Chapter 23
Zoya
Creeping down the stairs, dressed only in one of Roman’s black tees, I pause near the bottom to eavesdrop.
I heard Nik’s voice as I was walking back to my room and came to investigate.
I should be back upstairs in my room, hiding in case he decides to conduct a search of the property, but something tells me Roman would shoot him between the eyes before he allowed that.
Perhaps that wouldn’t be such a bad thing.
“You underestimate the reach of the Antonov name,” Nik sneers.
His voice grates against my nerves, scraping away the fragile calm I built in Roman’s bed.
I crouch low on the stairs, ignoring the look one of the guards on patrol of the entrance hall gives me.
He can make a scene, or he can leave me to listen in.
Luckily, he chooses to leave me. Maybe that will come back to bite him on the arse later, but for now, I’m free to keep listening.
“And you overestimate your grip on it,” Roman counters, his tone bored, bordering on disdainful. “The funeral is in two days. If you want to play king, ensure your crown fits before you come barking in my yard.”
“I don’t make idle threats, Voronov,” Nik snarls. The sound of his voice, usually so smooth and polished, is frayed at the edges. He sounds cornered. A cornered rat is dangerous, but a wolf like Roman is lethal.
“And I don’t listen to them,” Roman says. “You have overstayed your welcome.”
A crash which sounds like a fist on a table. “I want my cousin.”
“I don’t have her.” Roman’s voice has gone deadly cold. If I were Nik, I’d run. But Nik never did know when to back down.
“She has something I want, and I will get it from her even if I have to pry it from her dead hands.”
I swallow hard and crouch lower. The ledger.
“Not my problem,” Roman grits out.
“Oh, but that ledger is everyone’s fucking problem. Mikhail wasn’t just a shark; he was a Great White. There are things… every Bratva family in London is in there. I want it.”
“Well, run along then and find it. You won’t find it or Zoya under my roof.”
Lies!
Both the ledger and I are here.
I’ve heard enough. I scamper back upstairs as the guard patrols back around, and I see a fleeting look of relief on his face as I glance back at him over my shoulder. I burst into my room to find Katya bringing me breakfast, complete with silverware, and a pile of notebooks, pens and… graph sheets.
Why would Roman send graph sheets?
I close the door with a tight smile. She clearly knows where I spent the night.
“Morning,” I say brightly. “Thank you.”
She bobs her head. “Eat,” Katya commands, pointing a thick finger at the smoked salmon and eggs. She doesn’t ask why I’m out of breath or why I’m wearing Roman’s shirt. She knows. In this house, silence is just another form of currency.
“I will,” I promise, though my appetite is currently fighting a war with the adrenaline spiking in my blood. Nik is downstairs. The wolf is at the door, but the dragon invited him in for tea.
Katya leaves without another word, closing the door but leaving the bolt off as Roman promised. I breathe out. But then think, maybe being locked in with Nik in the house is a better option.
I move to the table, ignoring the food for a moment to stare at the grid lines on the paper.
Graph paper. It’s specific. Deliberate. My father didn’t leave random scribbles; he left a map.
Roman knows about the ledger. He has to.
He has to know I have it. He didn’t tear the room apart because he wanted to see if I was smart enough to use it.
It’s a test. Everything with Roman is a test. He’s handing me the shovel and waiting to see if I dig a grave or a tunnel.
It seems everyone knows about this ledger.
But if that were the case, why did no one ever try to steal it from my Kensington house?
Entering the en-suite, I drag the ledger from its hiding place under the sink and return to drop onto the chair. The red leather feels cool against my palms.
I pick up a pen, the weight of it familiar and grounding. If the numbers are coordinates, the letters are the key. My father loved chess. He taught me the game on a board of sixty-four squares, but he played life on a much larger grid.
I draw a box. 8 by 8.
Roman isn’t just keeping me busy. He’s betting on me. He lied to Nik’s face to keep me safe, and now he’s silently demanding I make myself worth the trouble.
Challenge accepted.
I write out the codes I already know for me, Nik and Baron.
I stare at the sequences, the black ink stark against the white page.
76-T-MK. 23-B-VR. 88-A-BM.
The numbers don’t fit a standard chessboard, which caps at sixty-four squares. Dad wouldn’t make a sloppy mistake like that, which means the grid is larger, or the numbers represent something else entirely. Pages? Dates? Coordinates?
I tap the pen against the paper as I take a bite of eggs. If the numbers are coordinates, they need a map. But the letters... T, B, A. And the suffixes. MK—Mikhail? VR—Voronov? BM—Baron? No, that makes no sense.
“Think, Zoya,” I mutter, shoving salmon into my mouth and chewing thoughtfully.
I draw an axis on the graph paper. If I plot the numbers as paired digits... 7 and 6. 2 and 3. 8 and 8.
I mark the spots. It creates a jagged, nonsensical shape. It’s too simple. Dad was paranoid, not basic.
I move on. The middle letters. T for Tura—Rook. B for Bishop. But A? In algebraic notation, letters represent files.
“Grr!” I growl as it all swims in front of my eyes. My gaze lands on the numbers for me, and something clicks. Something looks familiar.
“Seventy-six…” I frown hard. Where have I seen that number before now?
The door swings open, and I jump a mile, shoving the ledger under the stack of notebooks as Roman waltzes in, looking entirely too pleased with himself.
“Nik was just here,” he announces. “Looking for you.”
“And?” I croak, genuine fear pumping through my veins, but not over something I already knew, but the fact that I’m hiding the ledger from him right under his nose. I can’t let him see it. Not yet. Not when I don’t know what it means.
“And nothing. He has gone,” Roman replies curtly, strolling towards the table.
He stops at the edge of the table, his presence sucking the air from the room. My forearm remains plastered over the stack of notebooks, shielding the red leather beneath. My pulse hammers against the underside of my wrist, a frantic rhythm I pray he cannot see.
“Just like that?” I ask, forcing my voice to remain steady. “He left?”
“He made threats. I made better ones.” His gaze drops to the graph paper peeking out from beneath my elbow. “I see you are making use of the stationery.”
Heat climbs my neck. “I like to keep my mind busy. Prevents me from stabbing my captor with a heavy silver fork.”
“A worthy goal.” He reaches out.
My breath hitches, lungs seizing. If he lifts the notebook, the game is over. He will take the ledger, and I will be nothing more than a pretty bird in a cage again.
But his fingers don’t grab the book. Instead, his knuckles brush against mine, hot and rough, sending a jolt straight to my core.
He taps the graph paper with a singular, deliberate motion.
He sits and picks up my discarded fork. He gathers some food on it and holds it up to my mouth. “You aren’t eating.”
“You interrupted me.”
“Open up, Zoya, or I will get Katya to sit on you while I feed you.”
My eyes widen in horror, and I open my mouth as he smirks.
“Good girl,” he purrs as he feeds me.
He shovels up another forkful and holds it up. My fingers clasp over his. “I can handle it.”
He releases the silver handle, but his thumb drags deliberately across my knuckles before he retreats. The contact sends a jolt of heat straight down my spine, warring with the icy panic freezing my blood.
“Then handle it,” he murmurs, his gaze heavy on my mouth as I chew. “I prefer women who can feed themselves.”
“And I prefer men who let me.” I stab a piece of smoked salmon, keeping my left forearm locked over the stack of notebooks. If he shifts the paper, if he gets curious about why I’m guarding graph paper like it’s the Crown Jewels, this truce shatters.
He stands, straightening his cuffs. The movement draws my eye to the gun holster beneath his jacket—a reminder that, despite the domestic cosplay, violence is his native tongue.
“I have business to attend to,” he says. His gaze pauses at my elbow, one beat too long, then he looks away like it isn’t worth his attention. “I will see you at lunch.”
The door clicks shut behind him, the bolt remaining unthrown. I exhale, the sound ragged in the sudden silence. He knows. He has to know. But he left it.
I shove the plate aside and yank the ledger back out. The number seventy-six stares up at me. It isn’t random. It isn’t a coordinate. My heart slams against my ribs as the memory surfaces from the haze.
I launch myself at the wardrobe and yank the pillows aside to reach the gym bag. Opening it and upending the contents on the bed, I search through until I find the key that I threw haphazardly into the bag after the bank visit.
Box 76.
“Coincidence, Daddy? I think not.”
I grip the key and move back to the notebook. Box 76.
I make big circles around the first numbers of the other codes. Also, box numbers? Makes sense. But where? I fixate on my code. 76-T-MK.
The bank this key belongs to was in Kensington. Metro Bank.
“Fuck. Is this it? Did I crack it?”
I move on to Nik’s code. 23-B-VR. Box 23.
Check. B? Unknown. VR. Somewhere in London.
Victoria Regent? Maybe, but doesn’t signal which bank.
There are several. Any beginning with R?
Who the fuck knows? It’s not my neighbourhood, and without my phone to Google search it, I’m in the dark.
I write down Victoria Regent anyway, because it’s as good a guess as any.
B. B. What does the B stand for? Bratva? Bank? Borscht?
“Fuck’s sake, Zoya. Focus.”
I stare at the letters until they blur into ink blots. MK. Metro Kensington. It fits my key perfectly. That means the suffix identifies the bank and branch.
I drag my pen over to Baron’s code. 88-A-BM.
Barclays. It has to be. Dad had accounts with them for the legitimate side of the business. And M... Mayfair?
My heart thuds a jagged rhythm against my ribs. If I’m right, Dad scattered his insurance policy across the entire city. But these singular middle letters are confusing. A? What the hell does A stand for?
I stand up and pace the length of the room. Up and down, until I feel like I’ve worn a tread on the carpet, but I’m still no closer to figuring out what is inside the boxes for Nik and Baron.
With a noise of frustration, I gather up the notebooks and the ledger and shove them under the bed, in the worst hiding place ever, but it’s easy to access. I pull off Roman’s tee and stalk into the bathroom, leaving the door wide open as I flick on the shower and brush my teeth.