Chapter 43 Sienna
SIENNA
Snowflakes danced through the air, landing on my hair, my nose, and the blanket wrapped tightly around my shoulders.
Vovchyk nudged my stomach and whined. He’d stuck to my side since I got home yesterday.
Was it because he knew I was distressed or because he sensed something was wrong with the baby?
The icy wind stung my unseeing eyes and made my frozen fingers ache.
My belly had officially grown too big for me to zip my pants, and even my winter jacket was a bit of a struggle.
I needed to buy new clothes, but that required energy. Effort. Motivation.
None of which I had right now.
Vovchyk stood, suddenly on alert. The hair on his back bristled and a low growl rumbled through his chest. I wrapped my fingers in his fur, heart pounding. It wasn’t long before I heard the crunch of boots in the snow.
“Hey, it’s me!” Aleksei’s voice drifted to me on the wind. “Please tell Vovk not to attack me.”
I tightened my hold on my wolf. “You heard him. Don’t attack our friend, even if he is a boy.”
A lump quickly rose in my throat. Was Aleksei still my friend?
Was anyone in the house? Polina and Sveta had been kind to me before my appointment, but I’d been hiding from everyone since then.
I’d snuck down to the kitchen past midnight to get food, and slipped out the side door this morning for my walk.
There had been an explosion in the number of guards on the grounds, but they’d ignored me as I headed into the woods.
Aleksei’s footsteps grew louder in the dense, compact snow. He waved as he grew closer. He was dressed in all black except his hat, which was a pale blue that matched his eyes.
“Hey,” I croaked.
He stopped about ten feet ahead. “Is Vovk going to eat me if I sit down next to you?”
“Nah. You’ll be fine.”
Aleksei took a few steps forward, and Vovk’s growl intensified.
“Are you sure about that?” he asked.
“He’s already eaten breakfast, so the most he’d do is give you a little nibble.”
Aleksei let out a strangled sound. “Not sure I want to be nibbled on either.”
I patted the spot beside me. “Come on. I’ll protect you from the big, scary wolf.”
He grumbled, but sat down. Vovk stayed on my other side, glaring at our visitor.
The sounds of the forest surrounded us—the crack of branches from the ice and snow, a few songbirds dancing through the air, the trickle of water from the creek that hadn’t frozen.
I leaned back against a tree trunk—the same spot where I first met Vovk—and closed my eyes as I waited for Aleksei to speak.
He let out a long sigh. “I need to know who you hired to hack into Dimitri’s accounts and exactly what you hired them to do.”
I bit my lip and fidgeted with the edge of my blanket. “Does everyone hate me now?”
“What? Why would you think that?”
I shrugged. “Dimitri hates me.”
“I don’t think he does. But he is very protective of the people who count on him for safety. If you give me the hacker’s information, I can ensure our systems are secure. No harm done.”
His unspoken words hung in the air—but if you refuse to talk...
“What will you do to the person I hired?”
“I guess it depends on who they are. Assuming they’re a professional, I’ll discredit them in the online hacking communities. Make their life hell.” He hesitated before continuing. “Whatever happens to them isn’t on you, though. Any hacker should know better than to take a job like this.”
A small smile tugged at my lips because he was right. I should have known. Mixed in with my embarrassment, though, was a thread of amusement that he thought he’d so easily be able to ruin this hacker’s life. “Do you know the Hedgehog?”
Aleksei stilled. “The Hedgehog? As in, one of the top hackers in the world?”
I nodded.
“Sienna, you didn’t.” He ran his hand through his blond curls with frantic, harried movements. “Fuck, this is so much worse than I thought. The Hedgehog is dangerous. The things they’ve done...and you hired them? I’m sorry, but I won’t be able to shield you from the consequences of this.”
I cocked my head. “What consequences? Will I be thrown in a dungeon?”
He stood, body stiff with agitation. “I don’t know.
Fuck. I have to tell the Pakhan. The entire Bratva’s cybersecurity is compromised.
” He paced back and forth, too consumed with his stress to notice how Vovk growled every time he got close.
“Last year, the Hedgehog destroyed one of the Irish Mob leaders in Dublin. Took his fiancé, his money, and then his life.” His tone was frantic but carried an edge of respect. ..even admiration.
I hid my smile behind my palm. Hearing him talk about the Hedgehog like I was some mythical creature was quite pleasing.
He stopped abruptly. “Blyat. What if the Hedgehog is working with…”
My eyebrows knitted together. “With who?”
“Never mind. You need to come inside with me. Now.”
I settled back against the tree trunk. “Sit down, Aleksei.”
“I can’t sit! Sienna, what you have done—”
My eyes flashed to his. “Sit the fuck down and listen to me, or I swear to god, I’ll shoot you.”
He stopped short. “With what gun?” He eyed my blanket suspiciously like I was about to pull out a grenade.
I stayed seated, calmly playing with Vovchyk’s fur. I was getting hungry and craving pizza. Juliet had gotten onto me for not trying Chicago deep dish yet. Maybe tonight was the night.
With an irritated huff, Aleksei sat down, body tense as he maintained several feet of distance between us.
Here it goes. Like ripping off a Band-aid.
“I am the Hedgehog.” The words danced around in the air until the wind snatched them away. Words I had barely spoken aloud in the past seven years. It felt freeing, almost exhilarating.
“What?”
I turned to face the slack-jawed Aleksei.
“I’m the Hedgehog. I didn’t hire someone to mess with Dimitri’s accounts.
” My lip curled at the idea that I would ever need to do such a thing.
“I did it myself, because I was mad at him. Maybe I didn’t think it through, but he also refused to let me explain, so. ..” I shrugged.
I waited for Aleksei to say something, but he sat in silence with a blank, somewhat shell-shocked expression. I scrunched my nose. Was it so hard to believe I could be a badass hacker? Rude.
“Now, while there’s no world in which you could make the Hedgehog’s life a living hell or discredit them, I could easily do that to you.
” I narrowed my eyes. “In seconds, I could know more about you than you know yourself. Everything you’ve ever owned could be mine with a snap of my fingers.
If I said one word against you on the Forum, you’d never work again. ”
The blood drained from his face. Was he going to pass out? I didn’t love the idea of pulling his body through the woods, so I took a pack of fruit snacks from my pocket and tossed it to him. I’d learned to always have snacks on me after my first trip out here.
“Eat those. It will get your blood sugar up.”
He sputtered. “Why can’t you just tell Dimitri? Fuck, if you worked for the Bratva, we’d be unstoppable.”
My heart ached with that familiar pain of being unseen and pushed aside by the powerful men around me. “He didn’t want to listen to me when he had a chance. I’m not going to beg for him to hear me.”
Aleksei groaned and rested his head in his hands. “I explained how to create strong passwords to you when you moved in.”
I snorted. “Yeah. That was pretty funny.”
His head popped up. “Wait, I’ve been monitoring all your devices and haven’t seen any suspicious activity. All you do is play that CozyScape game.”
“Sometimes I wonder how men get through the day,” I mused.
“What?”
I grinned. “Don’t worry about it. The tracker you installed on all my devices is total shit. I had it disabled in seconds.”
“You’ve been faking your internet activity? Is this why it looks like you never text anyone? I’ve been stressed thinking you had no friends.”
“What kind of hacker would I be if I didn’t have encrypted texting? Also, I really do play CozyScape and shop for furniture. I just have other stuff I’m doing, too.”
His mouth gaped and I cocked my head, waiting for his defensiveness and indignation that I could have bested him.
The last hacking competition I participated in—and won, of course—resulted in the second place loser trying to discredit me on the Forum.
Weirdly, his entire life fell apart after that. ..strange how that happens.
“Could you teach me?”
My eyes snapped to Aleksei’s. “What?”
He blushed. “I’ve been following the Hedgehog’s work for like five years. I would be honored to learn from you if you’d ever consider it. Even just a few hours of your time.”
“You want me to...teach you?”
His eyes were wide and so fucking earnest.
My chest tightened. “Yeah, Lyosha. If you convince Dimitri that all is well and you handled the pesky hacker, I’ll teach you.”
His broad smile was so charming, it transformed his already handsome face into something stunning. His blond curls, bright blue eyes, and cheeks pink from the cold made him look like a winter clothing model. He extended his hand. “Come on. You’re going to freeze.”
His chivalrous attempt at helping me up was thwarted by Vovk, who shoved him aside. Lyosha fell to the ground and Vovk gently placed his head under my hand.
“Aww. Do you want to be the only gentleman to help me to my feet?” I used his solid body to keep my balance as I stood.
A scowling Lyosha pushed to his feet and dusted the snow off his butt.
Vovchyk wagged his tail, prancing next to me while we headed back to the house.
With a start, I realized that for a few moments, I had forgotten my anxiety about baby Mango’s heart.
That was a good thing. Anxiety was not good for the baby.
But my chest twisted with guilt all the same, as if my non-stop worry would keep her safe.