Chapter 3 - Nadya
Panic cramps my stomach. I knead my knuckles into it, trying to force breath through the stabbing ache.
“What happened to your knuckles?” Iosif asks.
Oh. I look down at the hand, my split knuckles swathed in a bandage. “I clocked a rapey fucker in the mouth.”
“Jesus Christ,” Iosif chokes out, tripping over a snort of laughter. His hands cover his face, pressing the heels of his palms into his eye sockets.
I wonder if I can make use of the moment to skedaddle. It at least wouldn’t be the first time I’ve vanished like a magic trick. He looks down at me before I’ve made up my mind. Quickly, it’s too late. It was too late before I ever walked out of the Encore and summoned poor Otto.
“Of course you did,” he mutters. “Are you okay?” His hand settles on the crown of my head.
No. “Exhausted, you know?”
“Good party?”
“The best,” I croak.
The worst part is that it isn’t even a lie. It probably was the best night of my life. Right next to being the worst mistake. And still, the universe is gunning for me. There’s no other explanation for why my phone chooses this very second to start trilling.
I may be the last person I know to still have my ringer on instead of damning my phone to eternal vibration, but there’s no denying that it’s useful.
For one, it always helps me find my phone—which is fantastic, since I perpetually misplace it.
For another… I don’t have to extricate my phone from my clutch to see who’s calling.
The telltale ringtone of “Overprotected” by Britney Spears warns me it’s our oldest brother.
Pointedly, I tuck the clutch further by my side, muffling the sound with my hip. Iosif’s eyebrows flit up his forehead.
“Is there a reason you’re dodging?” His gaze is knowing.
I sheepishly pluck at the glass that wound up on the desk, and sip at the water.
It’s a shitty evasion tactic, I have to admit.
“I ditched my security last night. He’s going to be pissed, and his bitching me out for it will sound the same later as it does now.
” I spit the words out as fast as I can.
“Nadya,” he still groans, turning to sink against the edge of his desk. “I thought we talked about you being more careful.”
Translation: Iosif talked. I listened.
“The stern act works better when it’s coming from Trifon,” I snap.
The phone stops ringing, as if startled by my ire.
That makes the two of us.
Clearly, No Sleep Nadya is a bitch. It isn’t news to me, but I don’t let her out of the cage too often.
At least I haven’t alienated Iosif—yet. He’d be the first to say I can’t, ever.
But he doesn’t know what I’ve done. And since I’m not actually batshit insane enough to tell him, he’s not going to.
Fickle, fickle relief still washes over me when he merely grins in response and drawls, “Too fucking true.”
He must read the apology in my eyes. He reaches out and messes my hair up. I don’t protest. It’s not like he can make it look worse than it already does.
“Did you—?” Whatever he’d been about to ask is interrupted by the insistent buzzing of his phone. He straightens and strides back over to the sofa he’d flung it on, and cackles when he sees the screen. He holds it up to me with a smirk. “This. This is why you pick up.”
His eyes roll dramatically, fixing on the ceiling. Unlike me, he answers Trifon’s call. “Yeah, she’s here,” he says, a second into the call.
From across the room, I can’t tell what Trifon is saying. Whatever it is, Iosif sighs and looks at me again. “She’s fine, Trif. I’ll talk to her. She’s just going to sleep it off at mine, alright? Don’t sweat it, man,” he says. “I’ve got it.”
My mouth opens—and he shakes his head, cutting off whatever I’m about to say.
“She probably feels suffocated. We ramped up her security, and she fucking hates it. The Zakharovs shouldn’t be her problem.”
But they are. One of them is. Nobody knows just how much my problem, Viktor Zakharov, is. They would never forgive me for this. And I can’t blame them.
Uncharacteristic tears sting my eyes over his support. Over the fact that, even if he was just reminding me to be careful, he still sees me. He still gets it.
Pleased or not, in agreement with my rebellious nature or not, Iosif always covers my ass.
We’re a team, he and I. The two daredevils of the mighty Yuri flock.
Impulsive and wild, married to the thrill.
Or we were, until he married a woman. Now, he’s changed a little.
Grown up. For a moment, I’d almost thought it would change our dynamic, that he’d start talking down to me.
But he’s never done that. He’s still my biggest advocate.
He’s still the one who always sticks up for me.
I blink furiously, banishing the tears, and down the rest of what’s left of the water. It doesn’t help. My heart stays lodged in my throat.
It’s all I can do to wait for him to hang up before I tell him, “I’m gonna go, okay? You’ve got your hands full of…” I gesture vaguely, unable to say the name. I shoot him what I hope is a convincing grin as I make a beeline for the door. “I just wanted to say hi.”
“Nadya.”
I freeze with my hand on the doorknob.
“I’m never too busy to talk. Are you sure you’re okay?”
No. I’m the furthest thing from okay. I’m the worst.
“I’m good,” I assure emptily. “Just need a shower and a nap. Not necessarily in that order.”
He doesn’t look convinced, but he mercifully lets me go.
I’ve only made it halfway down the hallway.
The elevator doors open before I get to them.
“Iosif?” A familiar voice rings through the penthouse, warm and melodic. “I forgot my—oh! Nadya!”
Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuckity fuck.
Janella is standing in the entryway. Her honey blonde hair is pulled back in a bouncy ponytail, and she’s wearing a pair of beat-up jeans and a pretty, strappy top.
“I didn’t know you were coming!” she squeals, crossing the room to me and throwing her arms around me. Her hugs smell like baked goods. One inhale, and my stomach is rumbling. We pull apart with our laughter interweaving between us. “How are you? I feel like we haven’t seen you in forever.”
“I was considering dropping in for lunch,” I say.
“You’re always welcome,” she promises. “But you don’t have to schlep that far. Carmen and Jin can handle the place without me. I can whip something up for you here, too. Something greasy and perfect to cure a hangover, maybe?”
My guffaw comes out weak. “Is it still a hangover if I only had one beer?”
“Then what’s got you looking like death warmed over, honey?” Her golden-brown eyes sparkle with mischief as she studies me. “Walk of shame?”
Heat crawls up my neck, stinging me like a dozen scorpions. “Is it still a walk of shame if you’re not ashamed?”
Janella throws her head back and giggles, the sound filling up the hallway. It’s going to summon Iosif, I already know it.
“That’s my girl,” she cheers.
Iosif appears behind me as expected, drawn by his wife’s laughter like a moth to the flame.
He looks at Janella in a way I’ve never seen him look at another person, with a tenderness one wouldn’t expect from a man like him.
It makes me feel like someone’s twisting a fork in my intestines like a bowl of spaghetti. I don’t know why.
“Nadya had a very good night,” he announces, teasing lilt back in full force. “That’s why she’s hiding from Trifon here. She’s in trouble.”
“Oh, really?” Janella’s grin is wicked now. She loops her arm through mine, steering me toward the kitchen. “Then you’re absolutely staying for food. And gossip. Mostly gossip.”
I look helplessly over my shoulder at the elevator I’m being pulled further and further away from.
Before I can get a word out, Janella’s already pulling ingredients from the fridge, and Iosif’s settling onto a barstool, and his vaguely terrifying housekeeper is popping out of fucking nowhere and pushing a cup of coffee in my hands.
There’s no escape.
Shit.
***
Janella throws together the best hangover food I’ve ever had—thick slabs of brioche French toast drowning in butter and maple syrup, with a side of crispy bacon and crunchy-skinned hash browns. She tops it all off with strawberries for garnish. It’s no surprise that her café is always packed.
“So,” she chirps, sliding a plate in front of me and leaning across the counter to look at me. “Tell me about your night? How else can I live vicariously through your adventures?”
The food smells heavenly. I’m starving enough to justify the way I shove a bite of French toast in my mouth, muffling my scant words. “Not much to tell! Went out, danced a little, got out of there.”
“And punched someone,” Iosif adds helpfully from beside me.
I try not to glare at him.
The comical way Janella’s eyes go wide as saucers makes it easy. “You punched someone? You Yuris, are very violent.”
Iosif chuckles into his coffee. “You’re a Yuri,” he reminds.
“I said what I said,” Janella sasses.
“He had it coming!” I huff.
“She always says that,” Iosif mutters, but the fondness in his voice is undeniable. Like he can’t help himself, he reaches across the counter to steal a strip of bacon from Janella’s plate. There’s plenty on his own. When she swats at his hand, she’s beaming.
The casual intimacy of their relationship is undeniable. They’re so settled. Comfortable, the way a favorite sweater becomes.
Last night had been nothing like this. There hadn’t been sweetness. It had been an electric fire. A primal tangle of limbs with an intensity that left marks and made me forget my own name. Athletic and feral and so consuming it felt like we were devouring one another whole.
Mind games, warring stamina, and the delicious, heady thrill of not knowing what would happen next.
What Janella and Iosif have is so, so different. It’s Sunday morning, French toast and stolen bacon, and a love that needs no adrenaline to fuel it.
Uncomplicated. Simple. Safe.
If I think about it for too long, it isn’t yearning for the same thing that fills me. It’s claustrophobia.