Chapter 24
Varvara
“Get some rest,” Lev says. “We aren’t leaving until much later.”
“What time?” I ask.
“We’ll leave here at nine-thirty.”
I nod. That’s hours off.
He kisses me, biting my bottom lip before he leaves me alone with my thoughts, and they’re a total mess. I walk to the mirror and stare at the raised, red letters. Lev. It’s a claim. It’s a warning. My stomach flips, and I can’t tell if it’s dread or something darker.
He wants me to show this off at the club. He wants the world to see his handiwork, and I’m thinking about which shirt will best frame the mark. I’m thinking about the way his eyes darkened when he said I was at the centre of his world.
Moving back to the bed, I pull the sports bra back on and lie down, staring at the ceiling.
The silence feels heavy. I’ve got hours to wait.
My mind keeps replaying the way he used the knife on me.
It wasn’t just about the pain. It was about the surrender.
I’m a hostage, but the bars of this cage are starting to feel like home.
I close my eyes and try to sleep, but the thoughts won’t let me rest. I’m a marked woman, and tonight, everyone will know it.
Turning onto my side, I huff and get up, crossing the room to the unlocked door.
With only a slight hesitation, I reach out and open the door a crack, waiting to see if anyone comes running to slam it closed in my face.
When no one does, I open it wider and peer out into the hallway.
It is silent. No guards stand outside the door.
No Pyotr waiting with another tray. It’s just long, shadowed, and terribly quiet.
I step onto the runner, the wool soft against my soles.
Every movement makes the ointment-slicked letters pull.
I walk toward the stairs. This house is a mausoleum of wealth. It lacks the clutter of a real home. No photos. No piles of post. Just marble and wood and the weight that the Voronov name apparently holds. I reach the bannister and look down.
Lev isn’t lurking in the shadows waiting for me, so I take the stairs slowly in case someone decides I’m an intruder and tries to shoot me in the face.
I reach the cold marble at the bottom of the stairs and look around. The scent of food and coffee hits my nose, so I follow it, moving down a hallway and then pushing open a door where I can hear clatter and chatter.
Lev turns his head towards me as he hears the door open, and his eyes darken. He is eating steak and drinking coffee.
“Where’s mine?” I ask lightly.
He gets to his feet immediately and comes to me. “Are you hungry?”
“A little bit.”
Lev snaps his fingers, and Pyotr moves into action. I blink as another plate is served on the kitchen island within seconds, with a mug of hot coffee next to it. “Sit,” Lev says, leading me to a bar stool.
My legs shake slightly in relief that he hasn’t marched me back upstairs and locked me in. I’m almost dizzy with it. Planting my arse on the expensive, padded, leather-covered stool, I pick up my knife and fork. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome,” he replies.
I snort gently. “I was talking to Pyotr, seeing as I highly doubt you made this.”
“I could’ve,” he says, mock-wounded. “Besides, I paid for it.”
“With Bratva money,” I murmur.
The air goes slightly frosty but not in a bad way. It’s more Pyotr standing like a statue, waiting for the bomb to go off, that I’ve dared to mention the unmentionable.
“That would be the case,” Lev says, not at all offended. At least, I don’t think he is.
He shoves more food into his mouth and chews slowly, his eyes on me as I slice into a cut of steak so perfectly prepared, I almost gush.
As it is, I can’t help the moan of delight as I take the first bite and chew slowly, savouring the taste.
Lev doesn’t look away. He watches my throat as I swallow.
It’s the kind of stare that makes my skin feel too tight.
He doesn’t say a word, just keeps eating, his focus entirely on me.
I am a specimen to him. A prize he’s still deciding how to display.
“You’re staring,” I say, putting the fork down. “It’s unnerving.”
“I’m admiring my property.”
“Eww,” I mutter and receive a soft, but definitive snort of amusement from Pyotr. I am emboldened by it. “Can we stop with the property speak? I’m here. I’m yours. Let’s just leave it at that.”
Lev sets his cutlery down. He doesn’t look offended; he looks like he’s weighing up whether to drag me back to bed or let me finish my meal. I hope for the steak. My body is a map of his attention, and I need the fuel.
“It’s not an insult, Varvara. It’s the truth,” he says, his voice dropping an octave. “But if calling it something else helps you sleep, I’ll indulge you for ten minutes. Just don’t mistake my kindness for a lack of ownership.”
“Kindness. Fucking right.” I pick up my coffee. It’s hot and black, burning my tongue just enough to keep me sharp. “I’m sure that’s what the police would call it.”
He reaches over the island, and I stay still, refusing to be the one who breaks. He runs a thumb along the curve of my jaw, his touch firm. “The police aren’t coming for you. No one is. Tonight, we make sure every prick in that room understands that.”
A shiver that has nothing to do with the cold air in the kitchen snakes down my spine.
I think of the brand on my chest. I think of the club.
I take another bite of the meat. If I’m going to be his statement to the world, I’ll need more than just his name on my skin to survive the fallout. I’ll need his ruthlessness.
A guard moves into the kitchen and stops dead when he sees me. It’s not the same one from earlier. I look down at my food as Lev glares at him.
“What?” he asks.
“Something is pinging very insistently in your office, sir,” he mutters and backs out.
Lev shoves the stool back with a screech on the expensive tile and moves to the door. He stops and comes back to grab my hand. “If you think I’m leaving you in here to turn my house manager onto your side with your charm, you have another thing coming,” he growls and drags me to my feet.
“I wouldn’t dream of it,” I say, shooting Pyotr a look. He struggles to keep the smile off his face.
“Move,” Lev says and slaps my arse. I squeak, feeling the burn from the belt as he agitates that area.
He leads me down the hallway and to a door I walked straight past on my way to the kitchen. There is, indeed, an insistent pinging noise coming from inside. Lev pushes the door open and pulls me inside, closing the door behind us.
I take in what is clearly his office. He has a bank of monitors on one side. I scan the wall of screens, my stomach doing a slow somersault. It looks like data analysis is running in real time across several of the monitors.
“Sit,” he orders, pointing to a spare chair.
I do as I’m told, oddly fascinated by this. So it’s not all shooting people and extracting information. There is all this type of stuff as well. I feel a bit silly, but to be honest, I have no idea what being part of the Bratva actually means, except that it’s criminal.
“What is it?” I ask, anyway. “Trouble?”
“You could say that.”
“Why?”
“Someone has decided to turn up on my doorstep unannounced.”
My blood runs cold. “Who?” I stammer, clenching my fists in my lap.
He must hear the fear in my voice, so he looks up. “Separate issue to you,” he says. “Don’t worry about it.”
I take in the hard line of his jaw. “But you are worried.”
“Not worried. Pissed off.”
“Who is it?” I ask again, although I doubt he will give me a direct answer.
“He is a DI with the Met. He is sniffing around Voronov operations, asking the right questions.”
“Another sniffer,” I mutter.
His gaze sharpens. “There are always several. The Voronov name is big in this world, moya sladkaya. Everyone wants a piece of the pie.”
“So what does this DI want? A piece of the pie?” I ask, confused.
“No, he wants to smash the pie into smithereens.”
“Oh.” I chew the inside of my cheek. “That sounds bad.”
Lev snorts. “It is. I’ve been tracking his life for the last few days. Now, he has turned up here.”
“Are you going to let him in?”
I watch as he flicks through a gallery of CCTV shots that cover not only the outside of the property, but the inside too.
A silver car idles at the iron gates. A man in a grey suit stands by the intercom.
He is a blemish on the Mayfair opulence.
He represents the world I used to inhabit, the one where people believe the police provide safety.
I watch him on the screen and then glance down at the raw letters on my chest.
This DI is the person I’m supposed to want at my door. But I don’t feel hope. I feel a sickening sense of intrusion. This is my cage. My monster.
Lev taps a key, and the image zooms in on the detective’s face, and I freeze.
Lev notices immediately. “What is it?” he asks. “Do you recognise him?”
I gulp. “Nathaniel Mercer,” I whisper.
In two strides, Lev is in front of me, crouching down and placing his hand on my knee. “Who is he? How do you know him?”
Turning my gaze to his, I breathe out. “He is the one I spoke to about the mugging two years ago. He wasn’t a DI then.”
“He is the one who gave you the crime number and brushed it off?” His eyes flash dangerously.
“Yes.”
Lev’s hand tightens on my knee, his knuckles turning white. The air in the office suddenly feels thin, charged with a deadly energy that makes the fine hairs on my arms stand up. He doesn’t look away from me, his blue eyes searching mine for every scrap of memory I have of the man on the screen.
“He was dismissive,” I whisper, the old shame bubbling up. “He made me feel like I was wasting his time because I couldn’t give a better description of the alley.”
Lev stands abruptly, his shadow stretching across the monitors. He looks back at the screen where Mercer is still waiting, oblivious to the fact that his past negligence is currently being weighed by a man who deals in permanent solutions.
“Did you ever meet him in person?” he asks.
“Yes, I met him at the station.”
He nods and reaches over to push an intercom button on his desk. “Let him in,” he says.
“Lev,” I say, standing up. “What are you going to do?”
“Find out what the fuck he is doing here, for a start.”
“I’ll go back upstairs.” This is the last place I want to be, right in the middle of a police investigation into the fucking Russian Bratva. A few hours ago, maybe I’d have welcomed it, but now, I’m terrified I’ll be dragged down as well as an accomplice in whatever crimes Mercer is investigating.
“Stay there,” Lev grits out as movement sounds outside the office door.
There is a sharp rap, and I have nowhere to go. I move to the corner of the room, folding my arms as a useless shield. Lev doesn’t look at me. He stands behind his desk, a mountain of tattooed muscle and cold intent.
The man who is ushered in by a guard looks exactly how I remember—polished, arrogant, and entirely too comfortable in his own skin.
Nathaniel Mercer stops in the middle of the room.
He’s got that same patronising tilt to his head.
He looks at Lev, then his gaze drifts toward me.
He freezes. I see the second the recognition hits him.
It’s a slow burn, his eyes widening as they travel over my face.
But then something flickers behind his eyes.
Fear.
“Mr Voronov,” he says, turning his gaze swiftly back to Lev. “I have a few questions to ask you about a fire at a storage unit in Canary Wharf.”
“Oh?” Lev states coldly, his eyes narrowed. He saw Mercer’s reaction to me. He must’ve.
My gaze darts from one man to the other and then down to Mercer’s hand as he pulls it from his pocket. There is a small tattoo of a bird on it that I don’t remember seeing when I went to the station the day after the attack.
But I have seen it somewhere else.
My blood runs cold as I stare at the bird—a swallow—seeing it clearly through the haze of fear and trauma.