Chapter 35
Damien
She asked for space. I told her I’d stop making decisions for her.
So, I give her what she asked for, even though it goes against every possessive instinct screaming at me to claim what’s mine.
I head downstairs, pulling on the clothes as I move—black jeans, a shirt I don’t bother buttoning fully. The fabric feels wrong against my skin, like I’m putting on armour I don’t want to wear. I want to be upstairs. I want to be wherever she is.
Marek is in the kitchen, making a cup of tea. He glances up when I enter, his expression carefully neutral.
“Kirill?” I ask.
“Stable. Stitched. Pissed off that he let someone get the drop on him. He’ll live, but he needs rest. He won’t listen to me. Maybe you can talk some sense into him.”
I snort. “Sense and Kirill don’t belong in the same sentence.”
“Fair point.” Marek pours a second cup and slides it across the counter to me.
I take it even though I need something stronger. “Thanks.”
He looks over my shoulder and purses his lips. “If you rip those stitches, I’ll take it personally.”
I turn to see Kirill hobbling into the living room. “I told you, I’m fine. Just need some vodka.”
“I’ll get it,” I say, and abandon the tea for the bottle.
I pour two shots of vodka into a glass, as Marek leaves us alone, and hand it to him. He takes it with his free hand, the other pressed against the fresh bandage wrapped around his torso.
“You look like shit,” I tell him.
He downs the vodka in one swallow and holds the glass out for more. “I’ve had worse. Remember Prague?”
“Prague was a clusterfuck.”
“This isn’t that bad.”
“Good to know.”
“What’s the plan?”
“The plan is for you not to pull Marek’s stitches apart while I go back and see Orlov. She is the shark in the water here. Not Stanislav. She has been manipulating him, stringing him along, and ripping him off in the process. I’m fairly sure once her defences drop, he will kill her.”
“Her defences will never drop,” he sneers.
“They will if I drop them for her,” I state and throw back the vodka, feeling it burn its way down my throat.
Kirill’s eyes narrow. “You’re going to start a war.”
“No. I’m ending one that’s already started.
” I refill both glasses, the vodka catching the kitchen light.
“Gorbachev wants his granddaughter. Orlov’s been using that want to bleed him dry whilst keeping Lidiya—the real deal—out of his sphere.
She orchestrated the auction, drove up the price, and probably planned to take another cut when he finally got what he paid for. ”
“Except you fucked up her plan.”
“Spectacularly.” I allow myself a grim smile. “She didn’t count on me going a hundred million deep for a woman I barely knew.”
“You knew her well enough,” Kirill mutters, wincing as he shifts his weight. “You’d been circling her for months.”
I don’t deny it. There’s no point. Kirill’s been with me long enough to know when I’m obsessing over something. Or someone.
“Orlov’s operation relies on discretion,” I continue, circling back to the problem at hand.
“High-profile buyers, legitimate-looking auctions, clean transactions. She can’t afford attention from law enforcement or, more importantly, from families like ours.
If I make enough noise, she’ll have to either negotiate or fold. ”
“Or she’ll try to kill you.”
“I’m hoping that’s an option. Gives me an excuse. But all of this, every last threat, car crash, you, it was all Orlov to get Lidiya back to dangle on a string to her grandfather.”
He frowns. “You don’t think it was Gorbachev going after Lidiya?”
“No. He doesn’t want her that way. If he did, he’d just take her. He wouldn’t fuck about with all these theatrics. No, this is all the work of one retired prima ballerina who feels robbed of the limelight. Whatever Stanislav is plotting, he hasn’t made a move. Yet.”
“He is the bigger shark waiting until the other shark has her eyes off the prize.”
“Precisely. Men like him…” there’s those words again, “… don’t live as long as he does, knowing what he knows about certain things by being reckless. He is patient. The apex predator.”
“Gee, he sounds great,” Lidiya says from behind me.
“You are meant to be resting,” I say without turning around because if I see her, I will go to her, and she said she wanted space.
“Can’t sleep. Wonder why?”
“Rest, Lidiya. Not sleep. You are concussed, remember?”
“Hard to forget.”
I turn around and find her standing at the bottom of the stairs, wearing a pair of black satin pyjamas that the boutique brought over.
“Come here,” I say, because I can’t help myself.
She hesitates for a second, then crosses the space between us. She sits without argument on the sofa, which tells me exactly how wrung out she is.
“Water,” I say, grabbing a bottle from the drinks cabinet and holding it out to her. “Drink.”
She does, slowly, while Kirill watches us both with the kind of interest that makes me want to throw him out despite his fresh stab wound.
“Shouldn’t you be resting?” she asks him.
“Shouldn’t you?” he counters.
“Touché.”
“How are you feeling?” I ask, because I need to know. Need to assess damage, both physical and otherwise.
“Like I got hit by a van whilst illegally driving a brand new Mercedes that got totalled with a stab wound victim in the back.”
“Then you are feeling everything you should be,” Kirill says.
“Hmm. Were you talking about going to see Orlov?”
I pour myself another vodka because the conversation we’re about to have requires it.
“You need to understand what you’re walking into,” I say, keeping my eyes on Lidiya. “Orlov isn’t just some entrepreneur running questionable auctions. She’s been in this game longer than I’ve been alive. She has connections, leverage, and enough dirt on powerful people to ensure her safety.”
“So why hasn’t anyone taken her out?” Lidiya asks, and the bluntness of the question makes Kirill chuckle before wincing at the pain it causes.
“Because everyone needs her for something,” I explain. “She makes problems disappear, and opportunities appear. Taking her out would create a power vacuum that nobody wants to deal with.”
“Except you’re about to do exactly that.”
“No. I’m going to give your grandfather the opportunity to do that. My role is to facilitate his opportunity.”
“The great white shark,” she murmurs.
“Something like that.”
“So what does that make you?” Her gaze bores into mine, and I can’t squirm out of it, even if I wanted to.
I consider the question while the vodka burns a path down my throat. What does that make me?
“A barracuda,” I say finally. “Fast, vicious, opportunistic. I see an opening, I take it.”
She snorts with mirth, which I take as a good sign. “A barracuda? Wow, that’s sexy.”
I allow myself a smile, but I don’t take it for granted.
She sets the water bottle down and draws her knees up to her chest. “This is a lot. I’m just trying to process the fact that my entire existence is apparently at sea, and I’m Nemo.”
“He will find you,” Kirill says, forcing himself to his feet. “Maybe I will take a short nap.”
“Go,” I say as he hobbles off to the medical suite, which has a comfy recuperating bed in there that doesn’t require him to walk up a flight of stairs.
The silence is awkward.
I watch her sitting there, knees pulled up, looking smaller than she should in her pyjamas.
The urge to cross the room and pull her into my lap is almost overwhelming, but I force myself to stay where I am.
She asked for space. I gave it to her. Now she’s here, and I don’t know what the rules are anymore.
“Say something,” she says quietly.
“What do you want me to say?”
“I don’t know.” She rests her chin on her knees. “Something that makes this feel less like I’m drowning.”
I set my glass down and move to the sofa, sitting at the opposite end. Close enough to reach her if she needs me. Far enough to respect the boundaries she’s trying to establish.
“You’re not drowning,” I say. “You’re treading water. There’s a difference.”
“I can’t swim.”
“In that case, you’re drowning. But I’m your life preserver.”
She turns her head to look at me, and the exhaustion in her eyes is visceral. “I’m tired of fighting.”
“I know.”
“Do you?” The question isn’t accusatory. It’s genuine. “Do you actually know what it’s like to be this tired?”
I stare at her for a long moment, weighing honesty against the instinct to deflect.
She deserves the truth, even if it makes me look weak.
“I know what it’s like to carry weight that isn’t yours,” I continue.
“To inherit debts and obligations and expectations from people who are long dead. To wake up every day knowing that one wrong move could destroy everything. It’s not the same as your exhaustion, but it’s exhaustion nonetheless. ”
“Is that supposed to make me feel better?”
“No. It’s supposed to make you understand that I’m not completely fucking clueless about burden, even if mine comes wrapped in privilege.”
She nods imperceptibly, but I saw it.
“What happens tomorrow?” she asks. “When we go back to the Ashlar?”
“I’m not sure I want you there… but if it is your choice, then I accept that.”
“Nice catch,” she drawls.
I can’t help the small smile that tugs at my lips. Even exhausted and traumatised, she’s still sharp enough to call me out.
“I’m trying,” I say.
“I know.” She shifts, and the movement brings her marginally closer to my end of the sofa. “That’s what makes this so confusing. You’re trying to be better, but you’re also... you.”
“I’m me,” I agree. “And me is a bastard who’s spent his entire life taking what he wants and dealing with consequences later. But I’m also me with you, which apparently means I’m willing to grovel on my bedroom floor and let you call me an arsehole cunt without retaliation.”
“You liked it.”
“I didn’t hate it.”
She huffs out something that might be a laugh, and the sound of it does something to the tightness in my chest. “This doesn’t mean I forgive you.”
“I know.”