Vadim
Taisiya’s weight against my side is the only thing that matters in this room.
She’s finally stopped fighting the inevitable.
I don’t sleep, but the tension in my back drops a fraction as her breathing hitches and then smooths into a steady rhythm.
She thinks she is safe. She’s right, but she’s also found a permanent commitment she doesn’t fully understand yet.
I don’t move. I don’t want to wake her. She needs the rest before I take her to see Baron. My uncle won’t be easy on her. He’ll look for weaknesses. He’ll try to find out if she’s a liability we can’t afford.
Tarasov bounces around my thoughts, a gnat I’m unable to swat away right now. It will come. If he so much as mutters her name, I will rip his voice box out. He won’t get his hands on her.
Tai shifts, her leg brushing mine under the duvet. My body reacts. It’s a problem I’ll have to manage. I can’t keep my hands off her, but I need her head clear for tomorrow.
“Sleep, little bunny,” I mutter, though she can’t hear me.
The house stays quiet. Outside, the guards are doing their jobs. I’m doing mine. I hold her closer and wait for the sun. The silence is as close to peace as I’ll have with her in it. I’ll protect what belongs to me. Always.
The slight tap on the door makes me frown.
I glance over and, with a sigh, leave Tai, shoving a pillow up against her where my body was so she doesn’t feel the loss of warmth.
I pull on joggers and cross the room in silence.
When I open the door, Bogdan stands in the hallway with his phone in one hand and a grim look on his face.
“This better be good,” I murmur.
He shows me the screen.
Security feed. Front gate. A black Mercedes parked across the road, lights off, engine likely running. Too far to be casual. Too still to be lost.
“How long?” I ask.
“Thirty seconds.”
It sounds short, but in this life, anyone looking suspicious for even a second needs to be dealt with.
I take the phone and zoom in. The plate is visible but probably false. Tinted windows. No movement inside.
“Guards?”
“Ready.”
I glance back at the bed. Tai is still asleep, curled around the pillow like she can fool herself into thinking it’s me.
I don’t want to leave her. I nod once at Bogdan and step back to quietly open a drawer.
Reaching in, I pull a black tee over my head and shove my feet into my running shoes.
My gun is lying on top of the dresser, ready for me to scoop up and shove into the back of my joggers.
Handcuffs go in my pocket. I step into the hallway and close the door behind me without letting the latch click.
“No noise. No lights. I want them boxed in before they know we’ve seen them.”
Bogdan nods and turns away. I follow him, ready for whatever awaits me outside.
As I hit the stairs, Ivan is waiting at the bottom with a second Glock on a tray. Giving him a grim nod, I understand this precaution. He has taken a fondness for the woman in my bed and will ensure her safety before I ask him to.
“Keep her upstairs,” I say.
Ivan’s face remains calm. “If she wakes?”
“Tell her nothing unless she hears gunfire.”
I take the Glock off the tray and check it by habit. Loaded. Clean. Ivan would rather die than hand me anything less.
“If she tries to come down, lock her in my room.”
His eyebrow rises.
“I know,” I mutter. “Do it anyway.”
He inclines his head, and I move past him towards the front door. I want these fuckers to see me coming.
Bogdan’s hand goes to the door. I put mine there first. He steps back without a word. He knows better than to argue. I pull it open and walk out ahead of him into the cold night. The rain has stopped, and the wet is turning icy in the cold snap.
It doesn’t slow me down. I reach the gates and they roll open. The car stays exactly where it is. Engine idling. I have the Glock in my left hand, and I pull the handcuffs out with my right.
As I cross the road with Bogdan directly behind me, the back window slides down.
A man sits there, refined, polished, powerful.
Doesn’t mean fuck all.
“Mr Voronov,” he says, taking in my casual outfit.
“Let me guess. Ruslan Tarasov,” I say, even though I recognise him from the photos.
He inclines his head. “I want the girl.”
“Which girl?” I ask, bending down and leaning my elbows on the car, weapons loose in my hands.
Tarasov’s eyes don’t move from mine. “Don’t insult me.”
“I haven’t even started with those yet.”
Bogdan stops behind me. Close enough that Tarasov’s driver looks at him through the rear-view mirror and regrets having a job.
Tarasov’s attention drops to the cuffs in my right hand, then to the Glock in my left. “You come to a conversation armed.”
“You came to my house in the middle of the night asking for a woman.”
“I came to discuss a debt.”
“No, you didn’t. You said you wanted the girl. That was your first mistake.”
His expression doesn’t change, which annoys me. Men who don’t react usually believe they’ve purchased enough distance between themselves and consequence. They’re often wrong. They just find out later than most.
“Taisiya Korotayeva owes money to my organisation,” he says.
“She owed money to Gregor Melnikov.”
“Gregor worked for me.”
I smile. “So take it up with him.”
His eyes cool. “You killed Anton.”
“Anton tried to shoot me in the face. I’m starting to notice people connected to you have terrible survival instincts.”
“Gregor’s debt remains unpaid.”
“She paid it.”
“To Gregor.”
“Kind of your problem then, isn’t it. Why are you making it mine?”
Tarasov studies me for a moment. “Because you involved yourself.”
“I involve myself in a lot of things. Usually, they end badly for other people.”
Tarasov sits back a fraction, casual and not bothered that I could shoot him in the eye. “You are making an emotional decision.”
“I’m making a territorial one.”
“That is worse.”
“For you.”
His attention moves past me to the gates, to the house beyond them. “She is inside?”
Bogdan takes one step closer to the car. The driver goes very still.
Tarasov notices. “Your uncle knows about this?”
“Would you care to ask him yourself?”
“Does he know you are risking Voronov stability for this woman?”
“I’m not risking stability. I’m establishing boundaries.”
“She has no value to you.”
I smile without humour. “Wrong.”
“She has no family power. No money. No position. She serves drinks in a pub, and she owes me money.”
I study his expression for a second. He hasn’t mentioned that she killed Gregor, so he either doesn’t know or is withholding that information.
Bogdan’s hand lands on my back, and I look to the side to see a man approaching. I look up to see that Bogdan has his gun levelled at this newcomer over my head, which is why he wanted me to stay down.
I straighten up anyway, hands tightening on the cuffs. “You arranged an ambush,” I say with a dark laugh, shoving my gun alongside the other one in the back of my joggers. “Have you met Bogdan?”
“Give me the girl, and this goes away.”
“You aren’t having her, so I guess we have a problem. Good thing no one on this street will care when I beat your man to death.”
“Men, Mr Voronov. You don’t think I know exactly who you are and what your reputation is?”
“Even better,” I state and let the cuffs drop in my fingers. I swing for the man approaching, catching him off guard in the face. Everyone involved in this knows this won’t end in a gunfight in the middle of Mayfair. This is going to be physical, and I’m quite looking forward to it.
So is Bogdan. He grunts with approval as he swings his fist to someone behind me and connects with a thud that makes me smile. The car with Tarasov darts off into the night, labelling the man a coward as I lash out with the cuffs again. No one expects them. Everyone gets hurt by them.
It’s a beautiful thing.
Blood sprays across his face as I break his nose. He stumbles back, hands flying up, and I drive my knee into his stomach. Air leaves him in a harsh grunt. I catch the side of his head with the cuffs on the way down, and he drops to the wet road.
Another man comes from the left.
I turn into him, catching his wrist before the knife reaches my ribs. “Cute.”
He tries to yank free. I step in, slam my forehead into his face, then twist his wrist until the knife clatters onto the road. He makes a sound I enjoy too much. I kick the knife toward Bogdan without looking.
Bogdan steps on it while he drives his elbow into someone’s jaw.
Tarasov sent four men. That tells me something. He wanted pressure, not war. He wanted me distracted and annoyed enough to bargain or get away. He miscalculated.
I hook the cuffs around the knife man’s throat and pull him backwards until his spine hits my chest. His feet skid on the wet tarmac. He claws at the metal, panic finally breaking through his training.
“Who told Tarasov she was here?” I ask near his ear.
He chokes.
“Wrong answer.”
I tighten the cuffs. His hands slap at my forearm. I give him enough air to speak.
“I don’t know,” he croaks. “No one tells me jack shit.”
A gurgling noise from the side alerts me to the fact that Bogdan has just garroted a man to death in the street in front of Mrs Waldorf’s ten-million-pound property.
She will be pleased, as will her two cockapoos, I’m sure. I loosen the cuffs another fraction. “Try harder.”
The man wheezes. Blood runs from his nose onto my forearm. “Phone,” he rasps. “We got a message. Address. Said she was with you.”
“Who sent it?”
“Unknown number.”
“Show me.”
He makes a small, stupid attempt to reach for his pocket with the wrong hand. I tighten the cuffs again.
“Slowly,” I say.
His fingers shake as he gets the phone out. He unlocks it and holds it up. I take it from him and scan the message as Bogdan effectively deals with the other two fuckers trying to get to me through him.
Idiots.
Voronov house. Girl inside. Move tonight before Baron gets involved.
My eyes narrow. Baron. No one uses his first name unless they are family or ready to meet their maker.
Someone wants this moving fast. Someone who knows enough about us to know Baron’s involvement changes the equation.
That narrows the field to high-ranking Bratva, but that’s not saying much.
I shove the phone into my pocket and tighten the cuffs again as the man tries to slip away. “No,” I state. “You don’t walk away from this.”
My fists clench around the steel until he chokes and goes slack. I slam him into the road and look at Bogdan.
“Get the cleaners here fast.”
He nods, phone already in hand.
Four down. I stand there a moment longer, looking down the street where Tarasov’s Mercedes vanished. He came himself. That matters. Men like him don’t risk appearing at the home of a Voronov unless they believe the reward is worth the insult.
Or unless someone convinced him he had a narrow window.
Move tonight before Baron gets involved.
I look up at the house and then back at Bogdan. He nods once, and I cross the road, back to the gates. I glance once at the guards stationed there and give them an approving raised fist. They did their job. They stayed. They protected the house. They protected her.