Chapter 1 #2
Me, on the other hand. I’m not one of her brothers.
I didn’t see her covered in blood and broken.
I’m not married to someone who did. So maybe, just maybe, I have a shot at being the one to bridge the gap.
And if not, I have a shot at being her friend—and that would be enough. I could always use more friends.
Something tells me that Anya could use one too.
“Can I, Father?” Anya asks, her voice shaking only slightly. “Please?”
My heart instantly bursts, beating wildly in victory.
Anton Morozov hesitates, looking between me and his only daughter. I can’t tell if he’s debating jumping over the table to throttle me or considering shaking my hand for getting Anya to branch out.
Probably the throttle me option.
Ultimately though, he dips his head in approval. The responding smile that spreads across Anya’s face makes him freeze, like he’s been stunned. It makes me wonder when the last time he’s seen her look so happy.
I can feel my own smile meet hers as I stand completely still, watching as she tentatively rounds the table.
Her long and modest lavender dress doesn’t hide her slim figure, but it doesn’t accentuate it either.
The fabric looks soft and flows as she walks toward me.
The sleeves are nearly sheer but still hiding her arms from view.
She’s shorter than I expected considering Dmitri’s height, though Ivan is on the shorter side so it makes sense.
Her head is level with my chest, but she stays back far enough that she doesn’t need to crane her neck to meet my eyes.
Since her dress meets the ground, I can’t tell if she has heels on.
Holding up my cuffed hands, I smile happily. “You want my hands behind my back or do you want to step under them? I won’t touch you either way.”
“Would it be too much work to put them behind your back?” she asks, her pale cheeks tinting pink.
I chuckle lightly. “Nah, I got this.”
Bending down slowly so I don’t startle her, I step through my connected hands one foot at a time. When I stand back up straight, my interlocked fingers are firmly behind my back.
“We’ll go dance near Dmitri and Jade, okay?”
Anya looks optimistically at her father. Again, he pauses before nodding.
I don’t know if she’s noticed that her uncles took up my offer to point a gun at me while we dance, but judging by the way Lev and Mikhail both have an arm under their table, I know they have.
I can’t complain, I’m sure I would do the same thing in their shoes.
“If anyone gets too close to us, I’ll sic Nico on them,” I tell her, walking leisurely by her side. “He looks bored, anyway. I know he’d love an excuse to shed some blood.” I dip my head toward Nico’s direction to show her that he’s on standby.
Anya giggles and then gasps like the sound has scared her. She clasps a hand over her mouth with widened eyes and freezes. A long couple of seconds pass before she shakes off her shock and she looks back at me.
“You didn’t have to do this,” she mutters shyly.
A scoff leaves me before I can smother it. “No one has to ask the prettiest girl at the party to dance, but I could hardly miss the chance.”
Her face flames, cheeks going from pink to red. Her round eyes blink at me in shock. “You can’t mean that. Why would you say that?” She swallows, shaking her head. “You don’t have to be so nice to me, you know?”
“Oh, I never lie about pretty girls, Anya.” I chuckle, lips quirking up on the sides.
My feet come to a stop, putting us in the middle of the dance floor.
“Well, I do give Emilio shit about his wife, Melani, complimenting her a lot. She’s beautiful of course, but married women aren’t really my thing.
Don’t tell anyone I said that, I have a reputation to protect. ”
“A reputation as what?” she questions and tilts her head, seemingly amused to share a secret with me.
As if to boast, I lean just a little closer and talk just a little lower. “I’m a bit of a tease. Someone has to keep my tight-ass brothers on their toes.”
A bit of her honey blonde hair falls in front of her face as she looks down, hiding a little smile. The slow song begins to play, and anticipation bubbles up in my gut.
“You can hold my shoulders, if you like,” I offer, trying to sound as nonchalant as humanly possible. “Or we can kind of just hover around each other. I’m game either way.”
After a moment, Anya looks up and reaches out tentatively, extending her hands to set them lightly on my shoulders. She doesn’t let them fall with their full weight, not letting them relax so that she can retract them as quickly as possible if need be.
Still, the feeling of her tentative trust makes me feel fucking invincible.
“Now, I’m no trained dancer, so don’t expect anything fancy,” I preface, looking down at her and catching a glimpse of her feet as she steps closer. “But I promise I won’t step on your feet,” I joke, nodding down to her short, silver heels.
Something like humor flashes in her light-blue eyes. They aren’t striking and sharp like the Moretti color my family tends to possess. They’re pale and soft, like the sky when it’s been dusted with thin clouds.
“Maybe I’ll step on yours.” Her voice is so subtle, I almost don’t catch her comment.
“Oh, she’s got jokes?” I ask, lips twisting into a delighted smirk. “I like that in a dance partner.”
Anya shrugs, a bashful expression taking over her playful smile. And without another word, she takes the first step. Her dress brushes over her ankles as she moves to the right, starting to sway from one side to the other.
Anya catches onto the soft beat of the music and uses her hold on my shoulders to pull me along with her. She may look half-terrified, but the girl has rhythm. If I went to prom, this is exactly how I imagined a slow dance with a girl would go—well, other than the handcuffs.
“You’re a natural,” I tell her sincerely, moving at her steady pace. “I could tell that you’re a ballerina, even if I didn’t already know, you know?”
She stiffens ever so slightly. “I haven’t danced in almost three years.”
Fuck.
She hasn’t danced since it happened.
Refusing to ruin the moment by letting her sense pity that isn’t there, I shake my head slightly. “Once a ballerina, always a ballerina, I think. I can see it in your posture, and your turnout.”
Her brows lift, surprise lighting up her face. “You know what a turnout is?”
“Martha is obsessed with Dancing with the Stars,” I explain with a reluctant sigh. “I know far too much about ballroom and contemporary dance, Anya. It’s a whole thing.”
Amused but confused, she asks, “Who’s Martha?”
“She’s our chef. Well, more like our house manager, chef, cleaner, grandma…all the things. She’s been with our family since before I was born.”
Anya hums, continuing to sway with me. “And you watch Dancing with the Stars with her?”
“Religiously, I’m afraid. We fold laundry while it’s on. She’s Valentin Chmerkovskiy’s biggest fan, and she makes me vote for him no matter who his partner is. I could show you my text thread that goes on for ages with all his past partner’s names.”
“That’s sweet.” Her lips twitch subtly, concealing a smile.
“I suppose it’s not the most embarrassing thing about me,” I concede.
“You don’t seem like the kind of guy who gets embarrassed easily…” Anya looks up at me through her eyelashes, blushing. “I mean, you’re dancing with me—”
“What the fuck would be embarrassing about that?” I cut in harshly, hopefully not too harshly. The question flew out of me before I could even think about holding it in. “You’re beautiful, a way better dancer than I am, and probably smarter than anyone else knows.”
Her throat bobs in a thick swallow. “Smarter? What makes you say that?”
“Well, I’ve gotten quite close with your brothers this past year,” I say, carefully watching how she reacts to me bringing them up. “And it seems like you three had similar tutors to me and my siblings growing up. And mafia princesses are almost always more studied than their brothers.”
She gives me a doubtful shake of her head. “If you say so. I wouldn’t call myself a princess, though.”
“I would.”
“You’d call yourself a princess?” she quips. Again, she looks instantly shocked with herself, like she didn’t mean for the question to be verbalized.
A bark of a laugh bursts out of me, and I fight the instinct to throw my head back. “See? Look at you with the clever comebacks. Comedy is my favorite use of intelligence.”
“I’m sorry,” she apologizes sheepishly. “That was rude.”
I couldn’t disagree more. “It was hilarious.”
The song is coming to an end when I see her peek to our side a couple of times.
Her bottom teeth catch her lip, contemplation seeming to be eating at her.
When I turn my head to find what’s caught her attention, my heart nearly bursts into flames.
It’s my dad, holding Isobella and Cesar.
He’s sitting down with one twin on each thigh, speaking to them quietly as the party floats softly around them.
She’s never met her niece and nephew.
My niece and nephew. The kids that I’ve seen and held nearly every single day since their birth, she’s never had the opportunity to meet. Whether due to her own fear of leaving her house, or her reluctance to see her brothers, she’s not been able to meet the babies.
“They’re amazing,” I tell her, just loud enough for her to hear. “Do you want to—”
“No,” she interrupts quickly, swallowing hard. “I can’t…Dmitri…”
“He’d love for you to meet them,” I press on. “Even without talking to him. Let me bring them to you? You can sit with your father. Anton hasn’t had a lot of time with them either, I’m sure he’d love it.”
She startles. “You call my father Anton?”
The way she whispers his name like she can’t believe it has me silently cracking up.
“Only when he can’t hear me,” I admit, chuckling. “You won’t tell on me, will you?”
“N-no,” Anya stammers, shaking her head.
“We share a secret now,” I say, wiggling my eyebrows. “That makes us friends, you know?”
“Does it?”
“Uh-huh.” A fast-paced song begins to play, and we stop swaying. “I’m going to take you back to your seat and return with two small children. Blink twice if you really don’t want me to.”
“If you’re sure no one will be mad…”
“Are you kidding? Jade’s going to be elated. She’ll probably shed tears.”
Anya seems to chew over the plan, but quickly relents. “Okay.”