Chapter 22
Roman
Zoya sleeps in my arms, but I am wide awake, staring at the ceiling.
I need to find out whether she has the ledger or if I’m just guessing that she does.
I quietly slip out of bed and pull on a pair of black joggers.
I leave the room without a sound, satisfied that she won’t use this opportunity to try to run, and head back down the hallway to her room.
The door is still wide open, the bed a mess from our sex.
I take a moment to revel in the thrill I get from finally taking the woman whom Mikhail tied to my fate five years ago.
Mikhail knew Nik was ambitious, and he made plans.
The only plans he knew that would protect her, with the only family he had any trust in.
He and Baron go way back, and rivals or not, that meant more to them than the power.
Moving to the wardrobe, I search it methodically.
Petr searched like a soldier—fast, efficient.
Not like a man who grew up learning where people hide their sins.
I need to go through it with my own eyes.
After checking the wardrobe thoroughly, making sure to keep the order that Zoya craves, I move to the dressing table.
I search through it thoroughly, pulling out drawers and checking under her clothes.
Nothing.
I check under the bed and run my hand under the outer edge of the mattress, but nothing turns up.
Moving to the ensuite, I get down on my knees and inspect the under-sink storage. As I peer inside, I reach my hand in, fingers probing the space above the doors.
My fingertips brush against leather.
I smile.
I wedge my hand deeper, straining to get a grip on what I can now confirm is the ledger. The fit is tight, and I have to angle my wrist awkwardly to reach it. After some manoeuvring, I manage to pull it free, along with a small pouch that clinks softly.
Sitting back on my heels, I examine my find.
The red leather ledger—Mikhail’s most closely guarded secret—and a velvet pouch that, when I open it, reveals a collection of uncut diamonds worth two million at least. I have no interest in the stones, so I replace them in the pouch and flip through the pages of the ledger, scanning the names and corresponding codes.
It’s exactly what I expected: a comprehensive list of everyone who is anyone with Zoya’s name right at the top.
Except it’s coded. The numbers and letters make no sense without the key, precisely as I thought.
Zoya requires the stationery to attempt to decode this.
She needs a visual, notes. I understand that.
I understand her “last request” was designed to look like an add-on, but this was the most important thing to her.
She needs to know what leverage she holds.
I need to know who I can use this against and to what end.
We have a shared interest in the contents, but without the actual information, it is worthless.
I replace it and the diamonds under the sink. She asked for paper and pens. She’ll have them. Not because she asked, but because she’s earned the right to be effective. She thinks she has a chance. I need to believe she does.
Pleased that I have confirmed what I suspected, I don’t hold her omission against her.
She thinks she’s carrying this by herself.
I won’t let her, whether she wants me to or not.
She needs to think she has something that will help her gain power, her safety, that doesn’t rely on my being a brute to anyone who comes within a ten-foot radius of her.
I can respect that. I don’t want her helpless.
I want her alive, sharp, and mine to protect.
I want to take it. I don’t. Instead, I slide the ledger back into its hiding place and close the cabinet softly. If I take it now, I turn this into a war again before she’s even had a night to breathe. If I leave it, she works, and I learn what she’s capable of.
Two days for her to make the code speak.
I return to her, warming my bed, the urge to fuck her awake is clawing at me.
Now that I’ve tasted her, I can’t stay away.
But I leave her to sleep, stripping off again and slipping in beside her.
She stirs when I pull the duvet up, her body seeking my heat instinctively.
It satisfies a primal part of me to be her source of warmth, even while she plots against me in her dreams. I drape an arm over her waist, my hand splaying possessively across her stomach.
Her skin is soft, warm, and deceptively fragile.
Beneath the silk and the fear, she has a spine of steel.
She hid that ledger right under my nose, walked past armed guards with diamonds in her bag, and then fucked me with an intensity that almost made me forget who holds the keys.
Almost.
Under the sink, the ledger waits. Here, in the dark, the truth waits.
She thinks the board is hers because she has a piece hidden.
She forgets I built the room around it. I will give her the paper.
I will give her the pens. I will let her scribble and fret and decode the secrets Mikhail left behind, and when she cracks it, I will be right there to catch the fallout.
I press a kiss to the curve of her neck. Her pulse beats a slow, steady rhythm against my lips.
“Sleep well, malyshka,” I whisper into the darkness. “You have work to do tomorrow.”
The funeral looms. Nik looms. But for now, the only threat in this room is what she’s hiding, and what I’m pretending I don’t see. I close my eyes, letting her scent and the weight of my victory drag me under.
***
Zoya is still asleep as I dress for the day. I don’t wake her. When I leave the room, I give her the freedom I promised her, but not an inch more. She can return to her room, shower, get dressed, eat, and be left alone to work on the code, with the tools laid out for her.
Heading down the stairs, I am greeted with a sudden flurry of activity.
“What?” I ask as Andrei strides over.
“Nik is here.”
The corner of my mouth curves up, my face settling into the expression I reserve for men who think they’re surprising me when I’ve been three steps ahead the whole time. “Oh, is he. Well, let him in.”
Andrei hesitates, likely calculating the odds of violence occurring on the imported marble, but he radios the gatehouse without argument. I stride to my office and shut the doors over the bank of monitors and wait. I’ve been expecting his visit. I’m surprised he took so long.
I sit and pretend to be busy with some case files, when he strides in, purposeful, competent, composed.
“Roman Voronov,” he says. “I’m surprised we haven’t had the pleasure before now.”
“Nik,” I say, gesturing to a chair opposite my desk. “We haven’t had a need to meet. As we don’t now. What can I do for you?”
Nik’s eyes narrow at my slight insult, but he sits, unbuttoning his suit jacket and sitting back like he doesn’t have a care in the world, crossing his legs, ankle at the knee. “Any idea where my cousin is?” He gets right down to it.
“Cousin?”
“Zoya,” he clips out, sounding sour. “Don’t play the fool, Voronov. It doesn’t suit you.”
“Ah, the daughter.” I pick up a heavy fountain pen, turning it over in my fingers, feigning disinterest. “I heard rumours she skipped town. Los Angeles, was it? Or perhaps she just wanted to get away from the impending circus.”
Nik’s jaw tightens. He doesn’t like losing control of the narrative. “She didn’t skip town. She is missing.”
“Missing… that is a heavy word when by all accounts it looks like she took off to get away from everything.”
He flinches. Micro-expressions are a language I speak fluently, and his screams panic. He needs her. He needs the ledger.
“She is family,” he lies. “I am concerned for her safety. The banks have notified me of unusual activity.”
“I fail to see where that involves me.”
“Cut the bullshit, Voronov,” he says, casually, looking around my office. “She’s here, isn’t she?”
I allow a slow, condescending smile to spread across my face. “Here? You give yourself too much credit, Nik. If I had taken her, do you honestly believe you would be sitting in my chair, breathing my air, without a ransom demand stapled to your forehead?”
He flinches. It’s a tiny twitch of his eye, but it screams of his insecurity.
“You have a reputation, Roman. You take things that don’t belong to you.”
“I take assets. I take territory. I do not take mafia princesses who flee the moment their protection dies. If you lost her, that speaks to your incompetence, not my intervention.”
Nik stands abruptly, the chair legs scraping harshly against the hardwood. It is a grating sound, lacking the grace of a man truly in charge.
“Careful,” I warn, my voice dropping an octave. “That is an antique.”
“Fuck your chair,” he spits, leaning his knuckles on the desk. “If I find out you have her, I will burn this place to the ground.”
I lean back, clasping my hands over my stomach, unbothered by his posturing. “You are welcome to try. But I suggest you focus your efforts on locating your cousin before the funeral. The optics aren’t good if she is, as you say, missing.”