Chapter 6 Lev
Lev
Three days out of the hospital, and I’m sending flowers to a woman who could get me killed.
White orchids. Not roses, because roses are predictable, and Polina Kozlov is anything but. They’re elegant without trying too hard, and the florist on Tverskaya told me they symbolize strength and beauty, which felt right even though I’d never admit it.
The card reads: Dr. Kozlov, thank you for your exceptional care. — L.
Not a single detail ties back to the Morozov name or a hospital stay that involved a construction worker named Luka Sorokin. Just a grateful former patient expressing thanks. Perfectly innocent, unless you know what the L. stands for.
This is a test.
If she throws them away, I have my answer.
What happened between us was a mistake she’d rather forget, and I’ll respect that. I promised myself I’d never push her. My old man never cared about boundaries. I do.
If she keeps them, that’s a different conversation.
I’ve got a contact at Moscow General, a janitor named Yuri who owes Ruslan a favor from a gambling debt he’ll never pay off. He’ll tell me what I need to know.
At 3:47 p.m., my phone goes off.
Flowers are on her desk. Still in the vase. She moved them from the side table to right next to her computer.
I read it twice, then I set my phone down and stare at the ceiling.
She kept them.
More than that, she moved them closer. A woman who wants to forget doesn’t do that. She put them where she would see them while she works.
Good.
I’m still riding that high when Ruslan lets himself in without knocking. I should break him of that habit, but I don’t. He’s the only one I trust to walk into my place like that.
“Your father’s asking questions.”
My high evaporates immediately.
Ruslan drops a manila folder on my kitchen counter and leans against the island. The cut on his lip is almost healed, just a thin scab in the corner that neither of us has mentioned.
“He called Gennady last night. Wanted to know why you went to a civilian hospital instead of using Dr. Gagarin.”
“What did Gennady tell him?”
“That he didn’t know. Because he doesn’t. But now he’s asking some of our other men. He’ll keep asking until he gets an answer he likes.”
I rub the back of my neck and exhale through my teeth.
This was always going to happen. My father doesn’t tolerate gaps in information, especially when they involve his blood.
The fact that I went to an outside hospital instead of the physician who has been stitching up Morozovs for twenty years is a red flag he won’t ignore.
“I’ll call him,” I decide aloud.
“And tell him what?”
“The truth, mostly. I was bleeding out, and getting Gagarin on the line wasn’t possible in the time we had.”
“And when he asks why you didn’t call Gagarin after surgery? When you were stable and conscious for nine days?”
I don’t have a good answer for that one. “I’ll figure it out.”
He doesn’t look convinced, but he lets it go.
I call later that night. My old man picks up on the second ring, which tells me he’s been expecting this.
“Lev.” There’s no concern in his voice. He delivers my name like a line item on a ledger.
“I wanted to update you on the Taganskaya situation.”
“You mean the situation where my son was shot three times and failed to report it for nine days?”
“It happened fast,” I say. “I was losing blood. There was no time to call Gagarin. We went to the closest trauma center, because the other option was dying in the back seat.”
Silence.
“And after surgery?”
“I was on morphine and barely conscious for three days. After that, it was handled. I stayed quiet so it didn’t turn into a bigger problem.”
More silence. He’s doing the math, checking my story against what he already knows. I can feel where it doesn’t hold.
“Who shot you? Are they alive?”
“Petrov’s people. Two of them. I have names.”
“Give them to Frol.”
“I’d rather handle it.”
“You should have called.” He doesn’t specify who I should’ve called. Doesn’t have to. “Don’t let it happen again.”
He hangs up without saying goodbye. Standard. Vadim Morozov doesn’t waste words on pleasantries, not even with his sons. Especially not with the son he considers expendable.
I set the phone on the counter and exhale. He isn’t satisfied. He’ll file this away with every other thing I’ve done “wrong,” and sooner or later, he’ll demand answers I can’t give.
Frol will call within the hour. He always does after one of us talks to our father. We compare notes and try to figure out what he meant. My brother reads him better than I do. I read everyone else better than my brother.
Between us, we’ve stayed alive.
By 9 p.m., I’m in a black BMW registered under a fake name, sitting with the engine off, two blocks from Moscow General. Waiting for Polina’s shift to end.
Getting shot didn’t cure me of this habit.
The staff entrance opens onto a side street with parked cars and a few scraggly trees. A security guard sits in a booth by the gate, glued to his screen. Half the lot is empty.
She comes out at 9:24 in a navy coat. Her hair is down for once. Bag on one shoulder. Eyes on her phone while she walks.
It bugs the hell out of me. Anyone could be watching her.
Like the dark sedan across the street.
Two men are inside with the engine idling. I recognize the plates before the faces. My old man’s people.
Low-level surveillance. The kind he uses to track rivals and “persons of interest.” They’re watching Polina because she’s a Kozlov, not because they’ve tied her to me. I’ve seen them here before.
The driver smokes with the window cracked, an amateur move. A cigarette in a dark car is visible from blocks away, and an open window means their talk carries. They’re just bottom-rung guys, here to log her schedule, spot her patterns, and report back.
But routine surveillance becomes dangerous when the subject does things worth reporting. Like receives orchids from anonymous admirers. If these two dig deeper or ask the wrong nurse the right question, everything unravels.
I dial Ruslan.
He picks up on the first ring. “Yeah.”
“Staff parking lot at Moscow General. Dark sedan, east side of the street. Two of my old man’s guys are running surveillance on the Kozlov surgeon.”
“Do they know about you?”
“No. Standard family watch. But I need them gone before she notices them.”
“Gone how?”
“Use your imagination. Just make sure they have a reason to leave and a reason not to come back.”
“Done.”
I hang up and watch Polina cross the parking lot. She unlocks her car, tosses her bag onto the passenger seat, and sits behind the wheel for a beat before she sets her phone down and pulls out.
Not one glance at the sedan. Not a flicker of awareness that two men have been logging her every move. The surgeon who kept me alive with four flawless hours doesn’t notice the wolves at her door, and something in my chest goes tight and sore.
I’m about to follow at a distance, just to make sure she gets home, when my phone dings with an unknown number.
Stop sending flowers. I don’t date patients.
My pulse kicks up so fast that I feel it in my teeth.
That card didn’t include my number. She couldn’t have gone to the florist on Tverskaya.
She was on shift. But she could have called.
And clearly, she did. Whatever she said, they talked.
You can take the girl out of the Bratva, but the Kozlov blood doesn’t rinse out that easily.
I save the contact as Doctor and type back.
You’re not my doctor anymore. Have dinner with me.
Three dots appear. Disappear. Appear again. Then nothing.
I sit in the car and watch the screen for ten minutes before I accept that she’s not going to respond. That’s fine. I’m a patient man when the stakes are worth it, and Polina Kozlov is worth every second.
I drive home, take a shower, and check the screen. Nothing. Eat leftover takeout standing at the kitchen counter, check again, and still nothing.
I lay on my bed and stare at the ceiling, thinking about the sound she made when she came on my fingers in the hospital room. I get hard so fast that it hurts.
I close my eyes and see it like it’s happening again. Her thighs tightening around my waist. Her face buried in my neck to swallow the noise. The slick heat when I slid my fingers inside. Her body lifting when I curled them forward.
I wrap my fist around myself and stroke slowly, holding on to her expression right before she broke. Brown eyes going glassy. Lips parting. Flush spreading down her throat and under her scrub top.
What does she look like naked? Does the flush keep going? Is she loud when no one can hear, or does she always bite it back?
I’m getting close when the phone vibrates on the mattress beside me.
Where?
One word is all she gives me, and it’s the most satisfying one in the world.
I let go of my cock, wipe my fist on the sheets, and type back.
That Georgian place on Pyatnitskaya. Friday, 8 p.m. Far enough away that we won’t run into anyone we know.
Her reply comes in thirty seconds.
If this is a trap, I will end you on the operating table next time.
I grin at the ceiling.
Noted, Doctor. Wear something that isn’t scrubs.
Don’t push your luck.
Too late for that.
A full minute passes before the next buzz.
For the record, I’m only saying yes because I like Georgian food.
Whatever helps you sleep at night.
Who says I’ve been sleeping?
Now that’s something I’d like to hear more about over dinner.
The dots appear, hold for a long beat, and then vanish. No response. She’s letting me squirm, but the fact that she didn’t run tells me enough.
I set the phone on my chest and lay there in the dark with a grin. My father is suspicious. His surveillance team was parked outside Moscow General. The woman just threatened to kill me, and I’m lying here smiling like an idiot with my cock still hard and her name glowing on the screen.
Ruslan was right. I’m unrecognizable.
I don’t care.