Chapter 29 Roman
Roman
Baron’s silence stretches until the clock on the mantel gets on my nerves. He closes the folder, taps the edge once, then fixes me with that old-world stare that made half of London kneel without ever touching a gun.
“You read the letter, and then what? All hell will break loose. Nik won’t take this sitting down.”
“He can stay sitting or die on his feet,” I growl as Andrei slips in quietly.
“Not exactly subtle.”
“Wasn’t meant to be. Protect Zoya at all costs.”
“What I’m saying is, you won’t get a chance to provide this evidence. Nik will move and move fast.”
“We secure Zoya as soon as the shit hits the fan. Andrei will have her back while I have her front. Then we leak the rest by group text.”
“We have a group text?” Baron asks with a smile.
I chuckle. “We will by the end of today.”
“This is satisfactory.”
“So we can go ahead?” Zoya asks.
Baron fixes her with a look of marked respect. “You don’t need my permission, Gospozha Antonova.”
“Is that what I am now?” she asks with a nervous laugh. “Madam Antonova.”
“This is an unprecedented role, you understand,” he says, waving away the male-oriented criminal underworld of the Bratva.
I spread my hands. “Unprecedented or not, it happens. We script it. We contain it.”
Baron studies me for a beat, then turns to Zoya. “It means you will be hated, tested and adored in cycles, often on the same day. If you falter, the men who smile now will bury you by dawn.”
She swallows, chin high. “I won’t falter.”
A flicker of approval moves through his eyes. He looks back at me. “Parameters.”
“Everything has changed now. We have three objectives.” I tick them off.
“No long homily. She reads the eulogy; we time the letter to cut Nik off before he can get his thoughts together to ascend himself. We control the exits—bell tower secured, side nave blocked, car at the sacristy door. And every invited pakhan gets the three-page package via encrypted broadcast at the moment she speaks her last sentence.”
Baron nods once. “Bell tower?”
“Petr and two on the rope stairs.”
“Priest?”
“Ushered out with a payoff to keep quiet.”
Baron snorts. “Efficient.”
I turn to Zoya. “Your route: main aisle. You stop at the front pew on the left. You don’t step onto the dais unless I tell you. When the letter comes out, you hold it so everyone sees the crest. You read slow. If anyone stands, you pause. The silence works for you.”
“What if he charges?” she asks, voice steady.
“Then Andrei moves you. I block. He bleeds.”
Baron lifts a hand. “No bodies on church stone if it can be helped.”
“I can disarm without a shot,” I say. “If he goes for a weapon, I break him quick and quiet.”
Baron accepts it and then takes a deep breath, his eyes flickering once. “I will be the buffer between this shitshow and Moscow.”
“Thank you,” I say, meaning it. This will cost him. He was given direct orders, and we are slashing straight through them.
“Don’t thank me. Just don’t fail. If you do, all of our arses are on the line.”
“Understood,” Zoya says quietly as Andrei slips back out, knowing his role.
“And me?” a female voice says from the doorway.
I turn to see Katya filling the doorway.
“You are there to catch her if she stumbles on her way out. If you get killed, I will bury you in desecrated ground.”
Her face turns puce at the threat, and she takes it as seriously as it was meant.
“Roman, Katya doesn’t need to be there.”
“Shut up, printsessa,” she grumbles. “Katya is a Russian She-bear.”
Katya plants her fists on her hips like she’s about to wrestle a bull.
Zoya is worrying, and it’s time to come clean for the second time today. “Katya isn’t just a housekeeper, although she does a remarkably fine job. Katya was sent here by your father to ensure you were safe when the time comes. She will kill for you, bleed for you.”
Zoya’s eyes widen. “That’s how you knew my dad.”
Katya’s nod lands like a hinge clicking into place. Pieces I’ve been juggling stop mid-air and arrange themselves.
“She has field training,” I say. “Knives. Small arms. She can clear a corridor in under ten seconds and carry you if you go limp.”
“I do not go limp,” Zoya mutters, defiant even with tear-salt still drying on her cheeks.
“Then she drags you upright and makes you look regal as sin,” I reply, dry. “Point stands.”
Katya gives a curt nod. “I will be behind her on the left. Blade in my special bag.”
Baron closes the folder and tucks the letter back inside, precise as a surgeon. “Then we’re done. I’ll brief my men. No one fires unless Roman fires first.”
“I won’t,” I say. “Not if I can help it.”
His gaze skates over Zoya again, measuring. “Wear black. Nothing flashy. Pearls if you must.”
“I don’t own pearls,” she says, chin tipped.
“You will in an hour,” I reply.
Baron snorts and heads for the door. He pauses. “Keep your tempers. Both of you.” Then he’s gone, quiet as winter.
Katya huffs out a breath, eyes bright. “I cook. You eat.” She vanishes the way she arrived.
Silence settles. The mantel clock chimes the quarter. I turn back to Zoya. Her hands are steady; her mouth isn’t. Pride cuts through me like a clean blade.
“You did well,” I say.
“I cried on your rug,” she replies, voice low. “Not exactly formidable.”
“You bled in private so you can cut in public,” I answer. “Formidable.”
A small, humourless smile flickers. “What now?”
“Now we drill,” I say. “Read it once for me. Slow.”
She draws the letter from its sleeve and lifts her chin. She shows it to the room with a shaky hand.
“Nice touch.”
She nods and starts speaking.
I interrupt her. “Slower. Remember, you haven’t seen these words before. Trail off in surprise.”
I move to the end of the rug, like a pew edge, and give her a parish of ghosts to speak to.
“Again.”
She breathes, tips the paper so the crest catches the lamp, and starts over. The first line sticks in her throat. Good. It needs to. She is meant to be blindsided, not rehearsed.
“Pause before ‘final,’” I say. “It lands heavier.”
She corrects. The tremor in her voice hits my skin like cold rain, then steadies. By the last sentence, she is iron. It is almost right.
“Stop there,” I murmur. “You’re convinced too early. Fight the words. Let them convince you in front of the room.”
A flash of temper. “You want me to look weak.”
“I want power to look reluctant. Old men love reluctant power.” I step in, lift her hand a fraction higher. “Here. They need to read the crest as much as they hear the decree. That stamp does half the work.”
She exhales through her nose and nods. “Again.”
We run it three more times. I interrupt when she rushes. I move her a foot left to break a clean line of fire from an imaginary aisle. I show her how far to shift the paper to block a blade if someone rushes early. She glares at that and does it anyway.
“Katya,” I call. She slides in on quiet feet. “Extraction drill. Slow walk from here to the door. Left flank. If I bark, you pull.”
She nods, ready.
I nod at Zoya. “Read the last line. Then hand the page to me as if you’re done with it.”
She tries. Katya times her step with Zoya’s breath.
On the pretend handover, I curl two fingers against the bottom of the paper, making sure it doesn’t fold.
Katya brushes Zoya’s elbow and guides her half a step forward, past my reach, so the page never enters a strip that could hide a blade.
Good. She catches the cue and turns her body a fraction, exact.
“Again,” I say.
We run it until Katya’s breath hitches once from the repetition, and Zoya’s pauses land where I want them. By the tenth pass, the page rises, the crest shows, the voice cracks, and then hardens on schedule. It looks uncoached. It sells reluctant power.
Andrei steps into the doorway and stops when I cut him a look. “Three notes,” he says. “Bell tower secured. Petr has eyes on the residential roof. And your ghost list is live.”
“Test the blast,” I tell him.
His mouth twitches. “A hundred and twenty names on a thread is a nightmare.”
“Mute them all,” I reply. “They only need to receive, not speak.”
“Dinner now,” Katya says. “And vodka. Lots of vodka.”
“Only if it’s not that French kind you drink,” I say with a half-smile.
She snorts. “Beluga is on the table.”
I take Zoya’s hand, and we follow the smell of dill and butter. The dining room is low-lit, silver already sweating on frosted glass. Katya sets down cutlets, vinaigrette, black bread, a crystal carafe that catches the lamplight like a promise and a threat.
“Sit,” she orders. I don’t argue. Zoya takes the chair to my right, close enough that our knees brush under the table. It settles something predatory in me and stirs something worse.
Katya pours. Beluga runs clear as truth. I lift my glass. Zoya does the same.
“To lies we turn into knives,” I say.
She knocks it back like a proper Bratva girl. Her mouth tightens, eyes watering, then she exhales and reaches for the bread with a steadier hand. “To knives,” she echoes. “And dining rooms.”
“You earned it.”
“Actions?”
“Always.”
We eat because Katya will commit murder if we don’t. Zoya picks at it until I click my tongue. She rolls her eyes but takes a forkful. I let my thigh press against hers.
Katya slips a black box onto the table and disappears.
I flip it open to a single strand of pearls, old-world elegance, the exact thing Baron meant.
I stand and step behind Zoya. Her hair is loose.
I gather it with one hand, sweep it aside, and clasp the strand at her nape.
Her skin is warm. My knuckles brush the mark I put there earlier.
Possession scrapes along my spine. I file it with the other sins I won’t apologise for.
She touches the pearls. “Beautiful.”
I retake my seat. “Worn by a countess who poisoned three husbands and died in a convent.”
Her mouth curves despite everything. “Charming pedigree.”
“They’ll photograph well.” I tip my glass at the strand. “The old men will see lineage and forget to scoff.”
She giggles and raises her glass. “Well, here’s to the countess.”
I click mine against hers. “Don’t get any ideas.”
“As if,” she says, her smile half hidden by her hair.
But I’m not worried. My infatuation turned to obsession with her is mutual. She can’t live without me now, and I will destroy anyone who tries to take her from me.