Chapter Nine
Valentina
I woke up with the kind of confusion that takes a few minutes to clear. The room around me wasn’t the same one I’d fallen asleep in for over a week, but it gave me the same view of the Strip through the same wall of glass, the same soft gray morning light spilling across the same hardwood floors.
Dmitri’s bedroom.
After our private moment on the balcony, he’d simply led me into the room and asked me to sleep. Then he disappeared. I had heard him come in several hours later, but I was too sleepy to talk or even move.
But I’d be lying if I said I woke up disoriented or feeling different because I was in Dmitri’s room.
I lay there a moment, letting the thought settle before I let myself get up. Married. The word landed heavy, like I was trying on a coat that fit but still felt like it belonged to someone else.
That’s it.
I’m married now.
I’m Valentina Golovin now, or is it Golovina?
Cruz has become my former name.
Dmitri was already up by the time I made it out of the bedroom, standing at the kitchen island in dark trousers and an open shirt, scrolling through something on his phone with the restless energy he always exuded.
He looked up when he heard me, and I noticed his guarded expression became softer.
I swallowed as I approached the kitchen, trying to avoid thinking of why the sight of me got such a reaction from him.
Neither of us said anything for a few seconds.
I’d told myself to prepare for awkwardness. For some kind of stiffness between us now that we’d made this official the night before. I was yet to see anything of the sort.
He just gestured toward the plate of fruit and toast that someone had left on the counter, like nothing had shifted between us at all. It was so normal that I found myself feeling confused again.
“Sleep okay?” he asked, pulling out the stool beside him. Then his smirk slowly appeared as he playfully added, “Although I think I already know the answer, given how you rolled around, sending your hair in all directions.”
“It was… a different bed,” I defended, subconsciously running my hand through my loose hair. “My body was… exploring the area for threats.”
“Hm,” he muttered, nodding.
“I slept okay, though. Surprisingly. Given everything.” I sat, reaching for a piece of toast. “It’s strange, waking up in the same house I’ve been sleeping in for over a week and suddenly being your wife instead of just your… whatever I was before.”
“House guest with excellent poker skills.”
“That’s generous. I lost most of our hands.”
“You’re better than you think. You just fold too early.
” He said it easily, in the same teasing rhythm we’d used even before the raid.
Now, the banter came more naturally, like our relationship had become something that neither of us fully understood yet but both understood well enough to move through anyway.
Over the next hour, I found myself relaxing in small ways I didn’t consciously notice until they’d already happened.
Dmitri didn’t push. He didn’t fill every silence with something meant to manage my emotions.
Neither did he hover in the suffocating way I’d half expected from a man used to controlling every room he entered.
He simply stayed close—present without crowding, quiet when I needed quiet and talking when I needed a distraction from myself.
Overall, the absence of pressure felt unfamiliar.
It also felt, somehow, safer than anything else about the past several days.
My phone buzzed on the countertop partway through breakfast, Camila’s name lighting up the screen along with a string of messages I’d missed overnight.
“Okay, I know you’re probably still processing everything, but I need details. How does it feel being MARRIED? Also, are you okay?”
“Also, is he being weird about it?”
“Also, I still can’t believe I watched you get married in an ivory dress. Would’ve caused a scene if simple didn’t look so damn good on you!”
I laughed under my breath, and Dmitri glanced over, curious.
“Camila,” I explained. “Demanding a full report on married life, clearly.”
“It’s still your life. Didn’t stop being yours,” he answered casually like he didn’t just assuage one of my major fears instead of responding to a playful text.
“Right,” I breathed.
I texted Camila back.
“I’m fine, Cam. Nothing’s weird, I can assure you. Still processing the change, I guess.”
She replied almost instantly.
“Good. Because if he was being weird about it, I would personally come there and fight a Golovin, security detail or not.”
“She says she’ll fight you if you’re weird about this,” I told him, grinning despite myself.
“Tell her I appreciate the loyalty. And that I have no intention of giving her a reason.”
I relayed the message, and Camila’s response came back within seconds, a single line that made me laugh out loud this time.
“Good. Because I’ve seen what happens to men who cross you now, apparently, and I’d rather not.”
I set the phone down, still smiling, and caught Dmitri watching me quietly. Like something just happened that he was pleased with.
I was imagining Camila sighing and hoping I was okay despite our texts.
She had run up to me as soon as she’d gotten the chance during the ceremony, asking me what exactly happened because she knew Dmitri ‘didn’t corner me to propose on his knees with a declaration of love.
’ Knowing I couldn’t risk putting her in danger, all I could tell her was it was unplanned and not about love.
But I had also assured her that I wasn’t being held captive or anything.
In the end, she teased me about Dmitri being the exact Golovin that had to take care of the ‘problem,’ of course.
“I never noticed it before,” Dmitri began, bringing my attention back to the room. He was already leaving the kitchen.
“Uh, noticed what?”
“The sound of your laughter. It’s non-rhythmic and… alive. And sexy. I like it,” he said.
I looked at him with a confused frown.
“See you later, wifey.”
Oh, that was me?
*****
Later that morning, he took me up to one of the private high-roller suites, cleared temporarily of the guests who usually filled it after dark.
Without the noise and tension of an active game, the room felt almost peaceful, sunlight spilling gold across the felt tables instead of the low, artificial lighting.
“Round two,” he said, already shuffling.
“I thought last time was a one-time distraction.”
“It worked, didn’t it?”
It had. And apparently it was working again, because within twenty minutes I’d stopped thinking about the whole sudden marriage situation, my focus narrowed down to the cards in my hand. Well, and the way Dmitri studied me across the table.
This time felt different from the last. Less teasing, more patience, like he was genuinely trying to teach me something rather than simply distract me.
He walked me through reading betting patterns, showed me how a person’s whole posture changed depending on the strength of their hand, explained that most of what he did across a poker table wasn’t luck at all but a careful observation of everyone sitting across from him.
“Watch the shoulders,” he said, nodding toward an imaginary opponent as he dealt another round.
“Most people think the face is where the tell lives. It’s not.
The face is the first thing everyone learns to control.
The shoulders, the way someone breathes when they’re about to bet big, that takes years to fake convincingly, if anyone even bothers trying. ”
“So you’ve spent your whole life reading shoulders.”
“Among other things.” He glanced up, something amused flickering behind his eyes. “Yours go stiff right before you bluff. It’s the opposite of most people. You get more confident-looking when you’re lying.”
“That can’t be true.”
“It’s completely true. You did it twice in the last ten minutes.” His smirk moved into a small smile, clearly enjoying having caught me at something I hadn’t noticed myself doing. “Careful. If you ever play against anyone who actually knows what they’re doing, that’s the first thing they’ll clock.”
“You’re the only person I’m ever going to play against, so I think I’m safe.”
“You are.” Something in his tone made the comment land heavier than the joke probably intended, and I didn’t ask him to clarify what he meant by it.
“You’re not gambling,” I said slowly, getting it now as I watched him fold a hand he clearly could have won. “You’re reading people. The cards are not the point.”
“Exactly.”
I thought about that. He’d spent his whole life reading people for exactly this reason, cataloging tells and patterns because his survival depended on knowing who was lying.
It made a strange kind of sense that a man who lived like that would eventually learn to read me too, would notice when I stopped eating or flinched at a car alarm or pretended I was fine when I wasn’t.
During the third hand, I won.
Not by much, and not through any particular skill, just one decent bluff I’d apparently pulled off more convincingly than I expected. But the surprise on his face was real, brief and genuine.
“Beginner’s luck,” he said, though he was smiling when he said it.
“Or I’m just better than you thought.”
“I always knew you were good.”
As the afternoon light shifted toward evening, the conversation between us slowed and became easier.
“Can I ask you something?”
“Always.”
“What does this actually mean? The marriage. Practically, I mean, not the part where you promised me protection in front of your entire family. What happens to my actual life now?”
“Nothing gets forced on you beyond what keeps you safe. You’re not confined here, Val.
You’re not going to wake up one day and find out I’ve isolated you from everyone you care about, or that I expect you to become someone you’re not just because we’re married.
The marriage exists to protect you from threats outside these walls.
It was never meant to become a threat inside them. ”