Chapter 10 Alina
Alina
The absolute audacity of that man continues to astound me. I just broke open his case, and he shoves me back in a locked room like I’m good for nothing.
“Fucking rude,” I shout at Dima as he closes the door and locks it.
I put my glass down on the bedside cabinet and fly towards it, intending to beat my fists on it, but all I will do is break them.
The door won’t give, and neither will Dima.
Instead, I press my forehead against the cold steel and count to ten.
Then I count to ten again because the first time didn’t work.
Moving back to the wine, I take a long sip and carry it to the window, staring out.
The courtyard below has shifted into its evening rotation.
Three guards now instead of two, and the fountain has been turned off.
The silence it leaves behind feels deliberate, like even the water has been told to shut up and comply.
I replay the conversation over dinner, dissecting his reactions the way Dad taught me to read people without ever calling it a lesson.
Arkady’s face when I laid out the theory—he didn’t dismiss it.
He didn’t laugh. His jaw did that thing where it goes so tight the muscle jumps, and his eyes went somewhere far away and very dark.
That’s how I know I’m right. If I’d been wrong, he would’ve torn me apart with that sharp tongue of his and sent me packing with a patronising smile.
Instead, he flipped the table. Metaphorically.
The wine glass was real enough, though. I heard it shatter as Dima marched me up the stairs and ignored it like a champ.
That crack in the new pakhan’s armour is enough to know my musings are correct.
Or correct enough for him to pursue the trail.
I highly doubt I’ve got it nailed all the way through.
But it’s definitely a start, and he knows it.
I drain the wine, move to the en-suite to rinse it out, and place it on the counter.
I stare at my reflection and then strip off.
I might as well shower and try to sleep before I have to face him again.
It’s impossible to relax around him, even if he wasn’t holding me hostage.
He is always on edge, and it makes me feel like I’m walking on a knife’s edge.
The hot water hits my skin, and I close my eyes, letting it pound the tension out of my neck and back.
My mind won’t stop turning, though. It keeps circling back to the same question: who in Arkady’s inner circle would benefit from him being dead, and then pivot to killing Nikolai when the first plan failed?
I don’t know enough about the Saranov hierarchy to narrow it down.
Dad kept me deliberately ignorant of the family structures beyond what I’d overhear through walls and half-closed doors.
But I know enough to understand that succession in any Bratva family is a bloodbath waiting to happen.
Nikolai had Arkady. But who comes after Arkady? Who stands to inherit if he’s removed?
I press my palms against the tile and let the water run down my spine, over the tattoo that started this entire mess.
Or didn’t start it, to be fair. I turn off the water and stand there dripping, staring at the black tile.
I don’t have proof. I don’t have anything except a gut feeling and a lifetime of listening to my father talk about how the most dangerous man in any room is the one smiling at you.
Wrapping myself in a towel, I walk back into the bedroom and rummage through the wardrobe for a t-shirt to sleep in.
My attention is drawn to his side, which has a vastly bigger collection than mine, so serve him right for forgetting to bring my pjs.
I reach for a Calvin Klein black tee and pull it on, immediately swamped by soft cotton and fabric conditioner.
I crawl into the bed and pull the black silk sheets up to my chin. They’re cool against my bare legs, and I curl onto my side, facing the window where the Spring evening hovers. My traitorous body relaxes into it before my brain can lodge a formal complaint.
Sleep doesn’t come easily. It comes in fragments, broken up by images I can’t shake.
The hole in Nikolai’s forehead. Arkady’s face going blank.
The sound of that gunshot through the phone line that I wasn’t supposed to hear but did.
The way his voice went flat when he said he didn’t want to talk about his father.
Not angry. Not grieving. Just... closed.
A vault door slamming shut on something he refuses to inventory.
I roll onto my back and stare at the ceiling. The shadows shift as clouds move across whatever moon is out there, filtered through bulletproof glass. Somewhere in this house, Arkady is pulling apart the theory I handed him, and somewhere in this city, someone is waiting for him to stumble.
I have my suspicions that he doesn’t stumble.
He detonates. I’d rather not be here when he does, but I’m not going anywhere.
Even more so now. I know shit he probably doesn’t want me to know.
Even if I’m part of this nightmare, he will want to keep me where I can’t start talking.
Like, who would I tell? Mina, who parties harder than I do and at thirty-three has never worked a day in her life and has absolutely zero plans to.
Nadia, whose surname I don’t even know and who I met at the gym three weeks ago.
Jess, who I’ve known since school and is desperate to follow her parents into a law partnership with her own firm one day.
Yeah, that would be a good call, wouldn’t it?
I roll my eyes and flop over onto my side again.
My eyes drift shut eventually, and when I open them again, dawn is breaking over London.
I’m still alone in this bed, which is both a blessing and an annoyance.
He forced me in here to keep an eye on me and then didn’t even bother coming to bed.
It’s an irrational irritation, and I’m still annoyed about it when I hear the lock disengage.
I sit up, dragging his t-shirt straight, and rake my hair back from my face as the door opens.
Arkady enters looking like he hasn’t slept at all, which should make him look rough, but instead makes him look like he’s been carved from something harder than the rest of us.
Dark shadows under his eyes, shirt untucked, tattoos vivid against the morning light coming in behind him.
He carries two mugs of coffee like a man who’s decided that’s the least he owes me.
“You didn’t sleep in here,” I say.
“Didn’t sleep.”
“You put me in your bed and then didn’t use it.”
“I had things to do.” He sets one of the mugs on my bedside cabinet, moves to the en-suite, and shuts the door.
I hear the shower running a moment later and flop back to the bed.
I pull the sheet up and drink the coffee before it goes completely cold, listening to the sound of the shower. It runs for a long time. Longer than necessary for hygiene purposes. He’s standing under it thinking, the same way I did last night. Different thoughts, probably. Darker ones.
I swing my legs off the bed and carry my mug to the window. London is waking up below. The guards have changed again. Fresh faces, same pattern. The fountain is back on, water catching the early light. Normal. Peaceful. Like a dead man isn’t the reason we’re all here.
With an impulse that I’m not sure is better or worse than the silver dress, I place the mug down and sidle over to the bathroom door.
Placing my hand on the handle, I test it quietly, and it turns, the door opening soundlessly as steam curls out around me.
Emboldened, I push it further and step into the bathroom.
I spot Arkady in the shower through the glass panel.
He is leaning his fists against the wall as the water pounds onto him.
His back is covered in ink, and the urge to run my hands over it causes me to clench them tightly.
His head turns. He becomes aware of my presence like a predator sensing a shift in the air.
He straightens slowly, water streaming down the ink on his back, and turns enough to look at me over his shoulder.
His blue eyes find mine through the steam.
Neither of us speaks.
The smart thing would be to back out of the bathroom and pretend this was a mistake. A sleepy, coffee-addled lapse in judgement. I could blame the steam fogging my brain. I could blame four months of not being laid, or Oliver, the two-pump chump. I could blame a lot of things.
I don’t move.
He turns fully then, and I keep my eyes on his face because if I don’t, I will absolutely combust. The water hits his chest and runs down over the tattoos that cover his torso.
My mouth goes dry as other areas get wetter when I notice his cock, stiffening under the torrent.
He is huge and puts Ollie to shame. Mind you, he’d put most men to shame, even if he lost a couple of inches.
I lick my lips and force my eyes back up to his.
His trademark smirk is firmly in place, and I feel my cheeks heat up.
“Have you never seen such a massive cock before, krasotka?”
“Not for a while,” I admit to his amusement.
“Don’t just stand there then. Touch it.”
I gulp as his hand closes around his length, and it hardens into a rod of iron that I know will last longer than two minutes.
“You’re doing a good job of that yourself. I wouldn’t want to interfere,” I say, but move closer anyway.
He tugs, his eyes darkening with heat as his gaze pins mine. He bites his bottom lip, and I nearly whimper as his breath catches and his hand moves faster. Then he stops. He grips his cock tightly but edges himself until I’m practically begging him to carry on.
“What happens next is up to you,” he murmurs.
“Meaning?” I croak.
“Either you finish me off, or I walk around with a stiff cock for the rest of the day.”
“Why would you give me that much power?”
“Who says you are the one with the power?”
My pussy clenches, and I move forward.
The shower spray soaks through the t-shirt the second I step under the water beside him, but I don’t even care. The fabric plasters itself to every curve I have, and the sound he makes low in his throat when his gaze drags down over me is worth it.
I reach out and wrap my hand around him. The sound he makes is low and controlled, but it’s there. A breath that catches somewhere in his chest. I squeeze experimentally, watching his jaw lock.
“Both hands,” he says.
“Bossy,” I say, but I use both hands.
Those blue eyes burn through the steam with an intensity that makes my knees want to give out.
His hands stay at his sides. He’s letting me do this.
Letting me have it, which I know instinctively costs him, because control is the only currency this man deals in and right now, he is spending it on me.
I move my hands, slow at first, learning the weight of him, the heat of him, and his breath shifts. His chest rises and falls with more effort than before.
His hands finally move. Not to take over. Not to direct. Just to my hips, fingers curling into the wet fabric, holding on like I’m the one thing keeping him anchored to the floor.
I speed up, and a sound escapes him that I feel rather than hear. Low. Rough. Not quite controlled. I file it away as the most satisfying thing I have ever achieved.
His jaw is tight, that muscle jumping, blue eyes nearly black now with the pupil blown wide. He looks like a man fighting himself, and losing, and being furious about it. I think that might be the most honest I’ve ever seen him. More honest than the three seconds of grief.
His grip on my hip tightens, and he stiffens momentarily as he comes all over my hands with a soft groan that makes my clit twitch.