Chapter 51 Jillian
JILLIAN
“We found love in a hopeless place”
— “We Found Love (DJ Dark Cover Remix)” by Rihanna ft. Calvin Harris
I wake up to the sound of a buckle. Kir is already dressed, standing at the foot of the bed in a black suit, threading the leather of his belt through the last loop. His hair is damp from a second shower I slept through entirely.
“What time is it?” I mumble.
“Early.” He rounds the bed and leaves a clean-shaven kiss on my temple. “Go back to sleep.”
I ignore him and prop myself up on one elbow. “Where are you going?”
“Board meeting.” He pulls the belt tight and fastens it. “It’s going to be a long one. I won’t be able to text or call today. Don’t read into it.”
“Who, me? I never read into anything.”
He gives me a look that says he knows that’s bullshit, then bends down to give me a proper kiss. This one is slow and careful, his hand warm on my jaw. He tastes like toothpaste and coffee.
“Stay here,” he instructs against my mouth. “I want you just like this when I get home.” He hesitates, then even adds, “Please.”
I grin as little spring-loaded spirals of joy go bouncing around in my abdomen. “Okay. But only because you asked so nicely.”
He winks. Then he straightens, grabs his coat off the chair, and is gone.
I lie there for another few minutes listening to the silence of his apartment. Being a kept woman wouldn’t be so bad, I don’t think. Sleep in, wake up to a beautiful man giving you sweet kisses, maybe grab a matcha latte and hit Pilates with the other hot kept women sometime around noon.
Then I remember that I am Jillian Motherfucking Pierce, and I do not need anyone to keep me.
I keep myself. So, paying homage to the feminist icons who shaped me, I roll out of bed, pull on Kir’s discarded T-shirt from last night and a pair of his sweatpants that I have to roll about a billion times at the waist, and pad barefoot to the kitchen.
This isn’t my usual office, but it’ll do.
I grab my laptop and notes from my bag and spread everything out across the black marble counter. Even though I’ve done it so many times I can basically see the words etched on the backs of my eyelids, I once again go through exactly what I know. It’s this, more or less:
Elena Sergeeva Lazareva, wife of Lukas Lazarev, officially died of a prolonged illness eighteen years ago.
Closed casket, no outsiders, no public cause of death.
Contrary to that cover story, her remains were recovered from a construction dig site in Astoria seven weeks ago and positively identified through dental records by the Queens medical examiner’s office.
Toxicology on preserved bone marrow showed lethal levels of phenobarbital.
Sleeping pills killed her, not illness. Giovanni Ochoa, the morgue attendant who first flagged the discrepancy, reached out to me on Signal and then vanished before we could meet. He’s been missing for over a month now.
That is, as we say in the newspaper biz, “juicy.”
Now comes the hard part: actually writing the damn article.
For some reason, this always gives me nervous butterflies.
I’ve done all the work that can be done, but doing the work and informing the world about the work are two completely different things.
Unfortunately for me, hemming and hawing about the placement of every last little comma in my article is not an option.
Doug has made it very clear that numerous sources both within and outside of the paper are sniffing around this whole mess from various angles, so it’s in my best interest to get it done sooner rather than later.
And even if I was the only one with the scoop, his end-of-the-year timeline remains a giant hoop to jump through before he takes my golden goose and passes it off to someone else.
Can’t have that happen. I’ve come way too damn far.
So with a big breath, I dive in.
I write for three hours straight, barely looking up.
The words come easier than I expected once I stop overthinking and just lay it out.
It’s like day one of J-school all over again: Who, what, where, when, how, and most hauntingly of all, why?
That last question is mostly left as an exercise for the reader, but it’s not exactly hard to draw the darts here.
If only I could get Kir to go on record talking about what he saw the night his mother died.
That would blow up newsstands around the planet.
For now, though, this is a start. There’ll be more articles to come, I’m sure of it. We’ve only just scratched the tip of the iceberg, or whatever the expression is. I was always terrible with similes.
Around noon, I stretch my arms over my head and grab my phone off the counter. I haven’t heard from Rae in a concerningly long time, so I decide to give her a buzz.
Weirdly, it rings five times and then abruptly cuts off, not even sending me to voicemail. That’s strange. But when I try again, I only get two rings before the dead air comes rushing back in.
I hang up, make myself a cup of coffee in Kir’s espresso machine, and try again a little while later. This time, no rings at all. It’s like I’m being warned to stay away.
To hell with that, though. Frowning, I text her: Call me when you can, just want to hear your voice.
The message delivers, but there’s no read receipt and no typing bubble. I set the phone on the counter and chew my lip. This isn’t like her. Rae always picks up for me. Always.
Surely Lukas hasn’t…?
No. I can’t think like that. We’re on the verge of good things here. Rae is probably perfectly fine, my article is almost done, and I’m falling in— God, “falling in lust” doesn’t really cut it anymore, does it?
I mean, let’s be honest with ourselves here. Let’s call it what it is.
I’m falling in love with Kir Lazarev.
There. I said it. Even if it was only in my head, and nobody heard it but me and the espresso machine, it’s out now. Can’t unsay it. Can’t stuff it back into the locked-and-barred room in my heart I’ve been keeping it in.
The scarier question is whether he feels the same.
I know he said it, but so what? He could be misguided.
So I keep turning it over, poking at it from different angles, trying to find the version of events where this is all just obsession or possession or some dark, twisted fixation that has nothing whatsoever to do with love.
But then I think about last night. Not the violence—though that’s certainly part of it, and I’ll unpack that in therapy someday if I do ever go back.
I think about the dinner and the candles, about his hand in mine.
The man killed someone for me and then kissed my forehead and told me to go back to sleep.
That’s a man who’s committed, whether he knows it or not.
So fuck it then. I love Kir Lazarev, and he loves me. Saying that to each other’s faces is another level-up that Future Jillian and Future Kir will have to deal with. For now, I cuddle this private little truth close to my chest and let it warm me up.
I love Kir.
He loves me.
Loves.
Loves.
What a wild world this is.
Smiling, I pull the laptop back toward me and get to work.
The afternoon dissolves as I lose myself in the rhythm of the job I’ve loved since before I could remember. By 4:30 P.M., it’s done.
I sit back and read the whole thing through from top to bottom without stopping. It’s good. It’s really good, actually. Tight, clean, sourced as well as it can be given the constraints. Doug will have notes, since he always does, but the bones are solid.
I save the document, open my email, and start a new message. I type Doug’s address in the To field, attach the file, and write a subject line: Lazarev draft - PLEASE READ.
My finger hovers over the send button. But I don’t click it.
Not yet. I’m not quite ready. Soon, but not yet.
Instead, I close the laptop and pour myself another coffee. But it’s still only halfway on its journey to my lips when the front door flies open without warning.
The first thing I register is Kir’s face. Something is wrong with it. His jaw is set hard, his eyes are burning, and when he rakes a hand through his hair, I see that his fingers are shaking.
My stomach flips. I set the mug down too hard and coffee sloshes onto the marble. “What happened?” I ask, bracing for the worst and dreaming up scenarios, each more harrowing than the last. Is someone else coming to hurt us?
Kir stops in the middle of the kitchen. Looks at me. His mouth is a jagged slash.
Then it splits into the widest, most unguarded grin I have ever seen on a human face.
“It’s done,” he announces.
I blink. The emotional see-sawing of this relationship is really gonna be the death of me. “What’s done?”
“The vote. The board. All of it.” He tosses his coat onto the counter and it knocks over the salt shaker.
“Lukas is out as chairman, effective immediately.” He runs both hands through his hair this time and laughs, this freeing, full-throated cackle that bounces off all the hard surfaces in his kitchen. “He’s out, Jillian. He’s fucking out.”
I’m on my feet before I realize I stood up. “You’re serious.”
“I’m dead serious. Matvei swayed Solomon at the last second.
The old bastard flipped and brought Blanchard with him.
” Kir grabs me by the waist and lifts me clean off the ground, spinning me once before setting me back on the cold hardwood.
“I’m leading the charge now. It’s mine. All of it. Fucking all of it!”
I put my hands on his chest. His heart is going crazy under my palms, hammering away in there at a rate that can’t possibly be healthy.
But he looks lighter. That’s the only word for it.
The thing he’s been hauling around on his shoulders since the first night he climbed through my window, the invisible, crushing, ever-present weight of his father’s expectations and threats and orders, it’s just..
. not there anymore. He looks five years younger.
He looks like a person who might actually sleep tonight.
“And Lukas? Where is he now?”
“Fuck if I know!” he crows. “He just left before the vote was even finished. As soon as he saw what was coming, he made a big speech, I barely heard a damn word he said, but who gives a shit? It’s over. I can’t believe this.”
I don’t know what to do with that image.
Lukas Lazarev, infamous titan of New York City, silent and diminished, slinking out of the building that bears his name with his tail between his legs.
For us to be free… I learned a long time ago that if something sounds too good to be true, it absolutely is.
For now, though, I let him have this.
“What about the—” I wave my hand in the direction of my apartment. “The other stuff. The kill order. The contract on me. All of that.”
Kir cups my face in both hands. His thumbs brush my cheekbones and his eyes are clear and bright for the first time in weeks.
“All done. Without Lukas running the company, the Bratva loses its corporate cover. The chairman’s office is the pakhan’s office, and now, it’s my office.
I decide what happens, and I say you’re safe.
” He presses his forehead against mine. “You’re safe, little fox. It’s over.”
I let that sink in. Nobody is coming through my window tonight. Nobody is going to corner me in an alley or a theater or a bathroom. There is no more list with my name on it. There is no more ticking clock.
Which means…
… that Kir and I don’t need our arrangement anymore.
The realization moves through me slowly. Every reason we gave ourselves for doing this just evaporated. If I stay now, it’s not because I have to, or because the man who was supposed to kill me became the man who keeps me alive instead.
If I stay, it’s because I want to. That’s it. No masks. No excuses. Completely voluntary.
Am I ready for that?
“Kir.”
“Hm?”
“Does this mean I can publish the article?”
His thumbs stop moving on my cheeks. The grin doesn’t disappear entirely, but it loses some wattage.
I can see the gears shifting behind his eyes as a question he hasn’t considered yet lands square in his lap.
“Let’s, uh.” He drops his hands and takes a small step back. “Let’s not worry about that right now.”
“But—”
“Just for tonight.” He takes my hand and brings it to his mouth, grazing his lips against my knuckles. “Let’s just enjoy our freedom for five minutes before we start setting fire to things. Okay?”
I look at him, then at my laptop on the counter behind me, where the draft still waits in an unsent email to Doug. “Okay,” I say. “Five minutes.”
He pulls me into him and holds on.