Taisiya
“No,” I repeat, because apparently that’s the only word my brain can produce now.
Vadim stands on the other side of the kitchen, completely calm while I’m exhausted, guilt-ridden and trying not to think about the fact that his cum is currently ruining these expensive pyjamas.
“You heard me.”
“I heard you. I’m giving you a chance to correct yourself.”
“I don’t need one.”
“You fucked me, told me I belong to you, then waited three minutes before refusing to give me my own money or the goods I paid for.”
“The two things aren’t connected. And we never agreed on terms.”
“They became connected when you decided you wouldn’t give me the passport.”
“You can’t leave because Tarasov will find you.”
“Then give me my money.”
“So you can pay someone less reliable to put your face on a passport that won’t survive airport security?”
“That would be my mistake to make.”
“No. It would be a mistake I allowed you to make.”
My anger surges. “You don’t allow me to do anything.”
“You agreed you belong to me. You will be my wife. In this instance, what I say goes.”
“Is that right? Is this the beginning of the end for me?”
“Don’t be absurd. I’m protecting you, not erasing you. If you seriously want to take your chances with Tarasov on your own, fine. We will go back to the club right now, and I’ll start the process for a fake passport.”
I hesitate. He has me right where he wants me, and he knows it.
His blue eyes bore into me, expecting an answer, expecting me to argue with him again and make his point for him. I refuse to help him humiliate me. I can do that all on my own.
“I’m scared,” I whisper. “You inform me that this man is coming for me over a stupid debt and a mistake I made that I will live with for the rest of my life. I don’t know what to do, what to think or who to trust.”
“You can trust me,” he says, coming closer slowly.
“You say that easily, but it’s not easy.”
“No, it’s not. But if I was going to betray you, I’d have done it already.”
“That is not helpful.”
“It’s the truth.”
“You need to work on your reassurances if I’m staying.”
The corner of his mouth lifts up. “I will. Bedtime, Taisiya. It’s late.”
“What happens with this Tarasov person? You can’t just tell me to go to bed and expect me to sleep after that conversation.”
“I’ll fix it.”
“Fix it? How?”
“You don’t need to know the details.”
He’s right. I don’t. And it’s probably for the best. “Fine,” I say and head for the door. “I’ll leave you to it.”
I make it three steps before his voice stops me.
“Tai.”
I don’t turn around. “What?”
“Don’t lock the door.”
“Excuse me?”
“If Tarasov’s people are already moving, I want to be able to get to you fast. No locked door.”
I turn to face him. “Okay.”
The surprise that passes over his face would be amusing if I weren’t so tired.
“I expected another fight,” he says, eyes narrowed.
“I’m done fighting you, Vadim. Turns out murder, kidnapping and a proposal in one day takes it out of a girl.”
“Understandable.”
“You’re also the only thing standing between me and Tarasov. I don’t want to be dead or sold to a vor in Siberia.”
“I know you don’t. It won’t happen while I’m breathing.”
“What happens if they kill you?”
“Better men than them have tried and failed.”
“Will Bogdan protect me if you fall?”
“Bogdan will protect you, but it won’t come to that. I don’t need him to protect my woman for me.”
“Your woman.”
“You agreed you were.”
“While having the best sex I’ve had in a while.”
“No takebacks, that won’t hold up in court.”
I smile softly. “Not taking it back. Just making sure. If you’re asking me to trust you, I can’t do it blindly.”
“I get it,” he says, then catches himself and grimaces. “You want proof. Not promises.”
“Exactly that.”
“Come here.”
I don’t move right away, mostly out of principle, but he waits me out with that infuriating patience of his, and eventually I move back across the kitchen. He doesn’t touch me when I get close. He just looks at me, blue eyes steady in the low light of the moon.
“Tomorrow, I’ll take you to see Baron,” he says. “Once he sets eyes on you, knows your name and what my intentions are, if anyone touches you, they start a war.”
Hope springs in my chest. “So the marriage is avoidable?”
“Not a chance, sweetheart,” he says. “Go to bed.”
I hold his gaze for a few seconds, expecting disappointment. It doesn’t come.
I’m not sure what that says about me, but at this point, I don’t really care.
I killed a man. That says more about me than agreeing to marry a stranger to protect myself.
I turn and head quietly back up to my room, closing the door behind me and not locking it.
The bed is cold when I climb back in, and the pyjamas cling to me in ways that make me grimace, but I’m too tired to care enough to change.
My phone still glows faintly on the nightstand, the music long since stopped, the battery down to a sliver. I plug it in and hit play.
I lie in the dark and listen. I hear him pass the door a few minutes later, but he doesn’t stop. He keeps going, and I hear his bedroom door close. Part of me wishes he’d come in. Another part yells at me to go to him.
I stay still and listen to nothing. That’s the problem with this house. When the music dies down between tracks, the silence rushes back in, thick enough to press against my eardrums, and I understand exactly what he meant about noise being peace. I’ve never wanted noise more than I do right now.
But I want him next to me more. I push the covers back and walk silently to the bedroom. I open it a crack and peer out, then I move quickly before I lose my nerve to the door at the end of the hallway. My hand rests on the handle for one brief moment before I turn it and push the door open.
Vadim is in bed, the duvet covering him from the hips down. He cracks an eye as I walk brazenly into his bedroom and slip into bed beside him. He doesn’t say a word, and neither do I as he gathers me close to him and I let him, feeling safer here than I ever have.
His arm settles heavy across my waist, and his chin finds the top of my head like it’s done this a hundred times before instead of once.
I feel his breathing even out slower than mine, and I wait for the panic to catch up with me, the voice that should be screaming about how insane this is, sleeping wrapped up in a man who is part of the very criminal organisation I’m trying to outrun. Broadly speaking.
I press my face against his chest, listening to his heartbeat, steady and slow under my ear, and it does more to quiet my head than any playlist ever could.