Chapter Five
Arkady
The contract in front of me is a blur of legal jargon I stopped reading ten minutes ago. My eyes keep losing focus, drifting from the words to the space beyond them where she exists—vivid and unshakeable.
Three days.
Seventy-two hours since I walked out of that ceremony, and I can still see her. The registrar. The way her throat had flushed when the fabric split. The flesh of her breast spilling free, pale and soft against black silk. The mortified panic in her eyes before she’d fled.
And the way she’d come back.
That’s the part that won’t leave me alone. She could have stayed hidden. Could have sent someone else to finish the ceremony. But she’d wrapped herself in that pathetic scarf and returned to do her job, standing there with her chin up while every eye in the room tracked her movements.
Including mine.
Khren.
My cock thickens against my zipper. Again. The fourth time this morning, and it’s not even noon.
I shift in my chair, the leather groaning under my weight. The office suddenly feels too small. Too warm. The walls pressing in like they’re trying to suffocate me.
I need to fuck someone. Work this out of my system. There are women I could call—discrete, experienced, willing to let me use them hard and walk away clean.
But the thought of touching anyone else makes my skin crawl.
Because it wouldn’t be her.
Blyad.
What the fuck is going on with you, mudak?
This is bullshit.
I drag both hands down my face, fingernails scraping against stubble. The sting helps. Barely.
This is pathetic. Dangerous. I’m sitting here with Sergei Tulikov planning God-knows-what revenge, my father still running girls through his pipeline, our competitors closing in from all directions—and I can’t stop thinking about some random woman.
A woman who saw me at my worst and probably thinks I’m a monster.
She wouldn’t be wrong.
The door opens without warning.
I look up, already scowling, ready to tear into whoever had the balls to—
Yanis.
He fills the doorway—six-two of steady calm that makes me want to throw something. His suit is tailored but conservative, navy instead of black, no visible ink on his skin. He could pass for legitimate. Respectable.
Everything I’m not.
“You look like shit,” he says, closing the door behind him.
“Fuck off.”
“Good morning to you, too, brother.” He drops into the chair across from my desk, crossing one ankle over his knee. Relaxed. Easy.
I hate how comfortable he looks in his own skin.
“Father called,” he continues when I don’t respond.
My jaw tightens. “Of course he did.”
“Said you two had words.”
“‘Words.’” I bark out a laugh. “Is that what he called it?”
Yanis studies me, those ice-blue eyes—same as mine, same as Mishka’s were—reading more than I want him to see. “What happened?”
“He reminded me that I’m a disappointment. That I killed our brother. That I destroyed our mother.” The words come out flat. Mechanical. I’ve heard them so many times they’ve lost their sting.
That’s a lie.
They still cut. Every. Single. Time.
“Arkady—”
“And then he told me he’s still trafficking.” The confession rips out before I can stop it. “Operation Blackout didn’t stop him. He just got better at hiding it. More careful about keeping it away from me.”
The silence that follows is different. Heavier.
Yanis’s relaxed posture shifts. His foot drops to the floor. “He admitted that?”
“Hinted. But the signs were all there. And I doubt he cares if I know or not. Because he knows I can’t do a fucking thing about it without starting a war.
” I lean back, the chair creaking, and stare at the ceiling.
The overhead light has a dead bulb that I keep meaning to replace.
“He’s untouchable as long as he has the Bratva behind him. ”
“Not untouchable.” Yanis’s voice drops lower. Harder. “Just protected.”
“Same thing.”
“It’s not.”
I look at him then. There’s something in his expression I don’t recognize—something dark threading through his usual calm.
“Don’t,” I say.
“Don’t what?”
“Whatever you’re thinking. Don’t.”
His mouth tightens. “I’m not thinking anything.”
“Bullshit. I know that look.” I lean forward, bracing my forearms on the desk. “You want to help. Want to fix this. But there’s no fixing it, Yanis. Not without bloodshed.”
“Maybe bloodshed is what’s needed.”
The words hang between us—dangerous, seductive.
For a moment, I let myself imagine it. Working with Yanis to dismantle our father’s operation piece by piece. Burning the whole rotten structure to the ground.
But then I remember.
Mishka’s face. The shock in his eyes. The blood. Too much blood.
You destroy the people you love, Arkady.
“Nyet,” I say, forcing steel into my voice. “You’re not getting involved. You’re the good one, remember? The one who might actually have a future that doesn’t end in a body bag.”
“That’s not—”
“End of discussion.” I pick up a pen, tap it against the desk. Change the subject before he can argue. “How’s the house hunt going?”
He stares at me for a long moment, jaw working like he’s chewing on words he won’t say. Then he exhales and lets it go.
“Still looking. Nothing feels right yet.” He shifts in his chair. “What about Ashwater Heights? Settled in yet?”
“Trying to. If I can ever find competent staff.”
“Still no luck?”
“I’ve interviewed dozens.” I toss the pen down. It skitters across the desk. “They’re either incompetent, terrified of me, or both. One woman took one look at Stefan and fucking ran out the door.”
Yanis’s mouth twitches. “Can’t entirely blame her. Stefan looks like he eats newborn puppies for breakfast.”
“He probably does.”
“What about household staff from one of the other families? Someone already vetted?”
“Tried that. They all report back to whoever sent them. I’m not having spies in my house.” I drag a hand through my hair, frustration coiling tighter in my chest. “I need someone clean. Someone with no connections to any of… this.”
“Tall order.”
“I’m aware.”
“What does Anfisa say about it?”
I huff out a breath. I wish I could clone her. “She’s trying to help, but her heart’s not in it. She’s retiring,” I say, voice rougher than intended. “Couple of weeks. Going back to Russia to be with her grandchildren.”
“After dealing with you all these years, she’s earned it.”
“Da.” The word sticks in my throat.
After Mother died—after she’d stopped eating, stopped speaking, stopped living while her heart kept uselessly beating—Anfisa had kept the household running. Kept me from drowning completely.
And now she’s leaving.
Another person I’ll lose.
“I need someone she can train before she goes,” I continue, forcing my voice level. “Someone who can handle running a house that size. Someone who won’t piss themselves every time I walk into a room.”
“So someone competent and brave as shit.” Yanis grins. “Shouldn’t be too hard to find.”
“You’d think—”
The door slams open.
We both turn.
Rosanna storms in like an avenging angel in designer white—linen and rage and perfectly styled hair that probably took an hour to achieve that artful cascade.
Her eyes are blazing. Red-rimmed. Either from crying or fury or both.
“You fucking asshole!”
Yanis is on his feet immediately, hands up in a placating gesture I’ve seen him use a hundred times. “Rosanna, maybe we should—”
“Sit. Down.” She doesn’t even look at him. Her glare is locked on me.
“Rosanna—” Yanis tries again.
“No.” She takes three sharp steps toward my desk. “I’m done being this asshole’s doormat. Done letting him treat me like shit.”
I lean back in my chair, keeping my expression neutral. Bored, even. It’s a skill I’ve perfected—showing nothing while everything inside is razor wire and broken glass.
“You’re interrupting,” I say.
Her laugh is bitter. “Am I? How terrible for you.”
Yanis glances between us, clearly weighing whether to stay or run. Smart money says run.
“Yanis,” I say, not looking away from Rosanna. “Leave.”
“Maybe I should—”
“Leave.”
He hesitates one more second—long enough for me to see the concern etched in his face—then nods once and heads for the door.
“I’m sorry,” he murmurs to Rosanna as he passes.
She ignores him completely.
The door snaps shut.
Silence rushes in—thick and suffocating.
Rosanna crosses her arms, the movement pushing her breasts up in a way that’s absolutely calculated.
Everything about her is calculated. The dress that broadcasts wounded innocence.
The makeup that somehow makes her look both devastated and beautiful.
The way she’s standing with her weight on one hip, trembling just slightly.
It’s a performance I’ve seen variations of since we were teenagers forced together at Bratva functions.
It doesn’t work on me anymore.
“Do you have any idea,” she says, voice shaking, “what you did to me?”
“I said no at a wedding. Happens more than you’d think.”
“You humiliated me!” The volume spikes, control cracking at the edges. “In front of hundreds of people. My father. His associates. Everyone who matters in this world.”
“You lied to me first.”
“I am pregnant!” She slams both palms on my desk, leaning forward. Close enough that I can smell her perfume—something cloying and expensive that makes my sinuses itch. “What was I supposed to do, Arkady? Just… tell you and watch you walk away before our wedding day?”
“Yes. That’s exactly what you should have done.”
Her mouth opens. Closes. Opens again.
“That would have been honest,” I continue, keeping my voice level. Cold. “Instead, you waited until five minutes before we were supposed to make vows and ambushed me with information you knew would change everything. Do you understand why?”
“Because you made it clear you didn’t want children!” Her voice cracks. “The very first conversation we had after my father arranged this marriage, you said no kids. Ever. You were so adamant about it, so fucking cold—”
“And you agreed,” I interrupt. “Said you wanted to keep your figure anyway. Said you understood.”
“Plans change—”
“Not mine.”
Rosanna straightens, her face going from flushed to pale in the span of a heartbeat. For a moment, she just stares at me, and I see something flicker behind her eyes. Hurt, maybe. Or the realization that this isn’t a negotiation she can win.
Then her expression hardens.
“You know what I think?” She walks around my desk—slow, deliberate—invading my space in a way that makes my muscles tense. “I think this has nothing to do with the baby.”
“Enlighten me.”
“I think you wanted an excuse.” She stops beside my chair, looking down at me. “Any excuse to walk away from marrying me. And I gave you one.”
I say nothing. Let the silence stretch.
“And then there’s her.”
My pulse kicks. Just once. Hard enough that I feel it in my temples.
“Her?” I keep my tone flat.
“The registrar.” Rosanna’s smile is all teeth. Sharp and vicious and satisfied. “I saw the way you looked at her, Arkady.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Bullshit.” She leans down, bringing her face level with mine. “You couldn’t take your eyes off her tits when that dress split. You think I didn’t notice? You think no one noticed?”
Heat floods my face—half anger, half guilt.
Because she’s right.
I’d looked. More than once. And when I’d forced myself to look away, my gaze had found its way back like iron to a magnet.
“You’re seeing things that aren’t there,” I say.
“Am I?” She trails one finger along the edge of my desk, circling closer. “Or are you just pissed because you can’t stop thinking about some little slut who probably couldn’t care less who you are?”
My hands curl into fists.
“Careful, Rosanna.”
“Why?” She laughs—high and brittle. “What are you going to do? Walk out on me again? You already did that in the most spectacular way possible.”
She’s closer now. Too close. Invading space I don’t want her in, breathing air I don’t want to share.
“I watched you watch her,” she continues, voice dropping to something quieter. More dangerous. “I saw the way your jaw got tight when she ran out. The way you tracked her when she came back. You wanted her.”
The accusation hangs in the air between us.
And I have no defense.
Because, again, she’s absolutely fucking right.
“Get out,” I say.
“No.”
I stand abruptly—fast enough that my chair rolls backward and hits the wall. Rosanna stumbles back a step, eyes widening.
Good. Let her remember what I’m capable of.
“Let me make this very clear,” I say, and my voice comes out low.
Controlled. The kind of quiet that makes people’s survival instincts scream.
“I do not want to get married. Not to you. Not to anyone. This whole arrangement was our fathers’ idea—not mine.
I went along with it because it was strategic.
Because it meant peace. But I never wanted it. ”
Her face has gone pale now. Genuinely pale.
“And as for the baby?” I take a step toward her.
She takes one back. “I don’t know what I’m going to do about that yet.
But I will make that decision on my timeline—not because you manipulated me, not because your father demands it, and sure as fuck not because you think you can guilt me into playing house. ”
“Arkady—”
“Now get the fuck out of my office.”
For a moment, she just stares—mouth slightly open, eyes glassy with tears that might actually be real this time.
Then she spins on her heel and storms out, slamming the door hard enough that the frame shudders.
The sound echoes.
Then silence crashes back in.
I stand there, breathing too hard, hands still clenched into fists.
My office feels smaller than it did five minutes ago. The walls seem closer. The air thicker.
Everyone wants something from me.
My father wants obedience. Wants me to fall in line, marry strategically, ignore his trafficking operation like a good little soldier.
Rosanna wants security. Wants a father for her child and a ring on her finger and the illusion of love wrapped in Laurov protection.
Yanis wants peace. Wants the fantasy version of a family that died with Mishka.
And none of them give a single fuck about what I want.
Which is space.
Freedom.
A life that isn’t soaked in blood and guilt and the ghost of a twelve-year-old boy I killed with my own hands.
I walk to the window. The city sprawls below. Somewhere down there, people are living normal lives. Going to jobs they hate. Arguing with their partners. Worrying about bills and traffic and what to make for dinner.
Simple problems.
I’d kill for simple problems.
The office feels suffocating now—walls too close, air too thin. I turn away from the window and head for the door, needing to move, needing to do something other than sit here drowning in thoughts I can’t control.
The hallway is empty. Silent.
I walk without direction—just moving through the building like motion alone can outrun what’s chasing me.
It doesn’t work.
It never does.
Because the thing chasing me is inside my own head.
A memory fifteen years old that won’t die.
A woman three days fresh that won’t fade.
And both completely and utterly out of my reach.