Chapter Two
The cabin where he had placed Anastasia was in the middle of nowhere. It was deep into the woods, off the beaten track, and not able to be detected. He had paid for it in cash, under a fake name, and then he had made sure all those documents were gone.
No one knew where he lived. This was one of many locations he had.
There were some safe houses with a lot of security.
This one didn’t have quite so much, because it wasn’t as easily detected.
However, he had placed sensors a mile from the property that would send him an alert.
He had also placed cameras around, and he was able to access them by his cell phone.
It was amazing what could be done via cell phone now. He remembered a time they could only text or call, which was a miracle when that happened. They were also a lot smaller than back in the day.
The smells of dinner were intoxicating as he entered the main cabin. He closed and locked the door. Anastasia greeted him with a smile, asked if he was okay, then put a pot of food in the center of the small table.
Anastasia loved to cook, and it reminded him that he needed to stop by a bookstore and grab a brand-new cookbook for her.
“You’re late,” Anastasia said. She handed him a knife and fork, and then leaned over the table to serve him a large bowlful of spaghetti and meatballs.
He had come to realize that Anastasia’s favorite food was pasta of any kind, and she loved meatballs as well.
Dmitriy didn’t need to look at the clock to know it was nearing seven.
This was a big improvement on what happened the first month he had brought her here.
Every night, she would be ready to attack him.
Sometimes she would have a knife or a fork and attempt to stab him.
On one occasion the prongs had indeed entered his flesh, which had sucked.
Thankfully, they had been clean and not soaked in any kind of poison.
It was not the worst feeling in the world, however, Anastasia had felt incredibly guilty afterward. He refused to tell her it didn’t sting.
That was when food had started to be made for him. Dmitriy couldn’t remember a time he had a home-cooked meal. His own parents hadn’t exactly been loving or comforting.
“It has been a long day.”
She never broached the subject of his work.
“Did your parents ever talk to you about ... the Bratva?” he asked.
Anastasia looked up, and he saw the surprise in her eyes.
She shook her head. “Not really. They spoke about how Gnesin had made something out of nothing, and that one of his points was to remember where he came from.” She shrugged.
“But then, he stopped arriving at parties, and there was a messenger or something. I don’t know.
Rumors were he got paranoid and was afraid of dying.
You know him, though, right? You’ve seen him? ”
Dmitriy nodded. What he didn’t tell her was it had been a long time since he had—over six months.
“When did he stop coming to parties?” Dmitriy asked.
She blew out a breath. “At least four years ago, that had to be when it started, but I don’t know about everything in between. I left, remember?”
“I remember. You refused to marry.”
“The guy was a pig, and he was gross.”
“You didn’t want to be with the guy because he was fat?” Dmitriy asked.
“No, what? No. It had nothing to do with his weight. He was ... horrible. He would grab women’s asses, and just, he thought everyone owed him something, and he was not a very nice man. I’m not shallow.”
“So, you’re saying if he had been a nice and kind man, you would have married him?”
“Yes,” Anastasia said. “Don’t look at me like that. I know people think looks are everything, but trust me on this, looks fade, okay? I used to hear my grandparents talk about it all the time. The ones that died before you killed my family.”
He was not going to feel guilty for following an order. Only now, six months later, he was a little doubtful as to the reason the Babkin family had to be removed.
“What did your grandparents say?” he asked. He loved to hear her speak.
“It was my grandma, actually. She would look at movie stars or whatever actor and actress was on television, and she would say, ‘looks are not everything.’” She laughed.
“She would then say, ‘This is not because I’m an ugly person. I’m seventy years old, and my Ivan was a king, a hunk, and now his looks are gone, they are faded, but that love stays.
’” She had a smile on her face. “Ivan and Lottie Babkin. They had met when she was sixteen, and he was twenty years old. She refused him, and he continued to chase her. They married when my grandma was eighteen, and it was a love match. That love never diminished. She would always tell me, ‘fall for a man who makes you happy, makes you laugh, makes you angry. Fall for the man who makes you feel so many different things, and even if he is ugly as sin, marry him, because he’s the one for you.’”
Dmitriy watched as she wiped a tear away.
He had not killed those grandparents, but he had known they had been killed in a car accident. At the funeral, he had attended, because from the moment he had seen Anastasia, he couldn’t get her out of his mind.
He always found a means to be close to her, even if she didn’t know it. She had sobbed at her grandparents’ funeral, and if it hadn’t been for her father and brothers consoling her, he would have stolen her away, right there and then.
****
It had been a long time since Anastasia had thought about Grandma Lottie. They had died when she was eighteen and a half years old. The news had been devastating. It had broken her heart to know her grandparents had died.
She had known true heartache, and through it all, she kept reminding herself of all the advice and wisdom her Grandma Lottie would bestow onto her.
Throwing off the blankets, she grabbed a robe and wrapped it around herself.
It was nearing winter, and the cabin was getting cold once again.
Through the summer, it had been hot as hell, and she had no choice but to leave the windows open.
The only problem was the animals that somehow got inside.
Waking up to find a bunny in the living room had been adorable.
At one point, there had also been a deer poking its head in the window.
That didn’t matter, though. What mattered was, it was cold right now, and she needed a hot chocolate, or some warm milk.
She kept thinking about her grandmother’s advice, and she couldn’t help but keep putting Dmitriy in that place.
He was no knight in shining armor, even though he had helped her live.
Dmitriy didn’t need to keep her alive, yet he had done so.
The anger and hurt were gone, and now she was grateful to him.
Stepping into the kitchen, she took a second to decide if she wanted warm milk or hot chocolate.
Hot chocolate won. There was no microwave, so it had to be heated on the stove.
Pouring the milk into the saucepan, she allowed it to simmer.
She couldn’t help but glance across the room at the small setup with her sewing machine.
It was two small tables, a swivel chair, so she could be working at her sewing machine, and then turn to her overlocker.
She often used the floor to cut out whatever pattern she wanted.
Dmitriy gave her whatever she wanted. He was a good guy who had no choice but to do bad things. But he wasn’t a bad guy. He didn’t kill her. When she stabbed him with a fork, he didn’t attack her. He dealt with the stab, and she felt so freaking guilty, she had never hurt anyone before in her life.
Anastasia had taken self-defense classes, which was Grandma Lottie’s advice. “Always learn and be as independent as possible, but know when to be taken care of.” That was her advice, and how she had been able to survive the last four years on her own.
“Couldn’t sleep?” Dmitriy asked.
“No.” She looked down at her pan and saw the milk had come to a boil. “Do you want to share a hot chocolate?”
“Sure.”
This surprised her.
She grabbed the hot chocolate mix, added it to the saucepan, getting it to the right consistency, then poured out a large mugful and walked across the room to take a seat on the sofa.
Dmitriy sat right beside her. She was so aware of how close he was. He had large hands, rough from doing hard work. She had a feeling this cabin looked the way it did because Dmitriy had been the one to fix it up.
She didn’t know anything about him. There were always whispers. He was not like other man who puffed out their chests, or showed off their thick muscles, but living with him the past six months, she knew he had them. She also knew he was covered in ink.
“Do you have any family?” she asked, after taking a sip of the hot chocolate and handing it back to him.
“No.”
She watched as he blew across the surface of the mug, and then took a sip.
“Do you like it?” she asked.
“Yes.”
She chuckled. “Do you know how to elaborate with your answer?”
“Ask me questions that require it.”
He turned his dark brown gaze toward her. She knew so many people feared that look, but she was not one of them. Dmitriy had saved her.
“Where is your family?” she asked.
“Dead. I killed them, and yes, they deserved it.”
“Why did they deserve it?”
“They were fucking sick bastards, and some of the scars I have are because of them.”
“What?” she asked.
“My parents liked to see how far they could push their son before he passed out. They would leave me bleeding for hours before getting a doctor. My dad liked to use his belt on me, and see how many cuts and bruises he could make. My mom liked to use her fists, and then attempt to make it all better.”
She couldn’t believe what she was hearing.
“When I was strong enough, and I had training, I killed them.”
Her mouth dropped open. “I’m so sorry,” she said.
She had known some parents were sick and twisted.
She had seen girls and women with black eyes or broken noses.
Her father had never raised a hand to her.
There were times he would chase her around the house, and she would run away, but the worst that happened was he tickled her to the point she nearly wet her pants.
“It’s not your fault. Sometimes it is best to stick with singular answers, don’t you think?”
She didn’t want to agree with him, but in that moment, she didn’t have a choice.