8. Sofia #2
My cheeks burn so fiercely, I almost lift my hands to cover them. Instead, my fingers curl so tightly, my nails bite into my palms. The sting helps give the shame somewhere else to focus on instead of the memory of Rowan’s chest rising beneath my hovering hand.
A laugh rises in my throat.
God, what is wrong with me?
After lunch, I don’t return to my room.
I can’t bear the thought of spending the next few hours staring at the walls, trapped inside my own head while shame still burns heavily in my gut. If I go back there, I’ll replay what happened in the hallway until I give in to the urge to jump off the balcony.
Even sitting through lunch had been torture.
I barely tasted anything and ended up pushing food around my plate while pretending not to hear Rowan’s voice in my head while the phantom warmth of his chest still scorched my palm.
I have experienced more devastating things in my life than a man rejecting me, but somehow, this embarrassment feels much more personal.
So when lunch ends, I leave the dining room and let my feet carry me without thought.
Down one corridor, then another. The farther I move from the formal rooms, the more the estate changes.
The marble gives way to older stone, the walls less decorative, the lighting brighter and less concerned with the ambiance.
I smell it before I see it, garlic first, then rosemary. Butter browning somewhere distant, roasting meat, rich and savory, tucked beneath the bite of freshly cut onions. I follow the scent like a starved dog. The moment I step through the swinging kitchen doors, the noise hits me.
Pans clatter as burners hiss. Someone barks out an order near the ovens.
A dishwasher thunders toward the back, steam rolling up from metal sinks.
Knives tap against cutting boards in fast, precise rhythms. This place is chaotic in a way the rest of this house hasn’t dared to be.
Bodies brush past each other with practiced efficiency, trays being lifted to avoid toppling over when moving, pots stirred and chopped herbs thrown into the broiling liquids, dough rolled beneath flour-dusted palms.
For a second, I just stand there and breathe it all in.
The head chef sees me first.
He is tall and stern looking with forearms like steel cables that are tattooed with black ink.
He wears a scowl that seems permanently etched into his face, given the lines pressed into his skin.
His knife pauses mid-chop, blade buried halfway through an onion.
One assistant stops reaching for a tray as the sudden stillness spreads through him.
“Miss Kuznetsov.” The title is polite. The tone is not. “This is a working kitchen, not somewhere to vacation when bored.”
I lift my chin. “I want to help.”
He stares at me like I’ve suggested setting the house on fire for fun.
Somewhere to his left, one of the younger assistants—a boy in his late teens with dark curls escaping from under his cap—snorts softly down at the pot of soup he’s stirring.
The sound is quickly smothered when the chef turns his glare on him briefly.
I almost smile. “I can cut vegetables. Or peel something. Or stir… something. Whatever you need.”
A muscle tics in his jaw.
I get the distinct impression that very few people walk into his kitchen and ask to be useful, let alone women with my surname and a guard who typically diverts me away from my expected route. The chef glances toward the door behind me, likely expecting Rowan to appear any minute now and remove me.
When no one comes, he sighs. “If you insist, you will do it correctly. Dima will show you.”
The boy with the curls frowns down at the pot.
“Me?”
The chef doesn’t look at him. “Are there two Dimas in this kitchen?”
“No, Chef.”
“Then yes. You.”
Dima mutters something too low for me to catch, though I suspect it is not at all complimentary. The head chef reaches to the side, grabs a knife from the magnetic strip, and thrusts it toward me handle-first. The blade gleams wickedly under the kitchen lights.
I take it.
The weight of it startles me momentarily, heavier than the little knives in my university apartment I used to cook with when I got tired of dining hall food and had no energy to go out to a formal restaurant.
The chef points toward the prep station where a mountain of carrots, onions, and celery waits. “Start there.”
I roll up my sleeves and get to work. The station smells earthy and sweet.
Carrot peels cling damply to the side of a metal bowl from someone having already half-finished the job.
The papery skins from a few onions are scattered across the counter.
Celery stalks are stacked neatly to the side, none of them touched.
For a moment I just look at all of it, absurdly aware that I have written essays on state violence and institutional legitimacy but have no idea how to properly dice an onion under the scrutiny of a chef who looks like he would rather face an execution squad than tolerate a poorly chopped carrot.
I grab one of the carrots and position my knife over it, hesitating while trying to get my fingers in the right placement. Dima slides in beside me a moment later, passing his soup spoon off to another assistant before looking at me. “You’re doing it wrong. Thumb tucked in or you’ll lose it.”
I glance down at where my fingers are wrapped awkwardly around the first carrot. “I know how to use a knife.”
“Sure,” he says dryly. “Everyone says that until one chop has them bleeding all over the mirepoix.”
My brow raises. “What’s mirepoix?”
His eyes widen in theatrical horror. “Oh, boy.”
He reaches over me to adjust the angle of the carrot on the board, then his hand comes around to tuck my fingers in before drawing the blade down.
“Like this. Fingers curled. Knuckles forward. Let the blade rest against them. Go slow. We don’t need you walking out of here with one less finger to manicure later. ”
The first cut is clumsy and way too thick to mirror the ones inside the metal bowl. The second is even worse than that.
Dima winces like I’ve offended him personally. “Not cubes. Chunks. We aren’t trying to cause choking.”
“I’m trying.”
“Not like that.”
I huff at him. “You’re very bossy.”
He looks at me, a wry smile crossing his face. “You walked into a kitchen and asked for work. What did you expect?”
There is something unexpectedly soothing about the exchange that has me relaxing.
Dima doesn’t seem frightened of me so much as mildly inconvenienced, and the chef, while clearly irritated by my existence in his domain, treats my inept presence as more of a problem to work around rather than fear at my last name.
I hadn’t realized how badly I needed this, to be scolded for something ordinary and allowed to make myself useful in a room where no one has time to handle me delicately.
The work absorbs me faster than I expect. I move through the carrots first, then work on the celery, moving slowly as I get the hang of using a large kitchen utensil. My eyes sting when I get to the onions, making it difficult to see through my tears.
Dima notices and smirks. “Crying from the work already?”
I point the knife at him before remembering that doing so at people in a Bratva estate is probably poor etiquette. “It’s the onion.”
“Of course.” His gaze drops to the blade, nodding to it. “Thumb tucked.”
Eventually when we finish, he shows me the walk-in fridge and its cavernous space.
The shelves are stacked high with produce that looks too perfect to be real.
The air bites at my cheeks and creeps beneath my sleeves, raising gooseflesh along my arms. I gather armfuls of herbs while he picks from a crate of tomatoes, squeezing them gently to test their ripeness.
Inside the fridge, the noise of the kitchen fades away almost completely, though I lower my voice anyway. “Can I ask you something?”
Dima shrugs while putting another tomato into the basket next to him. “Depends.”
“That man who came to visit earlier, Nikolai,” I hesitate. “Who is he? Everyone acted like he was the king of Russia.”
He lets out a short breath, though it’s far from a laugh. “Not far off.”
I frown. “What does that mean?”
He sighs and repositions the crate of tomatoes before turning to rifle through the one filled with lemons. “He’s the leader of the Iron Pact. Many people, the ones in this estate included, treat him like that simply because none of us wish to step out of line and risk being killed for it.”
The words sink into me slowly.
The Iron Pact.
I’ve heard the name before, whispered once or twice when I was younger. Mentioned only in passing by the guards here when they didn’t realize I was listening nearby.
From what I’ve gathered, the Iron Pact is some sort of shadow alliance.
Not a formal government, obviously. Nothing so visible.
It is the real power behind the visible one.
Families bound together by blood, money, favors, secrets, and the promise of mutual destruction if any one of them steps too far out of line.
And if Nikolai leads it…
My mind flashes back to the foyer, to Alina who seemed on edge despite trying not to be, and Rowan acting colder after they were gone. If Nikolai Malyshko leads the Iron Pact, then whatever he discussed with Ivan must have been serious and not at all a social visit.
Would someone from the Iron Pact be bold enough to visit the person they attempted to assassinate?
My stomach twists. “Are they behind the attack on my uncle?”
Dima goes still. One second, he’s sorting lemons with quick, careless efficiency, and the next his hand freezes around one of the bright yellow fruits, fingers tightening slightly against the rind. His eyes flick to the closed door behind us, then back to me.
“I don’t know.”