Chapter 4
Galina
Handsome.
In that perfectly irritating way that I can’t ignore and don’t want to, even though I know I should.
Dark hair, blue eyes, a body under that Tom Ford suit that says he works out.
I can see tats on his chest where his shirt collar is undone, and his hands are covered in ink.
For one brief second, I imagine them splayed on my open thighs before his gaze lands on me and lingers.
He does the usual sweep, hair, face, eyes, tits.
But then it travels down my crossed leg to my Christian Louboutin shoes, and he smiles.
Slow. Sexy. Sinful. He drags his gaze back up to my green eyes, and I hold it until he is forced to look away when my dad starts speaking.
Baron Voronov takes the chair my father offers with the ease of a man who has sat across from enemies and allies alike and treated them exactly the same.
The man with him, the one I can’t stop looking at, remains standing.
Interesting. He positions himself slightly behind and to the right of Baron, close enough to act, far enough to observe.
A soldier’s instinct dressed in a billionaire’s suit—even as the real security positions himself to the left.
My father gestures. “My daughter, Galina.”
I don’t stand. I don’t extend my hand. I give Baron a nod, measured and cool, and let my gaze drift back to the younger Voronov. The resemblance is too close for them not to be related. He’s looking at me again. It makes the knife on my thigh feel less like protection and more like a prop.
“Laszlo Voronov,” Baron says, tilting his head without turning around. “My nephew.”
Laszlo. The name lands in my chest and stays there. He looks like trouble wrapped in expensive fabric.
My father opens with pleasantries. He always does. It’s his way of reminding people that civilisation exists, even between men who’ve buried bodies in the same city.
“Thank you for coming,” he says, as if Baron had a choice. As if any of us do.
Baron inclines his head. “You’re a bold man, Viktor. Bold enough to invite me into your home after what you’ve done.”
No preamble. No circling. I like that about him, even as my pulse kicks up a notch.
My father smiles. “If I wanted to hide, I wouldn’t have called.”
“No,” Baron agrees. “You would have run. And I would have found you.”
The air between them thickens. I keep my breathing steady and watch Laszlo from the corner of my eye.
He hasn’t moved. Hasn’t shifted his weight.
Hasn’t so much as blinked. But his attention keeps sliding to me like a compass finding north, and every time it does, something warm and unwanted twitches between my thighs.
I press them together and breathe deeply.
My father lifts his brandy glass. “I did it for a reason, Baron. You know me well enough to understand that.”
“I know you well enough to be insulted by it.”
“Good. Then you’re paying attention.”
Baron’s jaw tightens. Just a fraction. Most people wouldn’t notice. I notice, because my dad has the same reaction to things he finds condescending.
“Three men,” Baron says. “You owe me.”
“Regrettable.”
“Regrettable.” Baron repeats the word as if tasting something rotten. “You’re sitting in a very expensive chair using very small words for a very large problem, Viktor.”
My father sets his glass down. “I didn’t kill your men. The broker made decisions above his pay grade. I gave him a task, and he turned it into a bloodbath. That is not the same thing.”
“It is when they’re my men in the ground.”
The quiet between them stretches, taut as a garrotte wire.
I keep my eyes forward, but I feel Laszlo’s gaze on me again. It prickles across my skin like static before a storm. I don’t look at him. If I look at him, I’ll lose the thread of what my father is doing, and right now, I need to understand the game before I become part of it.
My father stands. Slowly. Not a threat. A gesture. He moves to the sideboard and pours a second brandy, then carries it to Baron and holds it out.
Baron looks at the glass. Then at my father. His security detail takes the drink and sips it first.
We all wait with bated breath, even though I know my father isn’t a stupid man and he wouldn’t poison Baron Voronov in his own home with witnesses.
When the security man remains on his feet and not frothing at the mouth, he hands it to Baron, who takes a sip from the other side of the glass and then places it on the desk.
Manners. Etiquette. This is what these men do, but one wrong move and someone ends up dead at the bottom of the Thames with concrete feet.
“I tested your route because I needed to know something,” my father says, returning to his chair. “Not about your operation. About your attention.”
Baron’s eyes narrow. “Explain.”
“I need access to that route.”
The grenade sits there. No one moves. No one even breathes.
“No,” Baron says and stands, ready to leave.
“Sit down, Voronov,” Dad says. “Don’t you want to know why?”
“Not really. I don’t care. It’s my route, you are not having it. If you persist in your attempts, you will be starting a war I will finish.”
My blood runs cold as Laszlo moves with Baron, edging closer, hand casually going around his back.
“I will not stop in my attempts, and this can go to bloodshed, if you prefer. Or we can do this the civilised way,” Dad says.
Baron faces my father fully, but he doesn’t sit. “The only civilised way this ends is with you staying in your lane, Rusanov.”
“Not going to happen,” Dad says, leaning back in his chair as if he doesn’t have a care in the world.
I, on the other hand, have tensed up enough to give myself a headache. It’s coming. The offer. The trade.
My gaze flicks to Laszlo; his expression has gone dark.
Very dark, like he knows what’s coming as well.
His gaze catches on mine, and we stare at each other for a long moment.
Something passes between us that I can’t name.
Recognition, maybe. Or dread. The shared understanding of two people who have just realised they are the currency about to be exchanged.
Currency can be spent. It can also buy influence, buy time, buy blood. If I am about to be traded, then I need to become expensive.
I look away first. I hate that I look away first.
“I want joint access to the corridor,” my father states, not asks.
“Then you will keep wanting.”
“Do you really want a war, Voronov? I have enough of an army to give you more than a run for your money.”
“You don’t get to make demands and throw threats around,” Laszlo speaks for the first time. “You want access to our route, you tell us why we shouldn’t walk out of here with your head in a box.”
I hiss, but it goes unheard.
My father doesn’t flinch. He looks at Laszlo the way he looks at men who have just revealed exactly how dangerous they are—with interest.
“Your nephew has a mouth on him,” Dad says to Baron.
“He does,” Baron agrees. “He also has a point.”
I uncross my legs and recross them the other way, drawing Laszlo’s attention for a fraction of a second before he snaps it back to my father. Good discipline. Not perfect, though. I file that away.
“Name your price,” Dad says with that smile that knows he has just moved into check.
Baron inhales slowly, deeply enough to be noticeable. “My price is something you can’t afford.”
“Try me.”
My head is spinning now from holding myself so tight, but also because I’m losing the thread of this conversation again. Dad knows something the rest of us don’t, and while that’s not unusual, it’s noteworthy that he thinks he has a one-upmanship on Voronov.
Baron sits, with a similar smile, like a Great White about to attack another Great White. “Zolotoy Rezerv.”
Dad chuckles as if he knew all along this is what Baron was going to say. He probably did.
Scratch that. He definitely did.
Laszlo’s eyes narrow. He has probably heard of my dad’s club. Its location is its purpose. Every Bratva family probably wants their hands on it.
Dad leans forward, elbows on the desk. “That doesn’t belong to me.”
I frown, and Laszlo takes a small step forward, also not buying that for a second.
Baron stands. “Then we have nothing else to talk about.”
He is about to sweep out when Dad says, “The club belongs to Galina.”
My head snaps to the side, but I keep my mouth shut. The silence that follows is so absolute I can hear the blood rushing in my own ears.
Every eye in the room turns to me. Baron’s. Laszlo’s. My father’s, with that particular brand of paternal calculation that tells me he planned this moment down to the syllable.
I don’t move. I don’t blink. I hold perfectly still because the alternative is screaming, and Rusanov women don’t scream. Not in front of Voronovs. Not in front of anyone.
Baron turns back slowly. His gaze lands on Dad with new weight, new assessment, before he looks at me again. I am no longer the daughter in the corner. I am the asset on the table.
“Is that true?” he asks me directly.
I hold his stare and say, “Yes,” even though I have absolutely no idea if this is true or not.
My father’s expression doesn’t change, but I catch the faintest flicker of approval in his eyes. The bastard. He’s been sitting on this for God knows how long, waiting for the exact moment to detonate it, and now I’m standing in the blast radius pretending I lit the fuse myself.
Baron studies me. Not the way his nephew does—not with that heat that keeps catching me off guard—but with the cold look of a man deciding whether something has value or is simply being presented as though it does.
“The Zolotoy Rezerv,” Dad says, sitting back again now that the bomb is ticking down, “is worth more than a shared corridor. So here’s what we are going to discuss.
You give me shared access to your route without questions.
I give you my daughter, and as part of her dowry, will be the Zolotoy Rezerv.
We will have a family alliance without bloodshed.
Or we can go to war and cause many deaths, lose much blood, and probably alert Moscow to the fact that we can’t come to a rational agreement between us, proving ourselves untrustworthy and foolish. ”
Fucking. Hell.
My heart has skipped more beats in the last thirty seconds than is probably good for my body.
My head is spinning. I knew this was coming, but I didn’t realise it would come with such noise.
I know Dad is worried about retaliation.
Whatever he wants that corridor for, he has put everything, including me, on the line to get it.
He doesn’t want a war with Voronov. Chances are, he won’t win it, despite his bravado.
Voronov is just too powerful in this city.
“And who do you propose your daughter aligns with?” Baron asks, although it’s quite fucking clear to both me and the man who can’t keep his eyes off me.
I risk a glance. Laszlo’s jaw has gone tight, a muscle working beneath the skin.
His blue eyes are fixed on my father with an intensity that could strip paint.
But he doesn’t speak. He doesn’t move. He stands there like a man who has just heard the trapdoor open beneath his feet and is deciding whether to fall or fly.