Chapter 6
Artem
Sitting in the passenger seat of the large car, I savor this quiet moment, even though the music plays softly through the speakers.
Inside my head, there is silence.
The voices have calmed, still savoring the blood I served them. The blood that still stains my shirt, my hands, and my face.
Like after a feast where I fed on the desperate screams of a bastard who tried to steal from me, I now digest the images that settled my impulses.
I am still reliving the way the sharp blade cut into pale skin. How it immediately became colored by the blood that began to pour in streams, while the man’s hoarse screams, thick with pain, turned into a melody accompanying the way I carved furiously into his flesh.
A melody that carried, somewhere in the background of my mind, the musical notes I heard beneath my own roof only a few hours ago.
I almost smiled, drunk on the sounds moving through my brain.
I am certain I did it a few times, because those are the only moments when I smile. When I feed my voices, offering them the death they have craved since I was a child.
Perhaps there is something wrong with me. Maybe I’m really broken.
But to me, it feels like something beautiful.
I have never hurt innocent people, and if my punishment seems extreme to some, that is their fault. No one should break my rules, which are as basic and easy to follow as possible.
And I know there will always be people who step out of line, people who believe they can fool me, even when they know exactly what I can do to them. If they accept the risk of falling into my hands, then I can only give them what they probably desire somewhere deep inside their filthy souls.
Suffering.
And death.
My brothers are beside me in silence. Sometimes I think they feed their own demons in those moments when they let me give in to the voices. I see the satisfaction on their faces while I tear the flesh of the idiots who have crossed the line, but also the desire to do the same themselves.
All three of us are starving for blood.
But more than anything, for the death we bring upon others.
We make the drive home without any of us saying a word, but when I see the secured iron gates open and the impressive building rise majestically ahead, I remember who is inside.
I don’t even know when night comes, but darkness is my best friend, and now it reminds me that in a corner of the house is the cause of my condition today.
The stone that has already damaged me.
The one I cannot remove from my path.
“Do you want to dine alone, or are you joining us?”
The deep voice beside me makes me blink.
There is a great deal of weight in my decision, but running is not a solution. My brothers did not ask what triggered today’s crisis, but I’m sure they have figured it out. That is exactly why they are waiting for me to confirm whether I can face her or not.
“Together.”
“We’re with you, brother,” Sasha tells me from the back. “You just need to get used to her presence.”
The hope that maybe he is right stays with me as the car stops and all three of us get out in a silence that is only apparent.
No boeviki7are visible, but I know they are watching everything that moves, protecting us from the shadows, exactly as they were trained to do.
“I’ll be in my room until then,” I tell them in a dry tone and start toward the house ahead of them.
I need to clean myself before our guest sees me with my clothes and face covered in someone else’s blood.
I slowly climb the stairs, but stop for a second in front of my bedroom door. With a glance over my shoulder, I look toward the room across from mine, where the source of my current ruin is probably unpacking her luggage.
I expected her to arrive with ten suitcases, but apparently, she is not that kind of person.
Fortunately.
I like a woman to be well-groomed and beautifully dressed, but not excessive. To keep some of her natural beauty, especially if she was blessed with it. Why would some women want to ruin something God already gave them?
But those are women’s problems, and I have no desire to waste my mind on them, especially since they have nothing to do with the one in the room across the hall.
Ekaterina Borislova has something tempting in her blue gaze.
A calm, but also a fire that calls you closer.
The only problem is that her eyes do not call only to me. They lure my demons too, inviting them into a lethal dance.
When I received the mission from my father to bring her here and keep her safe, I never imagined for a second that I would be the greatest danger to her life.
Inside my bedroom – my sacred refuge – everything is quiet.
I press my back against the door and take a deep breath, my head lowered, letting the darkness blend with the blood on my skin and clothes.
But right before I turn on the light, I feel it.
By reflex, my hand goes to my gun, and I aim it at the intruder I reveal a second later, when I switch on the light.
“How does it feel when someone violates your privacy?”
Is she aware that a single second was all that stopped me from pulling the trigger that would have taken her life?
The pounding of my heart is drowned out by the sharp voice this delicate creature uses with me, as if she has no understanding of the danger she is in.
“What are you doing in my room, Ekaterina?” I hiss, the gun still aimed at her head, though it does not seem to affect her very much.
Or perhaps she is a very good actress, which I cannot say about myself, and the inner storm triggered the moment I see her.
On my bed.
With her hair falling long over her shoulders and dressed in a white gown embroidered with silver thread, she looks as if she has stepped out of a painting of angels.
So beautiful.
And so stupid.
Otherwise, I cannot imagine why she would willingly walk into the monster’s nest.
“I thought I would give you a gift,” she simply state, as if this were a normal gesture between us.
I frown, but slowly lower the gun, and that is when I see her analyzing my posture, especially my bloodstained clothes.
“Are you hurt?”
Does she actually seem worried about me? Strange.
“I have never been better. What gift?”
An arrogant but slightly strained smile lifts the corner of her beautifully shaped mouth. Every move she makes, feels like a challenge from a small animal standing too close to a predator. Every sharp look, every reply only stirs my interest more.
7A term used in the Bratva for trusted men responsible for the security of a house or a person
Make her ours.
We want her.
Alive or dead, ours.
Nashi.
8
I take a deep breath, until air fills my lungs, searching for a trace of her perfume, especially when she moves toward us.
Toward me and my voices.
“Or maybe it was a gift from you to me, and I would like to return it?”
Two more steps, and she is in front of me, proud and elegant, her gaze turning cold as she extends her right hand toward me and opens her palm.
I blink, calm, even though I am surprised to see three microphones I recognize from her room lying in her delicate hand. I wonder if she knows there are more, or if she simply gave up searching and thinks 3 is her lucky number.
I do not exactly see her as superstitious.
“I don’t know how many more there are or what surveillance cameras you may have installed. But if you don’t want me to turn that entire room upside down and then set it on fire while you sleep peacefully in your comfortable bed,
you’d better sweep that bedroom clean of any filthy little thing that invades my privacy.”
I would smile at the proof of her intelligence and courage if I were not too busy controlling the urge to touch her.
To wrap my fingers around her fragile throat and squeeze until every spark of defiance disappears from her eyes and is replaced by the desire to submit to me.
8(ru.) Ours
Yes
!
Nashi
!
No.
She is not mine, and she is not allowed to be. “And since you want to be such a good host, I
would appreciate it if you did that now.”
I don’t think even my mother ever spoke to me so directly, as if she were the one in charge. And yet, before me stands the first woman who apparently has far more courage than is wise for someone hoping to survive the night under my roof.
“This is my house, and I can put microphones or surveillance cameras anywhere I wish,” I inform her with indifference, tossing the jacket and vest in my hand into a corner of the room.
Now is not the time to worry about clothes I will burn anyway, because my attention remains on the rebellious princess and on the microphones I take from her palm.
Fuck.
I don’t even breathe, focused on the small contact between our hands, the entire motion unfolding in slow motion, one fraction of a second stretching as if it lasts an eternity.
Or perhaps only my mind wants to feel this moment for that long.
“Are there any in your room?” she asks when she withdraws her empty palm and tilts her head slightly to one side.
I close my fist around the microphones, crushing them, while her throat becomes exposed in a dangerously tempting way.
“No.”
Why am I incapable of lying to her?
“Then we’ll switch rooms,” she decides sharply.
She folds her hands over her chest, beautifully outlined by the low neckline of her dress, which only teases with the promise of a far more delicious discovery.
“Absolutely not,” I state, my voice flat. “No one enters this room except me.”
She looks around, pretending to think.
“I’m here. So it seems I managed to get through whatever invisible wall or magic circle you had at the entrance.”
Where does she get these replies?
And how have I not realized that she has crossed the line entering my room, a space even my brothers don’t enter?
I don’t have anything strange or dirty in here. I simply dislike anyone touching my personal things and, worse, creating disorder.
Here, just like inside my brain, only I have access.
And now she has crossed the threshold of both sacred spaces.
She is dangerous, and my voices like this.
I don’t.
“Ekaterina...” I try again, my tone more threatening. “You should return to your room. I understand your point, and I will tell Dimitri to remove everything from there.”
“That isn’t enough.”
I frown.
What the fuck else does she want?
“I don’t trust you to clear the place completely.”
“That is your problem.”
“No. That is your problem. Otherwise, I’m staying here.”
I narrow my eyes, but the image is just as clear when she turns toward the bed and drops back down on its edge.
I could solve this very easily by telling Dima to bring her a device capable of detecting such equipment. But I cannot resist the game being displayed so shamelessly before my eyes.
If she wants to dance with the Devil, I’ll make sure the music fits.
“Fine.”
She freezes.
“What do you mean, fine?”
“I mean you’ll sleep in this room.”
I think I have lost my mind because of her. Otherwise, I cannot imagine why I would allow such a thing.
“And where will you sleep?”
I glance around, pretending not to understand what she means.
“Here.”
My bored reply is followed by me beginning to strip off my bloodstained clothes, without taking my eyes off her.
“What are you doing?” she asks, almost panicked.
“I need a shower,” I just say to her, gesturing toward the blood I know is staining my hands as I pull off my shirt in one motion, already unbuttoned partway from when I was in the car.
She immediately gets to her feet, but in two long strides, I am in front of her, blocking her path.
“Stay exactly where you are, dusha moya.”
My words are cold, with just enough sarcasm to mask the weight of the title I’m using for the first time in my life.
“I told you I don’t negotiate, but do not imagine blackmail works any better on me. So you had better be right here, in this room, when I get out of the shower, then we will go downstairs to dinner together.”
“But I wasn’t serious...”
“Do I strike you as the kind of man you can joke with like that?”
She draws in a deep breath, but this time she has no biting reply.
I take one more step, until I am almost pressed against her.
A grave mistake.
Her scent demolishes every wall of reason I have left, dragging the voices closer and closer.
“Answer me,” I say, my voice hard.
“No.”
“Good. Because this is the last time you pull that kind of stunt with me and walk away without scars. One more offense, and I’ll cut off one of your fingers. I assume they’re useful when you play the piano.”
“As if I haven’t heard that one before...” she mutters, her eyes fixed on mine.
I think the shiver that travels down my spine now goes in two entirely different directions, because I lean toward her and inhale the sweet, cool scent of her, one that drifts toward an even more forbidden place in this situation.
Delicious.
“Keep that attitude, and there is a very good chance it will happen.”
“From what I understand, I’m supposed to be safe with you.”
“You follow my rules, you are safe. You don’t follow them, you are dead. And it doesn’t matter whether you are killed by the people trying to finish a mission, or by me.”
That seems to finally make her quiet, and I am damn proud of myself.
I thought she would keep pressing button after button until I threw her onto the bed and fucked her.
Or strangled her.
Same thing, either way.