Chapter 9
Lev
I’m an arsehole. I stand outside my bedroom door for thirty seconds, listening to her bang on the wood and shout obscenities that would make a sailor blush.
Good. Anger is better than terror. Anger means she’s processing instead of breaking.
The only issue I have now is that I’ve cut myself off from my room, as easily as I’ve just cut her phone off with a cloning app, which I built myself.
Her phone is in my hands now until it runs out of charge.
I put my phone back in my jacket pocket and move to the nearest guest room.
I strip off my jacket, shoes and socks and lie down on the bed, staring at the ceiling.
Varvara has gone quiet. She is either plotting or she has decided to comply.
Or the third option is she has shut down again and is back in the wardrobe under my coat.
The sight of her under there when she cracked the door open is seared into my brain.
Small. Wrapped in my coat. Looking at me with those green eyes that hold equal parts fear and defiance.
I scrub a hand over my face and let out a long breath.
This is not how I expected tonight to go. I was meant to take the handler out, deliver the USB to Baron, and go back to obsessing over Varvara from a distance. Instead, I’ve got her locked in my bedroom, terrified and furious.
But it’s better than her being dead.
She has to know that I am the lesser of two evils. But I wouldn’t put it past her to ignore that and defy me anyway.
Baron knows she’s here. He’s allowing it. That should be enough.
It isn’t.
There is nothing about this situation that is giving me peace. I get up after five more minutes of not sleeping and go downstairs to the kitchen.
Pyotr is at the island with a tablet in hand, reviewing tomorrow’s deliveries. He looks up once, takes in my face, and sets it down.
“Is she staying?” he asks.
“For now.”
He nods like I’ve told him it might rain. “I’ll prepare the guest room.”
“She’s in mine.”
It gets a brief pause. “Of course she is.”
I open the fridge and pull out a bottle of water. “Don’t start.”
“I wouldn’t dare.” He studies me for a beat. “Do you require food for her?”
The fact that he asks about her before me tells me everything. I have brought a woman home bleeding and terrified, and he’s already worked out that the centre of gravity has shifted.
“Something simple,” I say. “Bread and soup. Comfort food that people eat after they’ve had a shit night.”
“Shit night?” he murmurs. “Is that what we’re calling it?”
“It is whatever I say it is,” I say.
“Of course, sir,” he says, immediately.
I twist the cap off the water and drink half of it.
Pyotr’s expression remains politely neutral.
Of course it does.
“Make tea,” I say. “Strong. No questions.”
“I never ask them.”
“That’s why I keep you.”
He inclines his head once and turns to the hob. I take another drink and stare at the dark kitchen window, seeing nothing useful in it. My mind stays upstairs with a furious brunette in my bedroom and a lock between us.
Pyotr gets the soup on, slices bread, puts butter on a small plate, and sets a mug beside it. Efficient. Silent. Better company than most men I know.
When he has laid the tray out, I pick it up, stare at it for a second, and dislike that I have to go in there, where a woman awaits who is probably going to be ready to run the second she can.
I carry it upstairs anyway. By the time I reach the bedroom door, I’ve already decided three things. I’m not letting her out. I’m not touching her unless I have to, and I’m not underestimating her.
I unlock the door and push it open with my foot, braced for something to hit me.
I spot her instantly, standing by the far wall with one of my heavy bronze bookends in her hand, raised at shoulder height like she fully intends to cave my skull in if I take one wrong step.
I stop at once and shut the door behind me without locking it.
“Well,” I say, looking at the bookend. “That’s rude. I brought you soup.”
Her hair is a mess, and her eyes are angry.
“How am I meant to know who is walking through that door?”
“Good point. It will only ever be the house manager or me.”
“And that’s meant to make me feel better?”
I glance at the bookend again. “Bronze Athena. Nice choice. Very dramatic.”
“Don’t come closer.”
“I wasn’t planning to test your aim.” I set the tray down on the dresser by the door, slow and obvious, then lift both hands away from it. “Tea, soup and bread.”
She doesn’t lower the weapon.
Blood has dried in a fine line at her throat. My stomach goes tight at the sight of it. My doing. My mistake. My fucking problem.
“Eat,” I say. “Then sleep.”
She laughs once, sharp and joyless. “You lock me in your bedroom, tell me I belong to you, and now you want me to eat soup and have a nap?”
“When you say it like that, it sounds bad.”
“It is bad.”
I nod. “I know.”
That checks her for a second. Not much, but enough.
I keep my distance and study the room for damage. She’s tested the windows because the curtain is pushed back. Opened the bathroom door, probably to try the windows in there and pulled open half my drawers. She didn’t shut down. She fought. I can work with fight.
“Put the bookend down,” I say.
“No.”
“If you throw it at me and miss, you’ll crack the wall.”
“Maybe I want to crack the wall.”
“Pyotr will be annoyed.”
“Who is Pyotr?”
“My house manager.”
She blinks. “Is he as deranged as you?”
“Only when he is cleaning or cooking.”
She glances at the soup briefly and shifts her weight, still holding the bookend ready. I note the set of her stance, the tension in her arm, the way she keeps the bed between us without making it obvious. Clever. She is scared, furious, and still thinking.
“I assure you, his standards are much higher than mine.”
Her stare cuts back to me. “I’m sure they are.”
“He also won’t stab you in the throat by mistake, so currently he’s winning employee of the month.”
She clenches her teeth. “That’s not funny.”
“I know.” My voice drops. “I’m still trying anyway.”
She looks at me like she wants to bury the bookend in my face for that. Fair enough. I deserve worse.
I nod towards the tray. “You need to eat.”
“What I need is my phone not dead and a way out.”
“Not happening tonight.”
Her fingers tighten around Athena’s head. “Then stop pretending this is anything except an abduction.”
“I’m not pretending.” I hold her stare. “It is an abduction. It is also keeping you alive.”
“According to you.”
“According to the man who watched bullets hit a wall where your head was.”
Her grip on the bookend loosens for just a moment before her knuckles go white again. “I didn’t ask for any of this.”
“No, you didn’t, but right now that means fuck all.”
She looks tired now that the first hit of fury is wearing off. Her shoulders are rigid, but there’s a slight tremor in the arm holding the bookend. Adrenaline only carries you so far. After that, it’s pain, fear, and sheer force of will.
I take one slow breath and keep my hands where she can see them.
“Put it down for one minute and eat. If you still want to smash my face in after that, you can get in line.”
“Fuck you.”
“That’s the spirit.”
She doesn’t smile. I didn’t expect her to.
I move one step sideways, careful, measured, and her arm comes up higher at once.
“Stay there,” she says.
Silence sits between us, sharp and unpleasant. I can hear both of us breathing. Hers fast, mine controlled by force.
“Go,” she states, arms folded.
I don’t reply. There is nothing left to say, so I leave and lock the door behind me.
Moving back into the guest room, I leave the door open and strip off my shirt and pants before crawling into bed.
I won’t sleep. But I can’t work either. My mind is racing over who the hell this handler is and who spooked the dropper into leaving it with Varvara.
I last twelve minutes before I get back out of bed and pull my pants on. The house is quiet. My bedroom door sits at the end of the corridor like a challenge. I stare at it for a second, then head for my office instead. If I can’t sleep, I can at least make myself useful.
I lock the door behind me and use my laptop for this. I pull up everything I can get from Chyornyy Barkhat.
The CCTV out front shows the blonde prick entering about two minutes after I did.
I stop the frame and zoom. Tall enough. Expensive suit.
Hair cut too neatly. That face still begs for a beating.
He spends sixteen minutes on the floor before he makes the handoff.
He checks the room three times. Once towards the main entrance.
Once at the bar mirror. Once towards the private corridor.
He knew he was being watched.
But the problem with a room full of predators is that sometimes one of them is hunting you back.
I run the footage forward. Varvara comes into frame carrying a tray. He adjusts course half a second before impact. Deliberate. Clean. He uses the tray, the crowd, and her irritation as cover. He never looks at her. Not even once.
He uses her, discards her, and keeps moving.
I scrub through the next minute. He disappears into the service corridor. I switch cameras, catch him exiting through the side door, then losing himself behind a delivery van parked half across the alley sightline.
Varvara comes out, I show up, and the shooting starts.
Whoever the handler was, they were trying to get Varvara dead to get to the USB. I got in their way, so they were happy to try to take me down with her.
Pro. Single shooter already at the scene, wanting the drop the blonde guy made.
A new question pops into my mind. Did the dropper do this on purpose? Did he deliberately put the USB in Varvara’s apron pocket so the handler wouldn’t get it? But then, how did he know I would intervene, save Varvara, and destroy the drive?
“Fuck’s sake,” I say. Now I have another mystery to solve while the woman I saved is in my bedroom, hating me and plotting her escape.