Chapter 14 - Raya
The sling came off days ago. He announced this by simply ripping it off one morning, tossing it onto the kitchen counter, and rotating his thick shoulder with a slight wince.
The wound itself has finally closed—I’ve had my eyes on it twice a day—leaving behind a raised, wicked pink scar that makes him look even more dangerous than he already did.
The surrounding muscle is still tight, knotted, and prone to pulling if he moves wrong.
Naturally, being stubborn as a mule, he’s been moving wrong on purpose because he refuses to admit any kind of limitation.
Which is why I’ve been massaging it. It started practically.
Scar tissue needs to be worked out, or it sets wrong and limits your mobility long-term—household knowledge when you grow up in a Bratva family where gunshot wounds are basically a rite of passage—for the men at least. But at this point, we both know it’s not purely practical anymore.
Every morning, he sits shirtless on the edge of the mattress, and I stand between his knees, working my thumbs deep into his tight shoulder muscle.
He goes still and quiet under my hands. We don’t talk about the fact that I’m doing this willingly, or the way his jaw tightly clenches every time my fingers trail too close to his neck.
“One week left,” I mutter, my thumbs pressing hard into a stubborn knot near his collarbone.
Yakov’s eyes track up to mine, dark and intense in the morning light. “You counting down the days, malysh?”
“Simon’s deadline is ticking in my head, yes,” I reply, trying to keep my voice flat as I intentionally press a little harder on the knot. “I’m sure my brothers are planning a very dramatic welcome-home party for me.”
He lets out a low, rough chuckle that vibrates right against my fingertips. “Let them. I’m the one bringing you back. If Simon wants a piece of me, he knows where to find me.”
I look down at him, my hands slowing against his skin.
I should want to go home. I do want to go home—I miss the chaotic, deafening noise of too many Volkovs trapped in one room, and Sofie blowing up my phone every hour despite literally being a few doors down the hallway.
But the terrifying truth is, in the middle of being kidnapped, forced into a marriage, and shot at, this safe house has been the first sustained quiet I’ve had in my entire life.
I didn’t know until I got here how badly I was drowning in my family’s expectations—the endless family dinners I’m expected to host or attend, being the one who smooths things over when tempers flare, being on call every day for whichever niece or nephew needs looking after.
It’s not that I begrudge it, they’re my family, and I love them, and I especially love the kids.
It’s just made forging my own path kind of difficult
Yesterday, I finally admitted to Selene on the phone that hiding out with Yakov had basically been like a vacation. She laughed so hard she practically choked. “You are so incredibly cooked, Raya,” she’d wheezed. “I don’t know what that means,” I’d lied.
But I did know. I absolutely did. I think I’m falling for Yakov, and the realization is terrifying. It’s not that he’s the son of the man trying to harm me. It’s the fact that I don’t know how much of this is real. He feels like the only safe thing in my world, but he’s made it that way, hasn’t he?
“You’re quiet today,” Yakov grunts. He doesn’t move his good arm to stop me, but his gaze sharpens. “What’s running through that pretty head of yours?”
“Just wondering if you’re going to miss me when my family drags me back,” I banter back, lifting an eyebrow. “No more free massages. No more anyone to criticize your terrible coffee-making skills.”
Yakov slides his left hand up to anchor against my hip, his fingers biting gently into the fabric of my leggings, pulling me into the space between his thighs.
“I’m not letting you go back to living under your brothers’ thumbs.
You’re my wife, Raya. We’re going to your family’s compound to hand Simon and Matvei the weapons the alliance needs to bury my father, but make no mistake—you’re mine; you stay with me, wherever that will be. ”
My heart does a dangerous stutter in my chest. Husband.
Wife. The terms still sound insane, but when he says them with that dark, absolute certainty, the terrifying reality of it hits me full-force.
It isn’t a game to him. It isn’t a temporary shield to wave in his father’s face.
He actually means it. He intends to keep me forever, and the scariest part is that the thought doesn’t horrify me the way it did weeks ago.
After a lifetime of people deciding things for me, I should hate a man telling me where I belong.
Instead, I’m standing here kind of turned on by the idea of being his.
Not that I’d let him know that. So I let out a sharp, mocking breath and plant both of my hands firmly against his good shoulder, giving him a hard, indignant shove backward.
“Own me? Like a piece of cattle, Yakov? You think because I signed a piece of paper under duress that you get to dictate where I live?”
Yakov barely sways from the push, his eyes locking onto mine with a dark, amused glint that tells me he loves it when I fight back. He reaches up with his left hand, his fingers wrapping around my waist, pulling me right back into the space between his thighs.
“Not like cattle, malysh.” His voice drops to a low, gravelly vibration that makes my anger melt. “Like my wife. Your brothers can roar all they want, but they don’t own you anymore either. If they want to test how far I’ll go to keep what’s mine, I’m more than happy to show them.”
“You’re very arrogant for a man who still can’t put his jacket on without help,” I whisper, leaning into his space enough to feel the heat radiating off his chest.
“Try me,” he counters, his eyes darkening as they drop to my lips. “See if I need two hands to keep you right where you belong.”
I pull my hand back with a sharp exhale, my face burning as I pretend to inspect his bandage. “Shut up and let me finish your shoulder.”
That evening, the playful banter dissolves back into that dense, electric tension that’s been building between us since the night we crossed the line.
We’re on the couch, the TV playing some mindless action movie neither of us is watching.
I notice, not for the first time, that I’m sitting on his side of the couch.
I don’t even remember moving there. My body automatically gravitates toward him.
He’s leaning back, his left arm draped along the top of the cushions behind my head.
He isn’t touching me yet, but his knuckles are brushing the very tips of my hair, sending tiny, electric jolts straight down my spine.
The TV is a mindless blur of noise. Every time he shifts his weight, his thigh presses against mine, firm and solid through our clothes, a reminder of the way he held me pinned beneath him nights ago.
I lean my head back against the cushions, staring at the screen, but the question I’ve been hiding since the day he took me finally slips out.
“Did you know?” I ask quietly.
Yakov shifts beside me, his long legs stretched out. “Know what?”
“Yaroslav. When you turned your back on him in Clemet Street that day. Did you actually know he wouldn’t shoot you?”
The room goes quiet. Yakov takes his time to answer. “I knew he’d have to choose between our father’s orders and me,” he says, his voice low and gravelly. “And I knew which one he’d choose.”
“How could you be so sure? The damage your father did to Selene. How he has tried to poison everything between you growing up. How could you know?”
“Because Yaroslav is my brother,” Yakov says it without sentimentality; it’s a hard, absolute fact.
“Alek tried to fracture us our entire lives. Separate rooms, separate training, pitting us against each other for a scrap of his approval. But he failed. I turned my back on a loaded gun because I knew he wouldn’t pull the trigger.
He is more than my brother Raya; he is my twin.
I know his soul; it’s the same as mine.”
A cold shiver races down my spine at the thought of how different it could have been.
The loyalty between the twins is solid and beautiful.
I grew up surrounded by brothers who would bleed for me without a second thought, but their loyalty is loud and fueled by family pride.
This is something else entirely. Alek took a sledgehammer to the bond between his sons for nearly thirty years, trying to forge them into solitary weapons, and he didn’t even leave a scratch.
Before my thoughts start to spiral, Yakov’s large hand slides up to the back of my neck.
I freeze, my breath catching. His palm is warm, spanning the entire base of my skull.
For a second, he holds me there, then his thumb begins to move in slow, firm circles against my skin, melting away the tight, knotted tension I’ve been carrying since the day of the shootout.
It feels so goddamn good I inadvertently let out a soft sigh.
I lean backward, pressing myself against his side.
The TV screen flickers, throwing shadows across his face.
I look at his mouth, remembering the wicked, possessive way he took me a few nights ago, and a sudden, desperate ache blooms deep in my stomach.
In seven days, the family war machine is going to spin back to life, and we will be thrown right back into the blood and politics of our families.
I am not ready for any of it. I want to stay right here in the dark. I want this.
I turn my head slightly. “Yakov?”
His thumb stops moving, his entire body going rigid against mine as he feels the warmth of my breath against him. “Yeah, malysh?”
“I’m tired,” I whisper.
Yakov’s grip on the back of my neck tightens, his gray eyes flashing with raw, predatory hunger as he looks down at me. “Do you want to go to bed?”
“Yes.”
Yakov doesn’t waste another second. He slides his left arm under my knees, scooping my body effortlessly against his chest despite his injured shoulder, and carries me down the hall into the dark.