Chapter Four #2
Black stone underfoot. Warm lamps burning low along the walls.
City windows beyond the living room, Manhattan spread in cold lights below.
The heat was already on. Irina had done as instructed; a cashmere throw lay across the nearest sofa, a tray with tea, water, bread, fruit, and soup waited on the low table, and a robe hung over the back of a chair.
Irina stood near the hall in a dark dress, silver hair pulled into a neat knot, hands folded at her waist.
Her eyes went once to Nadia’s face. Not the chemise. Not the bare legs. The face.
“Mr. Sorin,” she said. “The guest room is ready. I warmed the bed and put clothing in the dressing area.”
“Thank you, Irina. No one enters unless I call.”
“Of course.”
Nadia’s head turned. “Guest room?”
“Yes,” I said.
Irina stepped away without a question.
I carried Nadia into the living room and lowered her onto the sofa. She grabbed the edge of my lapel when her balance shifted, then let go as if the fabric had burned her.
I took the cashmere throw and placed it around her shoulders.
She pulled it closed herself, her fingers tight in the soft gray weave.
Lev remained near the foyer, phone in hand.
“Petya,” I said.
Nadia went still.
Lev looked at her, then at me.
I gave him one nod.
He spoke plainly. “We have two men outside your building and one following your brother. He left a deli on Brighton Sixth six minutes ago. No Kask men are on him now.”
Nadia’s face drained. “Petya’s outside?”
“He is walking fast and looking at his phone,” Lev said. “Angry, but alive.”
She gripped the blanket. “He doesn’t know where I am.”
“No,” I said. “And he will not be told details tonight unless you choose to tell him.”
Her gaze snapped to mine. “Don’t you dare use him to keep me here.”
“I won’t.”
“You expect me to believe that?”
“No. I expect to prove it.”
Lev’s phone buzzed again.
He read, then lifted his eyes. “Kask’s men were on her block ten minutes ago. They pulled away when ours made themselves visible.”
Nadia pressed one hand to her mouth.
Her knuckles were pale.
I wanted to touch her and had not earned it.
“Your brother is under my protection,” I said. “The immediate debt is being shut down.”
“How?”
“Money first. Pressure second. Paper third.”
“That tells me nothing.”
“It tells you I can move faster than Gennady can hurt him.”
Her eyes shone. “You paid it?”
“I’m paying what must be paid to remove his throat from Kask hands. Then I will decide which men thought a twenty-year-old’s marker gave them access to his sister.”
“Don’t hurt Petya.”
My head lifted. “Never.”
The word came out too hard.
Nadia heard it.
I took one breath through my nose and lowered my voice. “I won’t hurt him. I won’t threaten him. I won’t make him pay me for protecting you.”
Her eyes searched my face.
Lev’s phone buzzed again. He stepped closer and held it toward me.
A photograph filled the screen. Petya in a black hoodie under streetlight, shoulders hunched, phone in hand, alive and alone outside a closed storefront. One of my men had taken it from across the street.
I turned the phone so Nadia could see.
Her lips parted. She reached for the screen but stopped before touching Lev’s phone.
“Can he go home?” she asked.
“Yes,” Lev said. “We can let him go inside and hold the street.”
“Do that,” I said. “No one enters the building who does not live there. If he leaves again, stay with him.”
Lev nodded and moved toward the foyer, already speaking quietly into his phone.
Nadia watched him go.
When the elevator doors closed behind him, the penthouse became too quiet.
Wind pressed faintly against the glass. The city blinked below us, careless and bright. Nadia sat on my sofa in auction silk and my blanket, bare feet tucked under her, rose lipstick worn soft at the center of her mouth.
She looked young for the first time.
Then her chin lifted, and that vanished.
“You said you were late.”
“I was.”
“You said Gennady was behind us.”
“He is.”
“You said auctioneer.”
“Yes.”
Her hand closed around the blanket. “Start making sense, Vadim Sorin.”
My name in her mouth went through me with a violence I kept off my face.
I sat in the chair across from her, not beside her. The table between us held tea, water, food, and enough space for her to breathe.
“I knew Gennady wanted you before tonight,” I said. “I knew he’d found out you entered the auction. I knew he’d pressured the auctioneer to make sure your sale went his way.”
Her face tightened.
“How did you know?”
“I heard him brag at The Samovar Room.”
“When?”
“Last night.”
“Last night,” she repeated. “You knew last night.”
“Yes.”
Her eyes flashed. “And you didn’t tell me.”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because walking up to you in that room with Gennady’s men watching would have put more eyes on you before I had control of the auction.”
She leaned forward, blanket slipping off one shoulder. “You had a whole day.”
“I had men finding the auctioneer, the lot order, the payment trail, and every door in that building.”
“Then why did Gennady win?”
There it was.
The right question.
The one I owed her.
I looked at her bare shoulder, then back to her eyes. “Because my father fell.”
Her anger faltered.
“Your father.”
“Mikhail Sorin. He is ill. He pretends he is not. Tonight, he collapsed at the house while the doctor was there. My mother called me because he refused the hospital and tried to send the doctor away.”
Nadia said nothing.
“I had to decide whether to move him against his order or let him stay in his bed with blood in his hair and pride in his mouth.”
Her fingers loosened on the blanket.
“I handled it,” I said. “Too slowly. Gennady’s auctioneer moved your lot out of order while I was still dealing with my family. By the time Lev had confirmation, the bidding had begun. By the time I entered the room, Gennady had won.”
Her throat moved.
“You were coming to outbid him?”
“Yes.”
“And when that failed, you just took me.”
“Yes.”
She stared at the table. The tea steamed between us. The soup sat untouched. The city threw white light along the edge of her cheek.
“Did you pay them?”
“I settled enough at the venue to walk out without men shooting behind you.”
Her eyes lifted. “How much?”
“It does not matter.”
“It matters if you think I owe you.”
“You don’t.”
“That isn’t how men like you think.”
“You know many men like me?”
“I know enough men who buy women.”
The answer deserved the hit.
I leaned forward, elbows on my knees, hands open.
“I wanted to stop Gennady from having you. I still want that. I also want you in my bed, under my roof, wearing my name, carrying my child, and standing beside me when my father’s chair becomes mine.
I want you as my wife, Nadia. Mother of my children.
Mother of the next Pakhan. The woman who makes the Sorin name mean family instead of only blood and fear. ”
Her breath caught.
There was the danger. Not Gennady. Not the auction. Me, telling too much truth too soon because the sight of her wrapped in my blanket had broken something measured in me.
Nadia stood.
The blanket slid down her arms. She caught it against her chest and backed away from the sofa.
“No.”
I stayed seated.
“No to which part?” I asked.
Her eyes widened. “All of it.”
“Then all of it waits.”
“That’s not what I mean.”
“I know what you mean.” I stood slowly. “The guest room is yours tonight. The door locks from the inside. Irina brought clothes. Food is there. Water is there. You can call your brother from my phone with me out of the room if you want. You can sleep. You can shout at me more when your knees stop shaking.”
“I’m not sleeping in your guest room like this is normal.”
“None of this is normal.”
“You bought me.”
“I took you.”
“That is worse.”
“Yes,” I said. “In some ways, it is.”
She blinked.
“You’re not going to argue?”
“Not with that.”
A line appeared between her brows. “Then what happens if I walk to that elevator?”
“The elevator will not take you down without my handprint.”
Her face hardened.
“Captivity,” she said.
“Protection and captivity,” I said. “Both. I will not pretend one cancels the other.”
Her hand tightened around the blanket again. “That’s supposed to make you better than Gennady?”
“No. Gennady wanted you afraid and alone. I want you alive and angry in a room where he can’t reach you.”
“You keep making it sound like wanting me is different when you do it.”
“It is different.”
“Because you say so?”
“Because I will not force sex. I will not sell you. I will not share you. I will not put your brother in pain to make you obedient. I will not touch you because a room of men called you sold.”
She went very still.
I stepped back once, giving her more space.
“If I touch you,” I said, “it will be because you ask me to, Nadia. You can hate every other choice I made tonight and still trust that one.”
Her eyes stayed on mine.
The penthouse held around us, warm and silent.
Then her stomach made a small, hollow sound.
Her face flushed with instant fury.
I looked at the tray. “Eat.”
Her gaze sharpened.
I corrected myself before she could cut me. “Please eat something. You nearly fainted in the car.”
“I hate soup.”
“It’s chicken and rice.”
“I hate being managed.”
“I noticed.”
The corner of her mouth twitched and vanished.
I went to the tray, poured tea, and set a cup at the far end of the table. Then I lifted the bowl and held it out.
She stared at it like it had betrayed her.
“It isn’t a contract,” I said.
“No, just soup from the man who kidnapped me.”
“That is a fair description.”
She took the bowl.
Her hands were steadier now, but only barely. She sat on the edge of the sofa and brought the spoon to her mouth. One bite. A pause. Another.
I stayed standing by the windows, because sitting across from her felt like watching, and standing too close felt worse.
Nadia ate six spoonfuls before she set the bowl down. “I need clothes.”
“Irina put options in the guest room.”
“I don’t want lingerie.”