Chapter 12
EVGENY
Dmitri knew what happened in the gym. Hearing the mirror crash, he’d come running, straight into a disheveled and distraught Eva as she tugged her sweater over her head before storming out.
The last puzzle piece had fallen into place for him when he’d walked in on me, barely dressed, my hair in complete disarray.
Good second that he was, Dmitri didn’t say a thing in the moment, instead making a call to get the big mirror cleaned up and replaced.
He waited until I was climbing the walls after another sleepless night, trying to outrun dreams of Eva.
He suggested a run and, along the way, did nothing but toss pointed comments, building to Vasya’s apparent interest in her.
I went after him like we were boys in school, knocking him flat until we were wrestling in the rocky beach sand.
If either of us had any last, lingering doubts about my growing feelings for Eva, no matter how much I wanted to deny them, the fight had banished them all.
The run back had been silent.
And then I’d found Eva curled on a chaise lounge outside, asleep under a blanket. I’d stood there, staring at the woman who had looked at me unflinchingly, put her hand to the scars others found so horrifying, and had stayed.
Not only had she stayed, but she had taken me on wholeheartedly.
Dmitri had come out only to hand me two mugs of coffee before disappearing again.
And now, I’ve stepped out of self-imposed isolation in my home office to find Eva curled in a chair, reading. The sight of her, legs tucked under her and her sweatshirt slipping off one slim shoulder, her mind lost in the book, stirs an unfamiliar desire. I find myself moving toward her.
I should turn around, leave her be, for her good and mine.
But her name is already on my tongue, and I can’t, I won’t, stop it.
“Eva.”
She startles, rising halfway out of the chair, her gaze wary as she watches me.
“Sorry,” she says quickly, frozen in her odd position. “I took a book down to read. Is that okay? I can put it back.”
She’s already closed the book, rising to return it to the shelves lining the walls. But she stops when I put a hand up.
“Come with me.”
Eva watches me guardedly as she sets the book on the side table and follows. I feel her reticence in the slow drag of her steps and the way she trails behind. It only deepens when we reach my private wing, and the echo of her footsteps cuts off as she stops.
“Are you coming?” I ask, looking over my shoulder.
Eva doesn’t answer but trots to catch up, as if she expects me to lead her into a trap I’ve set.
Instead, I lead her to a carved, locked door.
“What’s in there?”
When I glance over my shoulder again, Eva’s expression is pinched, her full eyebrows drawn nearly together.
I chuckle. “What are you expecting?”
She sinks her top teeth into her bottom lip, and a faint blush appears on her cheeks. She doesn’t need to tell me for me to know she’s imagining a room of mafia horrors, whatever that might be.
I can’t help chuckling again as I enter the PIN on the keypad, and the door unlocks with a soft click. My amusement turns to pleasure when the lights come on and Eva gasps.
She stands frozen in the doorway, mouth parted, eyes wide as saucers as she takes in the room’s contents.
“Is this all yours?” she finally manages.
Her breath is barely above a stunned whisper, as if anything louder would disturb the books lining the floor-to-ceiling mahogany shelves that cover every inch of the large room’s walls.
“Yes. My private collection.”
Eva takes a few slow steps into the room, turning to drink it all in. “This is incredible.”
The massive collection has always been my pride and joy, but Eva’s obvious delight and wonder make it doubly so.
“Many are first editions. I keep the oldest books in that case, climate-controlled so they don’t degrade.”
With a wave, I indicate a shelf with titles in Cyrillic lettering along their spines. “And this collection was saved from the Alexander Palace during the Revolution.”
“How did you get them?”
“Many I bought through private auction. Other members of my family saved some before fleeing Russia for France.”
“Did they work in the palace?” Eva asks, distracted as she runs a finger down the spine of a book and traces the gold-foil lettering.
“No. They were Romanovs. Distant cousins, of course, minor cousins, but Romanovs.”
That finally gets Eva’s attention. She turns her head slowly, as if she thinks she misheard. Her eyes widen again when she sees no hint of a joke in my expression.
“Romanovs?”
“Yes. My mother was a Romanov.”
“Were you born in Russia?” she asks, eyes scanning the titles on the high shelves.
“I was not, and my father was born in Paris, but many of the Kucherov Bratva were. Vasya was. But becoming a bratva member is less about nationality and more about agreeing to the laws of the brotherhood, or the vory v zakone.”
Eva looks at me. “Thieves-in-law?”
“Yes,” I reply. “It is what we in our world call the brotherhood, the set of laws, expectations, and hierarchy that make up what Westerners call the Russian mob.”
“Oh.”
I look down at her. She’s so close her arm brushes my sleeve, and when she feels my eyes on her, she tilts her head up. It’s so easy to lean down, my gaze skimming over the almond shape of her eyes, the soft glow of her skin, the perfection of her lips that part slightly as though in invitation.
Warmth settles in the center of my chest, a heat that has nothing to do with the stirring of attraction in my slacks. It is a sentiment I have never felt for anyone else, and it frightens me more than any threat of a war between bratvas.
Eva rises on her toes, and our lips meet. What starts as a soft exploration soon explodes, and I’m devouring her, my arms circling her and pushing her back, crushing her against a shelf of books. But Eva doesn’t seem to care, one arm winding around my neck, the other hand cupping my face.
The scarred side of my face.
I pull away, breathless, panic rising in my veins like a flame overtaking the desire.
“I’m sorry,” she says quickly. “Did I—”
“I have to go.”
Confusion mars Eva’s expression, her chest rising and falling rapidly, her cheeks still flushed. “Oh. Okay.”
We both know it’s a cover, but I flee anyway. I run from Eva and my unprecedented feelings. My path takes me straight to the rest home in the hills, with carved white columns, ivy-covered colonnades, and a guard at the gate.
A lifetime of service for the Kucherov Bratva does not go unrewarded.
Despite the late hour, the old man sits in his room by the window, looking out at a slice of the valley lit by a carpet of glittering lights.
“Ivan.”
The old vor turns slowly, squinting with watery eyes at me. “Evgeny? Why the late visit?”
I sit in the chair opposite, a ritual comforting in its familiarity.
“Did something else happen with that bastard Tsepov?”
“No.” I’m not here for business, and a slow smile tugs at the old man’s mouth.
“Ah. This is about the woman Vasya has spoken of, is it not?”
Of anyone alive, Ivan has known me the longest. At the core of our relationship, he is the closest thing I have to a father, the one I go to for advice on many matters. I don’t need to force out the words that are so difficult to form, because he understands.
He chuckles softly. “Evgeny. I wondered when you would find a woman. Not everyone would suit you, yes? She needs a strong heart and fire in her veins.”
The amusement in Ivan’s tone tells me he is enjoying this predicament.
“She has fire in her veins, all right,” I mutter. “She drives me mad, Ivan. I shouldn’t feel anything for her, I mean she tried to steal information from us.”
I still marvel at Eva’s bravery in taking on the Kucherov Bratva and me, even if the act was brash and abominably stupid.
“And not for money. No. Not even for power over me. She did it to save her father’s damn bookstore. To help her family. To keep their house.”
Unable to remain sitting any longer, I take to prowling the room like a caged beast.
“She is brave even when she’s frightened. She challenges me when she knows it’s dangerous. She hasn’t once fallen apart in circumstances that would break others. She has never once pleaded to be released or begged for her life.”
Oh, she’d begged at other moments, moments that, just the thought of them, make my skin prickle with desire.
“She has the gall to challenge me, Ivan. Me.” I stop, one memory banishing all the others. “She does not turn away from my scars. Or my nature.”
The old man chuckles again. “It sounds as though you have met your match, dear boy.”
He sees the truth of the matter, names what I cannot, and the fight leaves me in a rush. I sink back into the chair.
“I have.”
I do not need to name the actual feelings to admit the truth of the matter. Those two words suffice.
“But I cannot feel this way, Ivan. I’m not supposed to care for but punish those who challenge me. I’m not supposed to feel this way about anyone.”
“You mean you’re not supposed to care this much about her,” Ivan corrects, and I know it for the truth. “You fear the power she will have over you should you pursue this, do you not? You fear the strength of those feelings.”
I will the old man not to continue. He is naming the secret fear that has kept me closed off all these years, even from Vasya and Dmitri.
“You fear what will happen should you lose her, as you and your father lost your mother.”
Pain rises in my chest, hot and sharp, and I force it and the memories back.
Ivan lets out a sigh and puts a hand on my knee. “Evgeny. Your mother knew what she was agreeing to when she married your father. When she passed, it broke your father, though he never regretted loving her. And he continued on, as would you. As would this woman, should something happen to you.”
There are no words to express the emotions welling in me, emotions that frighten me more than anything has before.
“I can see how you are coming to value her. I haven’t seen this in you before.”
Ivan’s amusement over my turmoil has turned into a kind of caring he has only begun to show in his golden years.
“Take my advice, words from an old man who is alone at the end of his life and full of regrets. Don’t push good things away.
Don’t let them slip through your fingers.
I know you feel you don’t deserve good, that the scars on your face and your soul keep you from them.
That your life is too dangerous to allow anyone in.
But take blessings when given to you, Evgeny, and let God figure the rest out in time. ”
For a long time, neither of us says anything. When Ivan offers me a drink, I take it gladly. The alcohol helps quiet my mind, which is churning with too many thoughts to catch just one.