Vadim
“All set?” I ask as Ivan waltzes into my office with a tray of tea and biscuits.
“All set. She is watching TV in bed.”
“You moved everything?”
“Every last item.”
“Did she fight you?”
“Not in the slightest.”
“Good,” I say, sitting back. “She’s learning.”
Ivan sets the tray on my desk. “Or she’s too exhausted to argue.”
“Same outcome.”
“It is not,” he says.
I glance up at him. “Careful.”
He ignores the warning because Ivan has served this family long enough to know where the edge is and how to dance on it without falling.
“A woman who has not slept, has killed a man, has been moved into your bedroom, informed she will marry you, introduced to Baron, and discovered possible Kaverin blood before breakfast may not be learning. She may simply be numb.”
I take a biscuit from the tray. “Do you have a point?”
“My point is that numb women become dangerous when feeling returns.”
“She’s already dangerous.”
“Then you should avoid making it worse.”
I set the biscuit down without eating it. “Are you giving me relationship advice?”
“No. I am giving you household stability advice. It overlaps.”
I stare at him.
He stares back.
Ivan has never been frightened of me. Not really. He respects what I am, what I can do, but he’s seen me bleeding, raging, drunk, injured, half-dead, and murderous. It takes a lot to impress him. It takes even more to scare him.
Taisiya has impressed him.
That alone makes me uneasy.
“She’s not your concern,” I say.
“She is under this roof.”
“She’s under my protection.”
“That makes her my concern,” Ivan replies.
“Why do I bother arguing with you?”
“Beats me. You never win.”
He turns on his heel and saunters out as my phone vibrates on the desk before I can respond. Bogdan.
I pick up. “Yeah.”
“Found her. Durham. Small village outside the city. Different surname now. Barsov.”
“Alive?”
Grunt.
I sit forward. “And Kaverin?”
A pause. Bogdan doesn’t pause unless something is worth hating.
“Her name appears in police records from twenty-nine years ago. Statement connected to a stabbing outside a pub in Whitechapel. Victim was Mikhail Kaverin.”
My hand stills on the phone.
Mikhail Kaverin was Arseny’s younger brother.
“Any connection to Yelena?”
“Apart from this, no.”
“Do they know who killed him?”
“Rumours only that it was Arseny.”
“Hmm. Keep digging.” I hang up and place the phone on the desk.
Shit just levelled up. Why would Arseny kill his younger brother in front of Yelena, or a witness in general?
Unless he was protecting her. Or she got caught in the crossfire.
Or unless Yelena Korotayeva wasn’t just a witness, and Yelena stabbed Mikhail and Arseny took the blame.
I don’t like that thought.
I pull my laptop closer and open the secure archive Baron’s men hate me accessing because I never ask permission first. The official report will be useless, but useless reports still contain names people forget to erase.
Whitechapel. Pub fight. One male victim, stab wound to upper abdomen. Pronounced dead at hospital. No charges. Witnesses uncooperative. CCTV unavailable.
I scroll down.
Yelena Korotayeva, twenty-two, barmaid. Statement taken at Royal London Hospital. Minor injuries.
My eyes narrow.
Minor injuries.
I click the attached scan. It loads slowly because someone in the Met archived this shit with the technical skill of a drunk goat. The statement is handwritten, barely legible in places.
Yelena claimed she saw nothing. She heard shouting outside, left through the back door, found Mikhail on the ground, tried to help him, and was struck by an unknown man while calling for assistance. She refused protection. Refused follow-up.
No mention of a pregnancy. But what untrained woman in their right mind runs towards danger? Surely she should have hidden and called the police from inside the pub? This doesn’t stack up. Even more so that she got hurt in the process. Supposedly. I download the scan and send it to Bogdan.
He replies with a thumbs-up emoji, which is possibly the most insulting thing he’s ever sent me.
I call Baron next.
He answers on the fourth ring, which means he saw my name and considered ignoring me to be difficult.
“What now?” he asks.
“Arseny and Mikhail Kaverin.”
Silence.
Good. I like when Baron goes quiet. It means I’ve hit something worth hitting.
“What about them?” he says eventually.
“Mikhail died outside a pub in Whitechapel twenty-nine years ago. Yelena Korotayeva gave a statement.”
Another pause.
“Where did you find that?”
“Police archive.”
“Why are you in police archives?”
“Because I need answers.” I pinch the bridge of my nose. “Yelena was injured that night. Mikhail died. Rumour says Arseny killed him.”
“Rumour says a lot of things.”
“What does truth say?”
Baron exhales, slow and irritated. “Arsen didn’t kill him.”
“Arsen, huh? You two buddies on the sly?”
“We grew up together. Does it matter?”
“Maybe. If your pal didn’t kill him, then who did?”
“He’d never say.”
“So he was protecting someone.”
“Seems that way.”
“Could you call him and ask him?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Do you want the honest answer?”
“Probably not.”
“Good boy.”
“Will he see me?”
“Maybe. Fun to find out.” He hangs up, and I’m left fuming that this was a conversation that ended up with more questions than answers. I stare at the dead phone in my hand and consider throwing it through the window. Ivan would have a comment ready before the glass hit the terrace.
Mikhail Kaverin dead.
Yelena Korotayeva involved somehow.
Arseny taking the blame on the streets; the official report is unsolved.
Tai born months later.
I don’t believe in coincidence. Coincidence is what people call patterns they’re too stupid or too afraid to read.
My office door opens without a knock. Bogdan steps in, his expression flat, phone in hand.
I turn the laptop towards him and tap Yelena’s statement.
“That night. Find everyone who worked at that pub, every officer who took statements, every doctor who treated her. I want hospital records if they exist. I want to know what minor injuries she suffered, and I want Arseny Kaverin’s location. ”
He raises an eyebrow but doesn’t comment. He doesn’t need to. He steps closer, reads the scan, and his frown deepens by a degree. For Bogdan, that counts as a dramatic reaction.
“Also,” I add, “find out if Yelena Barsov has left Durham in the last week.”
He looks at me.
“I know,” I say. “If she has, I want to know where she went, who she spoke to, and whether anyone from Kaverin territory has been near her.”
Bogdan nods once. Then he turns and leaves.
I sit back and stare at the laptop screen.
Yelena’s signature sits at the bottom of the statement, shaky and uneven.
She was twenty-two. Young, probably terrified, possibly pregnant, possibly hurt by the father of her child or by the man who killed him.
Maybe none of that is true. Maybe I’m making a story out of blood and silence because Tai is upstairs in my bed, and I need to make the world make sense before it gets near her again.
My phone buzzes.
Baron.
I answer. “Miss me?”
“Irina says the lasagne is better than mine.”
“I’ll alert the press.”
“She also says if you make that girl cry, she will come over there and remove your skin with a fish knife.”
“Irina doesn’t own a fish knife.”
“She owns many things you don’t know about.”
I look toward the ceiling, even though Tai is nowhere near directly above me. “Noted.”
“She’s fragile right now.”
“I know.”
“Do you?”
My jaw clenches. “I’m not an idiot.”
“You are a Voronov man in possession of a woman you want. That is worse.”
“I’m not going to break her.”
“You say that like breaking only happens with fists.”
I go quiet.
Baron lets that sit there for a moment, the bastard. He knows exactly where to press. He has spent my life proving it.
“She needs to choose something,” he says. “Even if it’s small. Give her a decision that matters and then honour it.”
“I don’t need marriage coaching from you.”
“No, you need sense beaten into your thick skull, but Irina said I’m not allowed to visit until after I’ve scrubbed the lasagne dish.”
“Tell Irina her threats have been received and respected.”
“I will not. She enjoys delivering them herself.”
“Then keep her away from my house.”
Baron makes a sound that might be amusement. “Give the girl a choice, Vadim.”
“She chose my room.”
“That isn’t what I mean.”
“I know what you mean.”
“Then do it.”
“Do you meddle this much in all your family’s lives?”
He hangs up by way of a response.
“I’ll take that as a yes.”
I stare at the phone for a second, then set it down with more care than I feel.
Everyone has advice today. Ivan. Baron. Irina by proxy.
I’ve lived my entire adult life making decisions people were too scared or too slow to make, and now I’m meant to step back because one woman walked into my office and rearranged my priorities.
I stand.
The office feels too small. The walls hold too much information, too many files, too many names. Tarasov. Kaverin. Yelena. Mikhail. Arseny. All of them pull at threads connected to Taisiya.
Upstairs, she sleeps in my bed with the TV on because silence eats at her.
Give her a decision that matters.
Baron is right. I dislike it because he said it in the same tone he uses when ordering vodka or deciding someone’s fate before lunch.
I leave the office and take the stairs without rushing. Rushing means panic. Panic is for amateurs. I prepare, react, remove obstacles, and occasionally throw crystal at walls when a woman makes me insane over roast chicken.
The house remains quiet. Ivan has lowered the staff to whispers, which means he has decided Taisiya is sleeping, and anyone who wakes her will answer to him first.
He’s a useful man.
I stop outside my bedroom door and listen. The TV murmurs inside. Some woman is crying about betrayal over a holiday villa and a man named Gazza. I push the door open quietly.
Tai lies in the middle of my bed, hair damp on the pillow, duvet pulled up to her chest. She is asleep.
I step inside and close the door.
Her eyes open before I reach the bed.
For a second, she looks frightened. Then she recognises me, and the fear eases.
“You’re loud for a criminal,” she mutters.
“I’m not a thief. I can make noise.”
She snorts. “Not a thief? Have you never robbed anyone?”
“Not literally.” I sit on the bed next to her.
“What exactly is figurative robbing then?”
“Taxation without consent,” I say.
Her eyes narrow. “That’s just robbing with paperwork.”
“Usually.”
“God, I hate that I asked.” She shifts higher against the pillows, showing the white robe has slipped open over her chest. My attention goes to her tits before I drag it back to her face.
“What do you want?”
She frowns. “What do you mean? Out of life? Not to be hunted would be a great start.”
I let out an annoyed noise. “No, I mean here. Now. Name it, and you can have it.”
She eyes me up with suspicion. “What is that supposed to mean?”
“It means I’m giving you a choice.”
“About what?”
“Anything, Tai. Why are you making this so difficult?”
“Because it’s a trap.”
“It’s not a trap.”
“Fine. What do I want? Who knows at this point? I’m exhausted mentally, and it’s all too much right now.”
“Do you want to go for a walk outside? Clear your head?”
She blinks and looks at the drawn curtains. “Is it raining?”
“No idea.”
“Go look.”
I’ve never taken an order from a woman in my entire life, yet I rise anyway and pull the curtain back a fraction. “Yes, it’s drizzling.”
“Okay, then. Let’s walk. Where?”
“The garden,” I say, letting it drop back. “You like getting wet?”
“It will clear my head like you suggested.”
I sigh, defeated. “No, that wasn’t… the idea was you… forget it.”
“Forget what? The walk?”
I rub my hand over my face. “I want you to do or want something for you, Taisiya. Your life has been ripped away from you. You are in my home with barely anything of your old life around you.”
“I don’t know how to do that.” Tai looks down at the duvet, fingers pressing into the edge.
“I’ve spent years making choices around what I could afford, what I could survive, what would keep me from getting evicted, followed, fired, or worse.
Asking me what I want right now is like asking me to speak a language I forgot. ”
I sit back on the bed and force my hands to stay still. “Then we start smaller.”
“How small?”
“Walk or no walk.”
She looks toward the curtains. “Walk.”
“Coat or umbrella?”
“Coat. Umbrellas are a pain in the arse.”
“Garden or terrace?”
“Garden.”
“Shoes or barefoot?”
She gives me a look. “Barefoot.”
“You’ll catch your death.”
“So shoes then.”
“Tai,” I growl, but she grins.
“You are easy to rile up, you know that?” She pushes the covers off. “What is this really all about?”
“You,” I state and stand up so she can.
She nods carefully and climbs out of bed. “Me.”
A soft knock at the door interrupts us.
“Get dressed, Tai. Or don’t. Up to you.” I cross over to the door and crack it open.
Ivan stands there with a silver tray with a small antique-looking ring box on it.
“What in the fuck is that?” I mutter.
“From Mrs Voronov, sir,” he says and lifts the tray higher, urging me to pick it up.
“I’m going to kill the pair of them,” I growl and snatch it up, shoving it in my pocket. I don’t need to look. I already know.
I close the door on Ivan’s amused face and lean against it while Tai disappears into the bathroom with her clothes.