Chapter Twenty-Two - Dimitri
I start bringing her everywhere.
Not a conscious decision, more like gravity—she’s in the car when I leave for meetings, present in rooms where her safety requires ignorance, watching transactions that could get her killed if she understood their implications.
Felix notices first, raises an eyebrow when Janice slides into the backseat beside me for what should be a routine collection run.
“Is this wise?” he asks in Russian.
“Probably not.” I don’t look at him, watching Janice instead as she stares out the window. She’s wearing the coat I bought her, cream wool that makes her look softer than she is. “Drive.”
Felix drives.
The collection goes smoothly—a restaurant owner in Brighton Beach who’s behind on payments, nothing violent, just a conversation about priorities and consequences.
Janice stays in the car, but she watches through tinted windows.
Sees the fear in the man’s eyes when I lean close, sees money change hands with practiced efficiency.
When I return, she’s exactly where I left her.
“Questions?” I ask.
“No.”
“Judgments?”
She turns from the window. “Would it matter if I had them?”
“Probably not.”
Her mouth curves slightly. “Then no. No judgments.”
The pattern continues. Business dinners where deals are brokered in euphemisms she’s learning to decode.
Late-night drives through territories I control, past buildings I own, through streets that belong to me in ways the city doesn’t acknowledge on paper.
She absorbs it all with the same quiet focus she brings to everything, asking occasional questions that prove she’s paying attention.
“That property in Red Hook,” she says one night as we wind through Brooklyn. “The warehouse. You bought it three months after the fire.”
“Yes.”
“The fire that killed two people. That was in the police report I—” She stops.
“That you read while researching me,” I finish. “Go on.”
“It wasn’t an accident.”
“No.”
“Did you start it?”
“No, but I benefited from it.” I glance at her. “Does that make me complicit?”
“I don’t know.” She’s quiet for a block. “Who did start it?”
“The previous owner. Insurance fraud. He got sloppy, and people died.” We turn onto the bridge, Manhattan’s lights reflecting off water below. “I bought the property from the bank, cleaned up his mess, and turned it into something useful.”
“That’s not the full story.”
“It never is.”
She doesn’t press. Just returns her attention to the window, processing information I’m giving her for reasons I don’t fully understand.
Maybe I want her to see the whole picture—not just the monster or the man, but the complicated machinery underneath.
Maybe I’m testing whether knowing the truth will send her running.
Maybe I’m just tired of hiding.
Misha helps. The kitten becomes a constant presence, small and demanding, curling into spaces between us that used to feel like battlegrounds.
Janice tends to her with the same fierce care she brings to everything she commits to—medication schedules tracked precisely, food measured exactly, the injured paw checked for signs of infection.
“She’s healing well,” the vet says during a follow-up visit. “The limp will be permanent, but she won’t be in pain.”
Janice’s relief is visible, shoulders dropping tension I hadn’t noticed she was carrying. “Thank you.”
After the vet leaves, I find her on the couch with Misha asleep in her lap. She’s reading something on her tablet, one hand absently stroking the kitten’s back.
“You care about her,” I observe.
“She’s helpless. Someone has to.”
“You care about a lot of helpless things.”
Her eyes lift to mine, sharp with understanding. “Is that what you think you are, helpless?”
“I think I’m many things. Helpless isn’t one of them.” I settle beside her, careful not to disturb Misha. “You, though. You collect broken things and try to fix them.”
“I don’t—”
“The employee I was going to fire for incompetence. The kitten caught in wire. Me.” I reach out, tuck hair behind her ear. “You see damage and think it’s your responsibility to repair it.”
“That’s not what I’m doing.”
“Isn’t it?” My hand drops to her shoulder, thumb tracing the curve of her collarbone. “You stay when you should run. You ask questions when silence would be safer. You look at me like I’m worth saving.”
“Maybe you are.”
“I’m not.” The certainty is absolute. “You need to understand that, Janice. Whatever you think you see in me, whatever potential you’re hoping to unlock—it doesn’t exist. I am exactly what I appear to be.”
She studies my face with that intensity that always unsettles me. “You saved Misha.”
“An impulse. Meaningless.”
“You let me keep Diana.”
“A strategic concession.”
“You hold me at night like you’re afraid I’ll disappear.”
The observation lands harder than it should. “That’s different.”
“How?”
“You’re mine. Protecting what’s mine isn’t kindness; it’s self-interest.”
“You keep saying that. I don’t think you believe it anymore.” She shifts carefully, settling Misha on the cushion between us. “I think you’re trying to convince yourself as much as me.”
The accuracy irritates me. “Don’t psychoanalyze.”
“Then don’t make it so easy.”
Misha wakes, stretching with a yawn that shows needle teeth. She climbs onto my lap like she owns it, kneading expensive fabric with her good paw. The injured one she holds carefully, protective of the healing tissue.
“She trusts you,” Janice says softly.
“She has no choice.”
“Neither did I. Trust happened anyway.”
The words settle between us, heavy with implications neither of us voice. Trust. The thing I’ve been simultaneously demanding and sabotaging since I forced this marriage. The thing she’s been withholding while simultaneously giving me pieces of herself she can’t take back.
The thing that terrifies me more than any threat I’ve faced.
My phone buzzes. Felix.
Minor situation at the warehouse in Queens. Nothing urgent, but you should be there. Security concern.
I stand, displacing Misha gently. “I need to handle something.”
“Now?” Janice checks her watch. “It’s almost midnight.”
“Business doesn’t respect office hours.” I’m already moving toward the bedroom, changing into clothes appropriate for whatever Felix considers a minor situation. I’ll be back in a few hours.”
“I’m coming with you.”
I stop. “No.”
“Why not? You’ve been taking me everywhere else.”
“This is different. Potentially dangerous.”
“So were half the places we’ve been this week.” She’s following me, determined. “You said you wanted me to understand your world. Let me understand all of it.”
Every rational instinct screams refusal. The warehouse situation could be anything from a broken lock to an actual threat. Bringing her adds a variable I can’t control, a vulnerability I can’t protect.
She’s right. I’ve been drawing her deeper into my world deliberately, showing her pieces most people never see. Refusing now would be arbitrary.
“Fine, but you do exactly what I say, when I say it. No arguments.”
“Agreed.”
The drive to Queens is quiet. Felix meets us there with Oleg and two security personnel I recognize. The warehouse is dark except for perimeter lighting, casting long shadows across cracked pavement.
“What’s the situation?” I ask.
“Motion sensors triggered on the east side. Could be animals, could be someone testing our security.” Felix hands me a tablet showing surveillance feeds. “We’re locked down until we clear it.”
I scan the feeds, seeing nothing obvious. “How long?”
“Thirty minutes. Maybe less.”
The warehouse itself is secure—reinforced doors, updated systems, guards rotating shifts. We wait in what used to be the main office, now converted to a monitoring station. Janice settles into a chair near the window, watching security feeds with the same focus she brings to everything.
“This happens often?” she asks.
“Monthly. Sometimes it’s nothing. Sometimes it’s competitors testing defenses.” I loosen my tie, suddenly too warm. “We take every trigger seriously.”
Felix coordinates with the patrol team via radio, Russian clipped and efficient. Oleg checks weapons with practiced ease, movements automatic. The whole thing feels routine because it is—we’ve done this dance dozens of times.
Janice doesn’t look frightened. Curious, maybe. Watchful. Absorbing information about how we operate when threats materialize.
The wait stretches. I remove my jacket, draping it over a chair, and roll my sleeves. The office is temperature-controlled but still feels stifling.
“Clear on the east perimeter,” Felix reports. “Probably a raccoon. We’re doing a final sweep.”
I nod, attention half on the radio chatter and half on Janice. She’s not watching the feeds anymore. She’s watching me.
“What?” I ask.
“Nothing. I just…” She stops. “Your scars. I’ve noticed them before, but never asked.”
I glance down. The movement exposed more than I intended—old wounds mapping violence across His arms and collarbones. Bullet scars, knife marks, one long line from a piece of rebar that nearly killed me when I was twenty-three.
“Occupational hazards,” I say.
“They look old.”
“Most of them are. Ten years, some longer.” I don’t elaborate. Don’t dramatize. The scars exist; explaining them feels unnecessary.
She stands, crosses the space between us. I tense instinctively, but she stops just short of touching. Her eyes trace the puckered tissue along my forearm, the jagged line across my wrist, the smaller marks scattered like punctuation.
“This one.” She indicates the forearm without making contact. “It looks surgical.”
“It was. Bullet fragments. They had to dig deep.”
“This?” The scar along my palm.
“Knife. The man was better than I expected. He’s dead now.”
Her gaze lifts to mine. “Do they hurt?”
“Sometimes. When it rains. When I’m tired.” I watch her watch me, cataloging her reactions. “Does it bother you, seeing proof of what I am?”
“No.” The word is quiet but certain. “It bothers me that you had to survive this. That you’ve been hurt badly enough to carry permanent reminders.”
The sympathy I expected doesn’t materialize. Instead, there’s something else in her eyes—understanding, maybe. Recognition that these marks are part of the machinery that made me, necessary damage in the process of becoming what the world required.
“You’re not asking about the worst ones,” I observe.
“Would you tell me the truth?”
“Probably not.”
“Then why ask?” She finally steps back, restoring distance. “I can see enough. You’ve survived things that should have killed you. You’re still standing. That’s all I need to know.”
The restraint hits harder than questions would have. She’s not treating me like a curiosity or a project. Just acknowledging reality without trying to fix or judge or understand it beyond what’s visible.
“All clear,” Felix announces via radio. “False alarm. We’re good to go.”
I nod, rolling my sleeves back down. The moment passes, but the weight of it lingers. Janice saw something I usually keep hidden and didn’t flinch, didn’t recoil, didn’t try to extract explanations I wouldn’t give.
She just looked, and somehow, that felt more intimate than any touch.
The drive back is quiet. Janice falls asleep against the window somewhere around the bridge, head tilted at an angle that will hurt her neck when she wakes. I reach across, ease her toward me. She settles against my shoulder without waking, trust so complete it makes my chest tight.
She shouldn’t trust me. Shouldn’t feel safe enough to sleep while I’m this close, knowing what I am and what I’m capable of.
She does anyway.
Felix catches my eye in the rearview mirror. Says nothing, but I read the warning there. This is dangerous. She’s making you soft.
Maybe. Probably.
I don’t care.
By the time we reach the penthouse, Janice is deeply asleep. I carry her to the bedroom, her body limp and trusting in my arms. Misha lifts her head from the bed when we enter, watches as I settle Janice carefully on the mattress.
The kitten curls against Janice’s side immediately, protective despite her size.
I should leave. Should give her space, maintain the distance that keeps us both safe from whatever this is becoming.
Instead, I sit on the edge of the bed, watching her sleep. Her breathing is even, face soft without the careful control she maintains when awake. She looks younger like this. Vulnerable.
Mine.
The possessiveness should disturb me, but it doesn’t. It just settles in my chest like certainty, absolute and unshakable.
I want to protect her from everything. From the Volkovs and the Zullos and anyone else who might see her as leverage. From the world that would use her softness as weakness. From the choices she’s making that will eventually force my hand.
From myself.
That’s the impossible part. How do I protect her from the cage I’ve built? From the control I can’t relinquish? From the violence that lives in my bones and surfaces whenever she’s threatened?
I can’t.
The only thing I can do is make the cage as comfortable as possible. Give her pieces of freedom while maintaining the bars. Let her see my scars while hiding the worst of what made them. Hold her at night and pretend tomorrow won’t bring consequences neither of us can avoid.
My phone buzzes. Felix again.
The Volkov meeting is confirmed for Friday night. Damien insists you attend. No exceptions.
Perfect timing.
I type back: Confirmed. I’ll be there.
Then I add: Increase surveillance on Janice tomorrow. Passive monitoring only. I want to know if she goes near my office.
You’re testing her.
I’m protecting her. From herself, if necessary.
I set the phone aside and settle beside Janice. She shifts in her sleep, gravitating toward warmth. Her hand finds mine, fingers threading through automatically.
Friday night, she’ll have a choice. Take the drive and betray me, or refuse and prove something I desperately need to believe.
Either way, I’ll know.