Chapter 6 - Raya
He gives me my phone back, fully charged, sliding it across the table between us.
“We can’t avoid this any longer. You need to be in contact with your family—Selene, Simon, your sisters, whoever you trust to hear it. It’s been two days; I think that’s pushing what Matvei’s patience is going to give us.”
I look down at the screen, my fingers itching to grab it, but I force myself to lean back in my chair, crossing my arms tightly. “That’s it? No list of who I’m allowed to call, no vetting my conversations?”
“I’m not your father, Raya. I’m not your kidnapper.
” He keeps his eyes on mine. “I’m your husband.
Whatever that word is going to mean between us, it doesn’t mean I get to decide who you talk to.
Call whoever you need to. There’s one condition—location services stay off.
My father’s people watch anything connected to the Volkov/Nikolai alliance, so if Matvei traces a ping to this district and rolls in with fifty armed men, this stops being a safe house.
Do you understand? It’s about safety, not control. ”
I momentarily consider telling him to stick it where the sun doesn’t shine, but the logic of his explanation slices right through my temper. I take the phone and say nothing because even I can see that I’d be cutting off my nose to spite my face. Small victories are still victories nonetheless.
I’ve barely got it in my pocket before it starts ringing.
“Finally.” Sofie doesn’t bother with hello. “Two days, Raya. Two days of Selene telling me ‘she’s fine, give her space’ while you’re holed up somewhere with Yakov Mykros, and I haven’t badgered Matvei once, so you’re welcome.”
“I’m sorry,” I say. “I should have called sooner.”
“You should have.” When she speaks again, the manic edge has dropped out of her voice. “Are you actually okay?”
“I’m okay,” I admit. “Ask me again in a week.”
“You think you’ll be gone that long? What actually happened? I can’t get much out of Selene, which is unsurprising, as Yakov’s her brother, and I daren’t ask Simon; he’s pretty busy trying to stop Matvei from tearing the city apart.”
“Yakov’s twin Yaroslav tried to kidnap me outside the bookstore.”
“That motherf—”
“But,” I interrupt before she can go off on a rant, “Yakov stopped it. I’m with him. I’m at—I don’t actually know where I am, but it’s a house, and it’s fine, and yes, he’s a lot. But he’s not that.”
“Good, Selene keeps telling anyone that’ll listen that he’s the best of the family. But there’s something you’re not telling me, isn’t there? I can hear it.”
The only way to do this is like ripping off a band-aid, so I spit it out. “He also made me sign a marriage certificate.”
The silence that follows is somehow worse than the scream I was braced for.
“Sofie?”
“He forced you to marry him? I don’t care what Selene says about him. We will—”
“No. God, no. Nothing physical or threatening.” I search for the right words. “It was the least worst option. He explained why, and it actually made sense, so I signed it because the alternative, well, it’s pretty horrific. He didn’t hurt me, Sofie. I promise.”
She exhales, long and shaky. “Okay. Good.”
“Sofie. I need you to really listen to this part.” I wait until I have her full attention, no jokes, nothing. “Nobody knows about the marriage. Not Matvei, not the others, not even Selene yet, though I’m going to call her after you. This needs to stay between us until I say otherwise.”
“Obviously,” she says, sounding offended I’d need to ask.
“I mean it, Sofe. Tell anyone, and I will personally inform Matvei, whose idea it was to ‘borrow’ his Patek Philippe for that boat party in Cyprus. The one that’s now floating at the bottom of the sea.”
She gasps. “That’s low.”
“I can go lower.”
“Fine. My lips are sealed.” Then, because she can’t sit in anything heavy for more than about ninety seconds without trying to lighten the mood: “So. You’re married to a Mykros.”
“To the nicest one, apparently, yes.”
She whines into the phone, “But I never got to be the sexy bridesmaid!” Then, a second later. “Is he hot?”
“Sofie!”
“What? It’s a valid question! You’re married to him. I’m allowed to ask!”
“We are not—that is not the—” I press my fingers to my forehead. “This is not the relevant part of the situation.”
“So that’s a yes,” Sofie says, with enormous satisfaction. I hang up and call Selene.
“Holy crap,” Selene groans. “I’ve been going out of my mind with worry. Are you okay? How are you doing?”
“Do you mean, ‘How’s the honeymoon?’ given that he made me sign a marriage certificate? I’m married, Selene. We’re married. Has he told you that?”
The silence tells me he didn’t.
“I’m sorry, he what? I—” She splutters. When she speaks again, her voice is controlled. “I am going to call him.”
“Selene—”
“I am going to call my brother, and I am going to—”
“I know. I know, and I’m angry too, believe me.
But hear me out first.” I explain it the way Yakov explained it to me.
His father’s plan, what Yaroslav had been sent to do, and why the certificate was in Yakov’s name and not Yaroslav’s makes it worthless to Alek.
I hear her breathing on the other end, taking it in.
“Raya, I know Yakov, and he wouldn’t have made you do that unless he felt it was the only option. Our father is a dangerous man. Thank god Yaroslav didn’t take you. Are you actually safe? Is he being decent?”
“Yes, he hasn’t given me any reason to be afraid of him,” I say, which is accurate, if nothing else.
“He’s not like the rest of them. I know that’s a strange thing to say, given the circumstances. But he’s not.”
“Well, I’m just going to have to trust you on that.”
“It’s true. Look at how he stood up to my father for me. If he hadn’t been there for me god knows what would have happened. I’m still going to call him and give him hell about the certificate, though.”
“Good,” I say. “He deserves it, but Selene, please don’t mention the marriage to Simon. I know it’s putting you in an awkward position, but I think all hell really will break loose then, and I don’t need that right now on top of everything else.”
“That’s a massive ask, Raya, but I think I clearly owe you that,” she says, “and I will deny ever having this conversation. Now, have you spoken to any of your brothers? You’re going to have to.”
“I know, Yakov told me to call Simon, but I just don’t think I can handle the amount of grief that’s going to come with it right now. Can you tell him I called, that I’m fine and well, and I’ll call in a couple of days?”
“Of course I will, but you do know they will only take my word for it for so long. You need to speak to them yourself, okay? A couple of days, that’s it.”
When I come back out, Yakov is sat at the table. He looks up when I appear, reads my face the way he reads everything, and says nothing. Which could mean he heard none of it, or all of it, or he’s waiting to see what I do next.
“Selene’s going to call you,” I tell him.
“I know, I’ve already had multiple texts.”
“I told her. She’s not impressed, but she’s not going to tell my brothers.”
He doesn’t look worried about it as he leans back in his chair and places his hands behind his head, his biceps straining against the T-shirt material. “Did you speak to your sister Sofie?”
I look at him. “She wanted to know if you’re fit.”
“Did she now?” He looks genuinely amused, a grin spreading across his face. “What did you say?”
“I hung up.”
“That’s a shame, I think we’d have both liked to have known the answer to that.” I consider telling the smug muscley idiot to shut it as he stands, tidying up his stuff. “And how would you like me to give it to you?” He drops his voice as he says it, low and deliberately suggestive.
“I beg your pardon!” Frigging men who know they’re good-looking using it to discombobulate you, ugh. “Give me what, exactly?”
“Your coffee, Raya.” His face is the picture of innocence.
I could slap it. “Was there something else you wanted from me?” He walks off toward the kitchen, so I swipe a piece of paper off the table—I don’t give a damn if it’s important—I screw it into a ball, and throw it at the back of his head. Dumbass.
The days that follow settle into something of a rhythm, which is a strange thing to feel about a house and a man I didn’t choose.
“What’s the Wi-Fi password?” I ask, my thumb scrolling through the locked network settings.
“That’s on a need-to-know basis, and you don’t need to know,” he says, a tiny, infuriating glimmer of amusement lighting up his eyes as he watches my frustration.
“Type it in for me.” I push the phone back toward his side of the table. “Please.”
“No.”
“No?” I bark, my eyebrows snapping together. “You give me the phone but block the data? What is the point of the hospitality if I can’t use the internet, Yakov? I’ll die from boredom before your father ever gets to me.”
“The network paths in this house are hard-encrypted through a ghost server,” he explains, his tone maddeningly clinical.
“If I type the password into a standard device profile, it leaves a digital footprint in the local hardware. The password stays in my head. You want to watch videos of kittens? You hand the device to me, I log you in under a rotating proxy tunnel, and you get a three-minute window.”
“You are a paranoid control freak,” I mutter, snatching the phone back and shoving it deep into the pocket of my sweater.
“I am an alive control freak,” he corrects smoothly, reaching for his coffee cup. “There is a correlation between the two.”