Chapter 15 - Yakov
Subtlety has never been my father’s strong suit.
Which is funny, considering his legendary reputation is built on that myth—the Ghost, the shadow, the phantom who executes hits and makes people disappear without leaving a single trace.
But I grew up under the same roof as Alek Mykros, so I know the truth.
His subtlety is nothing but a performance for people who’ve never seen what happens when something of his goes missing.
He is a furious, petty little man who cannot tolerate losing anything he considers his property, and reason is the first thing to go out the window the moment it’s personal.
He lost Selene and the twins, having been firmly put in his place by Simon Volkov.
He’s now realized he’s lost his grip on me, and now that Yaroslav will have officially broken the news that I am married to Raya and never stepping foot inside his compound again, the sneaky fuck has reacted the way he always does when he can’t reach a target directly. He’s started talking.
Around four in the afternoon, my phone buzzes.
Yaroslav: Telegram.
I pull it up and go through the channels—there are a dozen semi-private groups where men like my father and his associates trade information they’d never put in writing elsewhere. I’m three lines in, and cannot believe my fucking eyes when the phone rings in my hand. Yaroslav.
“Seen it?” he says, before I’ve said a word.
“I’m reading it right now.” I keep scrolling. “He’s saying he sent you after me. Not after her.”
“He’s a good father,” Yaroslav says, and I can hear exactly how much he means those words, which is not at all.
“You’re unhinged, Yakov. Obsessed. We were trying to stop you from doing something stupid.
A small favor. Penance, even for Selene and the twins.
It was proof he’d accepted the alliance after all. I simply didn’t get there in time.”
“And I took down her security myself.”
“Even he struggles to tell us apart. Who can confidently say it wasn’t you?”
I keep reading. “The marriage certificate.”
“You forced her to sign it at gunpoint. You’re out of your mind and holding her captive somewhere her own family can’t find her.”
“He’s a fucker.”
“And you’re a murderer, Yakov. A cold-blooded murderer. Father tracked you down and sent men to bring Raya home safely to her brothers, but you killed them both.”
“Those were his men. Sent to kill us both. The bastard shot me in the shoulder.”
“I know that. You know that.” Yaroslav’s voice goes flat. “Nobody reading this knows that, do they?”
The sheer fucking audacity of it. Two men actually are dead—that part’s true. And yes, I got her to sign a marriage certificate. Fuck.
“It’s not a complete lie,” I say finally. “It’s a mirror held up backward.”
“That’s the beauty of it. It’s convincing enough that anyone who doesn’t already know the truth will never think to check,” Yaroslav agrees.
“Watch your back, Yakov. Looks like he’s trying to manipulate the Volkovs into doing his dirty work for him.
He’s better at this than either of us gave him credit for. ”
The line goes dead.
I have to give the old man credit. It’s a brilliant play.
It sits dangerously close to the truth. Anyone who doesn’t know what the twisted fuck’s initial plan was will swallow it whole.
Raya didn’t consent to the marriage. And I have been hiding her away from the rest of the world.
My father has stripped the facts of every single piece of context that makes them defensible.
He’s weaponized the truth, hurling it through the Bratva underworld like a grenade.
The moment Simon hears this from an outside channel, our grace period evaporates.
What’s left of the week will shrink to about twenty-four hours, if I’m lucky.
I call Sergei. He picks up on the second ring, wind and an idling engine behind his voice, which means he’s already moving the gear before I’ve asked him to. That’s what I like about him. He knows what to do and gets on with it. He doesn’t need babysitting.
“Talk to me.”
“People are asking questions about you that they weren’t asking yesterday.
Two of the old boys at the docks talking shit.
Also, I had a problem earlier. One of the guards watching the yard tried to pilfer a few guns.
I handled it, but thought you should know.
You may want to rotate or find some new security. ”
“How handled?”
“Like I said, find some new security guards, at least one anyway.”
“What’s our stock?”
“Twenty-five AK-47s, thirty-five Glock 19s, ten Saiga shotguns for close work. Two thousand rounds of 7.62 for the rifles, another fifteen hundred rounds of nine-mill for the pistols. Forty RGD-5 fragmentation grenades. A couple of suppressors, if it comes to needing to be quiet about any of it.” He goes quiet for a minute, which means he’s chewing over whether to mention the rest. “And two RPG-7s, though I’d keep those back for now.
Unless this turns into a total shitshow none of us are walking away from.
There’s another shipment due next month—more rifles, more rounds—but that doesn’t help you now. ”
“Sounds good, Sergei. It doesn’t need to win a war just yet. We need to show the Volkovs we’re not walking into their compound empty-handed.”
“Then we’ve got more than enough,” Sergei says. “When do you need it moved?”
“Soon. I’ll call you with a location.”
“Yakov. Whatever’s coming, I’m with you. You pulled me out of Odessa when nobody else would look twice at me. I don’t forget that.”
“I know,” I tell him, and I do. His is a loyalty I’ve never had to question.
I hang up, and the phone is barely on the table before it buzzes again. Christ. It’s Dmitri—one of my oldest contacts, a man who has been feeding me intel for six years. I trust him as much as I trust anyone in this life, which is to say, conditionally. His message is only four words long:
It’s already out west.
Fuck. I lower the phone, staring at the glowing screen as a cold chill settles in my gut.
West means the Nikolais. The Nikolais mean Viktor, and Viktor is married to Anka Volkov—Raya’s sister.
There isn’t a version of reality where Viktor hears a rumor this explosive and doesn’t immediately tell his wife.
Which means Anka knows, or will know within the hour.
Which means this reaching Matvei and Simon is now a matter of when, not if.
We essentially have however long it takes for a frantic phone call to travel from Anka to her brothers, and given how fast and often the Volkov sisters talk, that gives us the lifespan of a burning match.
I pick up the phone, firing off messages to a few different tactical contacts, and slam the device face down. There is nothing I can do in the next ten minutes that will change what’s coming.
I look up to see Raya has fallen asleep on the sofa.
She’s been curled up there all afternoon channel surfing and reading one of the books she’d apparently been saving.
It’s now resting open on her chest, rising and falling with her breathing.
Her head is tipped sideways against the cushion, a few dark strands of hair falling across her face.
The way she sleeps kills me. The sharp, defiant furrow that lives between her eyebrows vanishes.
I have never told her this, and I doubt I ever will, but seeing her this vulnerable destroys every ounce of my cold logic.
She is defenseless in a way she never allows when those beautiful dark eyes are open.
I am the only predator in the world who gets to witness it, and I understand down to my bones that this soft surrender is a gift she’s subconsciously giving me, not something I can ever force.
I sit and watch her for a while. She lets out a soft, tiny moan in her sleep, shifting her weight.
The paperback begins to slide off her chest. Before my brain even registers the thought, I’m across the room, my left hand shooting out to catch the novel before it hits the floor.
I stand over her, holding the worn pages, staring down at her flushed face.
A dark, territorial fury settles deep in my chest. Nobody is going to touch her.
Not my father with his poisonous bullshit, not her brothers when they inevitably try to take her from me.
Not a single soul. I will burn every bridge I have left in this city, and I will build an empire out of the ashes before I ever let a single threat reach her.
I’ve been repeating that vow to myself since the first night I watched her, but it has never been more absolute than it is right now.
Standing in the middle of bumfuck nowhere, holding a cheap romance novel while my father tries to set our world on fire.
Right now, I need to move her to the bedroom before her neck seizes up from the awkward angle of the couch. I slide my left arm beneath her knees, scooping her up into my chest. She stirs slightly, surfacing from the deep sleep enough for her arms to loop around my neck.
It does me in every single time. The way her body reaches for my heat in the dark, making a decision her confused and furious mind is still fighting against—and losing—during the day.
She tucks her face right into the crook of my jaw.
She smells like coconut and vanilla shampoo.
I stand there in the center of the living room, letting the intoxicating weight of her anchor me, before I carry her down the hall.
I lay her down on the mattress, and she instantly curls into the blankets, right back into her dreams. I slide onto my side of the bed.
The second my weight hits the mattress, she makes a small, throaty sound of protest at the temporary loss of warmth.
Then, her arm hooks heavily over my chest. Her bare leg slides over mine, trapping me against her, tucking herself securely into my side before she goes quiet.
I stare up at the shadows on the ceiling while my left hand strokes slowly up and down the bare leg she’s hooked over mine.
Tomorrow is probably going to be an absolute clusterfuck.
This peace we’ve been slowly crafting—the shifting dynamic, the quiet softening of her edges, the beautiful thing this is slowly becoming—it’s all about to shatter.
The real world is coming to smash our little bubble to pieces, right when I’m finally getting a taste of what it feels like to really have her.
If I could keep her locked inside this house forever, safe and protected from the blood and the noise outside, I’d do it in a heartbeat.
But I can’t stop the storm from hitting us.
All I can do is brace for the impact. And when the glass fractures and everything breaks apart, I will pick up every single piece of us, one by one.
I’ll glue our world back together with my bare hands, even if it means cutting my fingers wide open to do it.