because that’s all they were. People paid to act as though my every thought and idea mattered. But where are they now? Where is the compassion when I need it most?
Absent.
Just like my fucking father.
I swivel to the side of the bed with a sigh and slam my feet down on the floor. Fingers clutched around the edge of the mattress, I stare down at the chipped paint on my toenails and draw a deep breath. Reveling in my misery won’t achieve anything. I may not understand why it is I keep finding myself back here, in this weird state of nothingness between wishing for more and hoping for less—for death—but I know one thing without a shadow of a doubt.
I can’t stay here.
And the only way I’m guaranteed to get out of this perpetual state of misery is to do something contrary to it. Fake it until I make it. Slap that fucking mask on for another day and make waves toward being the person I wish I were.
Having the life I feel I deserve.
With clean jeans and a soft sweater draped over pointlessly provocative lingerie, I pad toward my bedroom door and wrench it open, damn well knowing who’ll be on the other side.
“Miss Stasya,” Ivan greets, legs wide, from where he sits on a dining chair he repurposed to be his post opposite my room.
He slides his phone into a breast pocket, tucked inside his thick jacket.
“Is my father home?”
Ivan shakes his head. “Left an hour ago. He’ll be back soon, though.”
Of course, he did. He can fucking escape this prison despite the threats to his life over the years. But me? Fuck no. Couldn’t have a little lady running rampant through the world unprotected, now, could we? Imagine what could happen to her.
More like, imagine the damage she could do if yesterday’s bullshit is anything to go by.
“Did he take Dmitry?”
Ivan shakes his solid head.
I raise my chin. “Bring him to me, please.” I slam the door in the asshole’s face and turn to stamp both hands on my hips.
Appealing to my father’s sovietnik brings risk, but after the confrontation before I left yesterday, I feel confident that the man may be somewhat on my side rather than my father’s.
I expected to feel relief after taking out Caroline’s killers. Some closure or sense of justice. What I didn’t expect was to find myself standing in the center of my room while I stare at the rug underfoot as though it’ll sprout a mouth and tell me what the fuck to do next.
I feel… empty. Their deaths didn’t erase Caroline’s. There wasn’t some great righting of the scales of injustice where she magically returned to life when I exchanged their souls for hers. There’s just… more death.
More holes in the world where people used to be.
By the time Dmitry knocks on my door, my makeup is flawless, my hair perfectly styled into a mirage of messy indifference, long waves tumbling from an over-plumped ponytail. Nothing distracts the mind like vapid time spent in front of a mirror, creating a facade for the world.
“You wanted to see me, Miss Nastasya?” He stands hesitantly in the doorway, his combat boots laced over his drill pants and a black short-sleeve button-down shirt open at the collar to create an air of casual ease.
The muscles that roll and swell as he clasps his hands behind his back tell me otherwise.
“Yes. Thank you.” I rise from my position in the small armchair near the window and set my phone down on the side table. “My father tasked you with investigating the incident with Caroline and me, am I right?”
He licks his lips and states a stiff, “ Da .”
“What have you found?”
Gaze trained over my head, Dmitry flexes his jaw before answering. “I was instructed to redirect my focus two days ago.”
My stomach clenches. “By who?”
“I think you know that, Miss.” He continues to gaze at the wall behind me, words softly falling between us.
I swallow down the bolt of betrayal. “What did you discover before you were instructed to abandon it?” I edge toward our sovietnik slowly, fearing the distance between us may cause me to misunderstand his even words.
“I discovered much the same as you did.” His gaze finally drops to me, a firm stare eliciting prickles across my skin as I move. “I believe you took your investigation one step further than I did, though.”
“What are you saying, Dmitry?”
“Did he kill them?” Papa’s favorite soldier asks. “Or did he make you do it?” A twinge of pain flashes in his eye before he flattens his mouth and waits for me to answer.
“Benito didn’t make me do anything I wasn’t ready to do.”
Dmitry sighs, eyes lifting to stare over my head once more.
“Say it.”
“Say what, Miss?”
I stop inches from my father’s most loyal killer; my head tilted a little to look him in his avoidant eye. “Whatever is on your mind.”
He hesitates, breath heaving from his nose and gusting at my hair before he speaks. “You were better off staying out of that side of the business, Miss Nastasya.”
“Why?” I fold my arms, growing increasingly frustrated that he won’t fucking look at me.
“Because it is no place for you.”
“For a woman?” I snap. “Don’t tell me you believe the same bullshit rhetoric as my father.”
His goddamn chin drops, gaze spearing me with angry intensity as he says, “For a compassionate heart. Killing is done by those of us who’ve forgotten how to feel, Miss. You still have good left in your heart—don’t be so quick to trade it away.”
A heart that currently beats faster than it really should. “I’m more than capable of deciding my place.” I turn away, seeking room to breathe. “What I’m really tired of is people fucking assuming I’m so goddamn fragile. That I need protection.”
His boot steps follow me farther into the room. “You need preserving,” Dmitry stresses.
I turn again to find him a few feet away, hands flexing at his sides as he seemingly tries to take back his impulsive words.
“Oh, don’t stop now,” I coax, voice low. “You have me intrigued. What else do you honestly think about me?”
He sighs, brushing a palm over his bent head. The rigid soldier is gone, replaced with a man torn by thoughts that have never been given a voice until now. “Our brothers in the homeland laugh in our faces, Miss Nastasya.” His shoulders drop. “Your father… He was a good leader at first. Firm. Fearsome. But lately…” He shakes his head. “I shouldn’t be saying any of this.”
I sidestep the man and pace toward where Ivan sits outside my door, feigning interest in his phone again. The kachki glances up in time to see me slam the door in his face. Predictably, no sooner than I turn my back, three firm knocks echo around my room.
“What?” I holler the question through the wood.
“You are not to be alone with men in your room,” Ivan states, muffled by the obstruction.
I jerk the door open, the handle clenched in my grasp. “I am engaged to Benito De Santis ,” I growl. “Do you honestly think I’d shut the door on you so that I can fuck my father’s sovietnik when my goddamn husband-to-be is nicknamed The Janitor?” I hitch an eyebrow and wait for an answer.
Ivan swallows, brow firm. “The rules set by your father?—”
“Are bullshit.” I slam the door for the umpteenth time and kick it for good measure.
Dmitry’s chuckle draws me around. Chest heaving, I force myself to pull in a centering breath and count to eight as I slowly release it. “Sorry.”
“Don’t be.”
“I’m a fucking grown woman, and he treats me like a goddamn child.”
“Which is what we were talking about.” Dmitry touches his fingertips idly to the edge of my bed. “Yes, you require some training. Experience. But you are a better fit to lead this family, Nastasya. I’ve been waiting for your father to see that, too.”
“But he won’t.”
“He can’t.” Dmitry meets my eye and shrugs. “Or maybe he does, and he’s afraid of what he finds.”
“You’re not the first person to say that.”
“Benito?” He lifts an eyebrow.
I nod. “He thinks my father fears my power. Feels I’ll overshadow him if I took control.”
“Your fiancé is a smart man.”
“He is,” I agree softly. A beat passes before I say, “I need your help, Dmitry.” I stroll past him and drop into the chair by the window again. Birds dance on the sill outside, startled by my movement. “Benito took me to the crash site a few nights ago.” His jaw stiffens, brow diving. “It helped me remember things I suppressed. Overlooked. “ I wave a dismissive hand. “Whatever you want to call it.”
“Like?”
“The killers didn’t drive back out the way they came in that night,” I confess. “They drove into Caroline’s gated community. If they were after me, why would they do that?”
“Perhaps you should have asked them before you killed them.” He leans a shoulder into the wall beside my bathroom door, arms folded as he watches me.
“It slipped my mind to in the heat of the moment.” One elbow on the rolled arm of the chair, I rest my head in the palm of my hand. “It was… chaos at best.”
“Killing people isn’t often a walk in the park, Miss.”
“I didn’t think it was,” I snap, gazing at him beneath my brow.
“What do you need me to do?” Dmitry asks, his face a mask of indifference.
I take stock of the man before me: more relaxed since he walked in, but still with that powerful poise only a man who’s dedicated his life to protecting another can hold. “You know everything my father does, yes?”
“Mostly.”
I hesitate. Do I let him know how much I know? Do I give away that piece of me so easily? How else will you get answers? “Ignazio paid the men to kill Caroline.” I shrug. “Well, me, for all intents and purposes. I want to know why.”
He sighs out his nose.
“And before you give me bullshit about being places I don’t belong, this is my place, Dmitry.” I scoot forward on the seat. “They put a bullet through the eye of my best friend. A bullet meant for me. I have every damn right to know what’s going on here. To understand why, after almost a decade, my father contradicts his word to me and places me in the house of our enemy.”
“I don’t think they’re as much an enemy as you may believe.” His fingertips rap across my dresser.
“I don’t think they are, either.” I search his gaze and find only curiosity and a readiness to act on my behalf. “Papa met with Ignazio nine and a half years ago. The same week, my father ordered me to cut all ties with Benito. With the De Santis family. They were up to something, and given recent events, I think it’s only fair and reasonable that I know.” I sigh. “That I, at least, enter their house as prepared as possible.”
“You want me to find out what they met about?” He seems as surprised as I was to learn of the collusion between my father and Benito’s uncle.
I nod. “I need to know why, after so long, they’ve decided to resurrect this dispute.” I lift my gaze to Dmitry. “Why I was involved.”
He draws a deep breath, jaw firm as he nods. “ Da. ”
“I need to know if my father knew what would happen and why. I need to know, Dmitry, if I’m no longer safe here.”