Chapter 2
Alina
Icome to with my tongue glued to the roof of my mouth and regret pounding like a drum behind my eyes.
The scent of leather and something clean cuts through the leftovers of expensive perfume and nightclub.
A soft blanket has been placed over me. A bucket sits on the rug, already judged and found insulting.
The water bottle is uncapped by a millimetre, as if someone checked the seal and then thought better of it. The tablets are lined up too neatly—counted.
Whoever put this here didn’t just dump supplies and leave. He curated the morning like he expected to be responsible for it.
Luckily empty.
I breathe slowly. The window throws warm sun over everything. This isn’t my house. Mine is smaller but no less elegant. This place is enormous, swallows noise and spits out money.
Bits of last night flash in my mind’s eye: the alley, a gun, a man’s arm like a band of steel. His name. Saranov. Arkady Saranov.
My head pounds as I sit up too fast. Saranov. Fucking hell. I clutch the sofa and breathe, then uncap the water bottle some thoughtful brute left on the glass-topped coffee table and take a slow gulp. I eye the tablets placed there all innocently and ignore them.
The sound of a single step draws my attention. Deliberate, not forceful. He enters my line of sight as if every inch of this space belongs to him and knows it.
Arkady Saranov looks like sin sharpened into a blade.
Dark hair, cut close. Blue eyes that are deep enough to drown in.
Tattoos crawl up his arms and disappear under the short sleeves of a tight-fitting black shirt.
His pants are tailored, Tom Ford, if I’m not mistaken.
He looks like a god, if gods were diaspora Bratva heirs.
“You,” I snarl. “Abductor of the year.”
He pulls up the side of his mouth in a sexy half-smile that does things to my insides that I really wish it wouldn’t. He sits and places his ankle on his other knee as he stares at me.
His eyes flick once—to the bucket, to the tablets, to the water level—then back to my face. It’s fast enough that I’d miss it if I wasn’t staring right at him.
He’s been taking inventory of me since before I opened my eyes.
“Sleep well?”
“No.”
“Really? You were snoring loud enough to wake the dead.”
My cheeks instantly go hot. “Fuck you. I don’t snore.”
He laughs, low and infuriating. “You did. It was adorable.”
“I hate you,” I say, because it’s easier than admitting my heart does a stupid flutter when he looks at me like that. “Where are my shoes?”
“In the hall cupboard.” He gestures, casual as anything. “There’s coffee in the kitchen.”
“What, so you can poison me?” I roll my eyes at my irrationality, but there is something about him that makes me want to scream.
He angles his head, amused. “Not my style. And you drank the water.”
“The water was capped. What is your style? Dragging women into cars and holding them hostage?”
“Saving idiot women from overdose kits and men with dirty syringes.” His gaze slides over me, assessing but not leering. Heat prickles under my skin anyway. “You were careless.”
That lands with a sting. I bristle. “I was with friends.”
“You were a mark.” He drops his leg and leans forward, forearms on his thighs, and those tattoos flex. “He had your path plotted. You weren’t random. You didn’t see him. I did. I see everything.”
My stomach flips. I don’t like that. I don’t like that he’s right either. “Are you done lecturing me?”
“For now.” He stands, smooth and quiet menace bottled in an expensive suit. “Shower is down the corridor, second door on the left. Fresh towel, toothbrush. Dima’s getting you clothes.”
“I have clothes.”
His mouth curves. “You call that scrap of fabric clothing?”
My glare could slice steel. He doesn’t flinch. “I’m not staying.”
“You are until I say otherwise.” He moves closer, and the air seems to charge.
I feel the size of him, the calm control, the promise of violence leashed so tight it hums under my skin.
“I kept my hands off you last night,” he says, voice even.
“I will keep them off you unless you say otherwise. But don’t test my patience by acting like a brat when I’m being generous. ”
“If you are being so generous, why won’t you let me leave?” I blatantly ignore his threat. He wants me to rise to it, but he will be waiting a long time.
“That man targeted you for a reason, Alina.”
“Then tell me the reason,” I fire back. “Because I don’t know, okay?”
“It’s not complicated.” He steps closer, a dark eclipse that drags heat up my spine. “Belova ink on your back, face like a billboard, drunk. You advertise power and vulnerability in the same breath. That combination pulls predators. Last night’s idiot wasn’t freelance.”
My mouth goes dry. “Says who?”
He lifts his phone, flicks through it, and shows me a photo. A man facedown, wrist under a boot, syringes glinting. My stomach flips. He tucks the phone away. “He had a tail. We lifted the tail, too.”
“Lifted,” I echo. “How neat. And now what? You parade me around as proof of your hero complex?”
“I don’t have one,” he says, dead calm. “I have a list. He made it.”
I shift the blanket off my lap and stand, my legs not as steady as I’d like. The room is too bright, too expensive, and too him. “I’m going home.”
“No,” he says, and that’s it. The word sits there, immovable. “Shower. Eat. Then we talk.”
“You don’t give orders to me.”
“I just did.”
I want to throw the bottle at his perfect face. It reminds me of Mina throwing her water in his face, and I snort. “My friends will be worried. Mina will call my dad.”
His eyes drag over me, not crude, not kind, appraising like I’m a set of variables.
“I’m sure she already did. He will do the rounds. Mina has no idea who I am. It will take him a few hours.”
“You appear to be amused by that.”
“I am.”
“You know he will rip you a fucking new one, don’t you?”
“Once burned. I studied his moves the last time he tried to knock my head off. I’m ready.”
I blink. “You have fought my dad… and lived?” I’m marginally impressed. Not many men do.
“It would appear so.”
I try not to smile, but it’s difficult when I imagine him being beaten up. “What did you do?”
His eyes darken. “Wouldn’t you like to know?”
“That’s why I’m asking.”
“You haven’t earned that story yet. In fact, you have done nothing but annoy me. Perhaps I should’ve left you to the predator who wanted to inject you.”
A hiss escapes my lips. “You’d like that, wouldn’t you? Sadist.”
“You have no idea what I am.”
“Your rep precedes you, arsehole.”
“Have I hurt you in any way?”
His blunt question makes me frown. It also pisses me off because he’s right.
“No,” I say, and it scrapes out of me before I can sugar-coat it. “You scared me. You pissed me off. You didn’t hurt me.”
His mouth tips like I’ve passed some ridiculous test. “Good. Shower. Eat. Then we work out why you were hunted.”
“You mean you work it out while I sit pretty and keep my mouth shut?”
“You can speak,” he says. “Just try to be useful.”
I flip him a V and stalk down the corridor he indicated. Doors line it like polished secrets. The bathroom is black marble, and the shower is already running, steaming and enticing with multiple shower heads. I strip and stand under it until the thud in my skull becomes a dull tap.
Hot water forces last night out of my pores. I groan with delight and stand there until I figure I’ll have to move my arse before he barges in here to find me.
Not that it would be the end of the world if he joined me in here, pushing me up against the tiles, thrusting his big…
“Fuck off,” I mutter as the sexy image in my mind makes my nipples harden.
He is a brute. A savage. The Saranov name comes with a sordid history that trails all the way back to the Motherland.
I’ve spent my whole adult life avoiding Bratva men like him.
Avoiding Bratva men in general. All I have to do is take one look at my dad and know that isn’t the life for me.
My mother left years ago, unable to handle another night wondering if he would be sent back to her in small pieces.
Or worse. The fucking bitch left me to it, sixteen and a fool as only sixteen-year-olds are, and I hope she’s six feet under right now.
I’ve never needed Dad to rescue me because I’ve never given him the need to.
No one knows who I am. Not really. Not in the real world.
I use my mother’s name for that very reason.
Ashworth. The only fucking thing she ever gave me that I could use.
The Cyrillic script spelling out Belova down my spine usually isn’t on display.
That dress. That stupid fucking dress was a bad buy.
I knew it, but it was an impulse at a fashion pop-up, and it was the first—and last—time I have worn it.
Arkady’s theory that I was targeted because my dad is a cop out. Too easy. It wasn’t that. It was probably me dressing like a slut and getting off my face enough to make myself a target.
“Happy birthday to me,” I mutter and slam off the water.
Twenty-eight and not a whole hell of a lot to show for it.
Pampered, indulgent, living a lie that not even Mina is fully aware of.
She wouldn’t have called the police. She knows it’s pointless.
But my dad? Yeah, that’s a whole other ball game.
I towel off hard enough to sting, drag the toothbrush over my teeth until mint drives out vodka, then check out the clothes folded on the counter.
Black vest top, soft joggers. Underwear that’s a bit too big, but I’ll let Dima off the hook.
I’d rather walk around in saggy knickers than have him ask or worse, check himself.
An array of expensive toiletries is lined up on the counter, and I grab the deodorant.
Pulling on the clothes after I’ve moisturised my face, I drag a brush through my fucked-up hair and then knot it into a messy bun.
The corridor outside the bathroom is cool and smells like beeswax and money.
My bare feet make no sound on the marble.
I follow the scent of coffee to the kitchen and find Arkady at an enormous island, tattoos inked wildly up his arms. He slices through toast with a knife that looks like it could take off a finger if you annoy him mid-breakfast.
A cup sits in front of the stool opposite him. Steam curls up. Coffee, strong and dark. A plate of eggs, toast, and grilled tomatoes. It looks like something out of a magazine spread, and I hate that my stomach answers before my mouth does.
“Do you always bring a Vityaz to breakfast?”
He frowns and then holds up the knife. “You know your arms.”
“You know my dad.”
“You keep mentioning him like I’m supposed to be scared.”
“If you were smart, you would be.”
“Yes, I always bring a Vityaz to breakfast. Worried I might use it on you?”
“No. You wouldn’t dare.”
He smiles and places a plate in front of me.
“I’m not hungry,” I lie, sliding onto the stool because my legs decide for me.
He lifts an eyebrow. “Eat.”
I consider pouring the coffee onto his lap. I take a bite instead because my hands shake and I refuse to let him see it.
He eats without fuss, clean and precise. No clatter. No noise. Control in every movement. It gets under my skin, the way he sits there like he owns my choices.
“Who knew you were going out last night?” he asks between sips. “Names. Places you posted from.”
“I didn’t post,” I say through toast. “I’m not an idiot.”
“Debatable,” he says, blandly.
“Charming.”
He ignores that and tilts his chin a fraction. “Your friends. Full names.”
I shove another forkful in to buy a second. “Mina St. James. Jess Fulwood. Nadia something. I have her number as Nadia Gym, don’t judge me.”
He almost smiles. “I always judge.”
“No kidding. We went to Vodka Lounge, then Gilded. Mina knows the promoters there. Not exactly state secrets.”
His eyes flicker, considering.
Before he can interrogate me further, I say, “Look, this isn’t about me being a Belova, okay. No one knows who I am. To the world, I’m Alina Ashworth. My bitch mother’s name.”
“Not even your friends?”
I shake my head.
“But your friend is wised up enough to know to call your dad?”
“She has seen my dad. Has a gross crush on him.” I try not to vomit up the vodka from last night. I don’t even know why I said that. It’s something we don’t talk about. Ever. But I see the looks she gives him.
Arkady tries to keep the smile off his face. “I see. So your friends are clueless as to who you really are. Your work colleagues?”
My cheeks heat up. “I don’t work.”
“Of course you don’t, printsessa,” he says.
“Fuck you. You don’t get to comment on my life.”
“What is your life, exactly, Alina Ashworth? Someone decided to target you, and I want to know why.”
I set the fork down and meet his stare head-on. “My life is mine. I go out, I drink, I dance. I don’t owe you a fucking dissertation.”
“You owe me answers.”
“I owe you nothing.” I swallow coffee because my mouth is dry. “If you’re fishing for some secret feud, there isn’t one. I don’t run in your circles. That’s the point.”
“That’s the lie,” he says, quiet and sure.
“Believe what you want.” I pick at the toast I’m already done with. “It was my birthday. Happy? I wore a stupid dress and got too drunk. That’s it. There’s no mastermind plot to take out the hidden Belova princess.”
His eyes cut through me. Calm sea, deep as sin.
Then, his phone vibrates on the granite top, mercifully cutting this inquisition short.