5. Wren
WREN
I wake up sore.
Not the bad kind of sore—the kind that reminds me exactly what happened last night. Twice. With two different stepbrothers. In two different locations of this house.
The guilt hits before I even open my eyes.
My mom's husband just died. She's in hiding, terrified, grieving, and what am I doing? Apparently working my way through her stepsons like some kind of deranged sexual scavenger hunt.
I groan into the pillow.
The smell of bacon drifts under the door, which is just rude. My stomach growls despite the emotional crisis I'm having, because apparently my body has decided that multiple orgasms work up an appetite and shame is no match for breakfast.
I drag myself out of bed—Lev's bed? Kostya's?
I genuinely can't remember whose room I ended up in—and pad to the bathroom.
The black oversized tee I borrowed last night hangs to mid-thigh, and I'm not wearing anything underneath it because all my clothes from the wedding are somewhere in this house and I haven't had the energy to hunt them down.
The face in the mirror looks... fine. Better than fine, actually, which feels like a moral failing. My hair's a mess, but my skin's flushed and my eyes are bright and I look like someone who's been thoroughly worked over by two enormous, tattooed men.
Which. Yes. Accurate.
I brush my teeth and splash cold water on my face, trying to summon some kind of appropriate gravity for the situation. My mom's husband is dead. There's a traitor somewhere in their organization. We're in a safe house surrounded by armed guards.
And I've had the best sex of my life. Twice.
I'm going to hell. Or maybe just to therapy. Probably both.
The bacon smell intensifies as I head downstairs, and I follow it like a homing beacon because I'm apparently powerless against pork products. The kitchen comes into view—big, open, all wood and stone and windows facing the lake—and all three of them are there.
Lev stands at the counter with a mug of coffee, his back to me, shoulders broad enough to block out the sun.
Kostya sits at the table cleaning a knife, because of course he is.
And Maxim's at the stove, sleeves rolled up, flipping bacon like he's starring in some kind of dangerous-men-who-cook calendar.
They all turn when I walk in.
Heat crawls up my neck. These men. These massive, tattooed, legitimately dangerous men. And I made them fall apart, well, two of them. I took them apart with my hands and my mouth and my body, and they let me.
The power of it sits low in my stomach, warm and coiled and a little bit terrifying.
"Good morning," Maxim says, and his smile is pure sin. "You look well-rested. Good sleep?"
"The best."
Kostya snorts into his coffee mug. Lev doesn't turn around, but I see his shoulders shift—a laugh he's swallowing.
"Sore?" Maxim asks, and his eyes drop to my legs, slow and obvious.
"It's for me to know and for you to keep wondering about."
He grins. "Fair enough."
Lev finally turns, mug in hand, and his gaze lands on me with that unreadable weight he does so well. "Sit. Eat."
Not a question. I sit.
Maxim slides a plate in front of me—bacon, eggs, toast—and the smell alone makes me want to weep with gratitude. I pick up a fork and dig in, and for a few minutes, nobody says anything. The quiet settles over the table, comfortable in a way that shouldn't be possible given the circumstances.
Then Lev pulls out his phone and sets it on the table, and the comfortable quiet evaporates.
"We need to talk," he says.
Kostya stops cleaning the knife. Maxim leans against the counter, arms crossed. I swallow my bite of toast and set down my fork.
"About what?"
"The mole."
Right. The person who got their father killed. The reason we're all here instead of back in the city.
"We've gone through the list," Lev continues, his tone flat and businesslike. "Everyone at the reception. Everyone who knew the route, the timing, the security detail. It's a short list, and none of them make sense."
"So maybe it's someone who wasn't there," I offer. "Someone who got the information secondhand."
"Possible." He doesn't sound convinced.
Maxim pushes off the counter. "We've got calls scheduled today. Feeling people out. Seeing who's nervous."
"And if they're all nervous?" Kostya asks. "They should be. The pakhan just died."
"Then we figure out who's too nervous," Lev says.
They keep talking—names I don't know, logistics I can't follow—and I go back to my eggs. It's not like I can contribute anything useful to a conversation about organizational structure and loyalty chains in a crime family I didn't even know existed a week ago.
Except.
"You know," I say, and all three of them stop talking and look at me.
"There was this TV show I watched. The guy knew there was a traitor but had no idea who.
So what he did was tell each of his advisors different things, and whichever piece of information came back to the queen, then that's the traitor. "
Silence.
Maxim straightens, his expression sharpening. "That's not bad."
"It's brilliant," Lev corrects, and something warm unfurls in my chest at the look he gives me—part surprise, part respect, all heat.
Kostya sets the knife down. "We feed different information to different people. See what leaks."
"Exactly," Lev says. He's already typing something into his phone, his focus absolute. "We'll need to coordinate the timing. Make sure the misinformation is believable but distinct enough to trace."
They're off again, talking over each other, planning. I go back to my breakfast and let the satisfaction settle. I helped. Not in any way I expected to help, but still.
Lev taps his phone screen a few times, and then Pavel's face fills the display. He's in a different room—smaller, plain walls, a window behind him showing trees.
"Everything quiet?" Lev asks.
"Yes," Pavel says. His voice is gruff, economical. "She's awake. Hold on."
The screen shifts, and then my mom's face appears, and my throat goes tight.
She looks tired. Her hair's pulled back, and there are shadows under her eyes that weren't there at the wedding. But she smiles when she sees me, soft and genuine, and I have to blink against the sudden sting behind my eyes.
"Hi, baby."
"Hi, Mom."
"Are you okay? Are you eating?"
I hold up my half-empty plate. "Bacon and eggs. Maxim made them."
Her gaze shifts past me, taking in the kitchen, the men. "Are they taking good care of you?"
Kostya chokes on his coffee. I glare at him. He doesn't even have the decency to look sorry—just wipes his mouth and keeps staring at me with those dark, amused eyes.
"They're keeping me safe," I say, which is true enough.
"Good." She exhales, some of the tension leaving her shoulders. "That's good."
We talk for a few more minutes—nothing heavy, just small reassurances on both sides. She tells me Pavel's been polite. I tell her the lake house is beautiful. Neither of us mentions the funeral, or the fact that she's a widow, or that we're both in hiding because someone tried to kill us.
When the call ends, the silence in the kitchen feels heavier.
I set my fork down. "The funeral's in two days?"
"Yes," Lev says.
"And we're going back tomorrow."
"Yes."
Tomorrow. Back to the city. Back to reality, whatever that looks like now.
I glance around the table—at Lev with his coffee and his unreadable stare, at Kostya still holding that knife, at Maxim leaning against the counter with his arms crossed and his eyes warm. Dangerous men in a dangerous world, and somehow I've ended up in the middle of it.
I could live here with them. All three of them. Wouldn't that be quite a life?
The thought hits me sideways, unexpected and a little bit terrifying.
Not just the sex—though that's certainly been memorable—but the rest of it.
The quiet mornings. The way they move around each other, comfortable and coordinated.
The way they looked at me when I suggested the traitor plan, like I'd said something worth hearing.
I could stay.
Except I can't. Tomorrow we go back, and whatever this is—this strange, intense, completely inappropriate thing—it'll probably evaporate the second we're not locked in a house together.
Right?
Kostya and Lev disappear into the office after breakfast, muttering about calls and logistics. Maxim stays in the kitchen, washing dishes with an efficiency that shouldn't be as attractive as it is.
I hover near the table, suddenly unsure. Last night was easy—charged and inevitable and too urgent to second-guess. But now it's daylight, and I'm standing in an oversized shirt with no plan, and Maxim's just... washing dishes.
He glances over his shoulder. "You look bored."
"I'm not bored. I'm just... I don't know what to do with myself."
"You could go back to bed."
"I'm not tired."
"I didn't say you'd be sleeping."
Heat floods my face. He grins, slow and wicked, and turns back to the sink.
"Want to go out on the boat?" he asks, like he didn't just proposition me.
"Are we allowed to go on a boat? Is it safe?"
"There are guards around the perimeter. And you're with me, so yes, you're safe."
He dries his hands on a towel and walks past me, close enough that I catch the scent of him—soap and coffee and something warm underneath. "Come on, solnyshko. Let's get some air."
The nickname does something stupid to my chest, even though I'm not really sure what it means. I follow him out the back door, across the lawn, down to the dock. The morning sun glints off the water, turning it silver-bright, and the air smells like pine and lake water and freedom.
The boat's small—just a motorboat with bench seats and a steering console—but it looks sturdy. Maxim steps in first, then holds out a hand. I take it, and his fingers close around mine, warm and solid.
"Are you good at this?" I ask as he starts the engine. "Sailing, I mean. Boating. Whatever this is called."