Chapter 27 Lena
LENA
Pavel stands on my porch, snow dusting his shoulders, his pale blue eyes darting between the door and the tree line like he expects someone to emerge from the woods with a gun. His hands shake as he adjusts his wire-rimmed glasses, and the nervous energy radiating off him makes my stomach clench.
"Maya." He clears his throat. "Can we talk? Outside. Alone."
Behind me, I feel Sasha's presence like a wall of heat and tension. His hand finds my hip, possessive and protective, and I hear the unspoken question in the way his fingers tighten against my sweater.
"It's fine," I say, glancing back at him. God, even stressed and suspicious, he's gorgeous. The thermal shirt clings to his chest in a way that makes my mouth go dry and my fingers twitch with the desire to feel all those muscles. "I'll just be a minute."
His gold eyes narrow, but he steps back. Danil appears in the doorway behind him, arms crossed over his massive chest, watching Pavel with the kind of attention a hawk gives a mouse.
I grab my coat and follow Pavel off the porch, trudging through snow that comes up to my shins. He doesn't stop until we're fifty feet from the cabin, far enough that our voices won't carry through the windows.
"What's going on?" I ask, wrapping my arms around myself against the cold.
Pavel's gaze darts back to the cabin, to the two men watching us through the window. "Those men in there. Do you know who they are?"
My heart kicks against my ribs. "They're friends."
"Friends." He laughs, but there's no humor in it. "Maya, I need to tell you something. Something I should have told you a long time ago, but I was trying to protect my cover."
"Your cover?"
He pulls off his glasses and wipes them on his shirt, a nervous habit I've seen a hundred times. "My name isn't really Pavel Galkin. It's Pavel Sokolov. I'm in Witness Protection. Have been for five years."
The world tilts slightly. "Witness Protection."
"I was an accountant." He puts his glasses back on, and his pale eyes are serious behind the lenses. "For a Bratva family in New York. I kept their books, laundered their money, hid their assets. And when the FBI came knocking, I made a deal. Testified against them. Put three families behind bars."
My mouth goes dry. "Why are you telling me this?"
"Because that man in your cabin, the one with the dark hair and gold eyes?
The one you call Sasha?" Pavel's voice drops to barely above a whisper.
"I've seen his face before. In photographs.
In surveillance reports. And the big one, the one who looks like he could break someone in half?
" He swallows hard. "I remember him too. From meetings. From the books I kept."
Ice spreads through my veins, but I force my expression to stay neutral. "You're mistaken."
"I'm not." His hand finds my arm, gripping tight enough to hurt. "Maya, these are dangerous men. The kind of men who don't just hurt people, they destroy them. And if they're here, if they've found you, then you need to run. Now. Before it's too late."
I pull my arm free, taking a step back. Part of me wants to laugh at the irony. Pavel, hiding from the Bratva in Witness Protection, is warning me about the very men I've been hiding from. The universe just keeps piling it on.
"I appreciate your concern," I say carefully. "But I know exactly who I'm dealing with."
His eyes widen. "You know? And you're still here?"
"It's complicated."
"Complicated?" His voice rises, and I see him catch himself, glancing back at the cabin. "Maya, there's no such thing as complicated with men like that. There's only alive or dead. And if you stay here, if you keep letting them into your life, you're choosing dead."
The words should terrify me. Maybe they would have, a few weeks ago. But now, knowing what I know, loving who I love, they just make me tired. I'm still scared, of course, but now I'm just too exhausted to put much care into it.
"Thank you for the warning," I say, my voice firm. "But I need you to mind your own business, Pavel. Whatever you think you know, whatever you think you remember, keep it to yourself."
"I'm trying to help you."
"Then help by staying out of it." I turn back toward the cabin, then pause. "And Pavel? If you value your life, you'll forget you ever saw them. Forget their faces. Forget this conversation. Just forget."
I don't wait for his response, just trudge back through the snow. My legs are shaking by the time I reach the porch, and not from the cold.
Sasha opens the door before I can reach for the handle. His eyes search my face, reading things I don't want him to see. "What did he want?"
"To warn me about you." The truth slips out before I can stop it. "About both of you."
Danil appears behind Sasha, his expression darkening. "What did he say?"
"That you're dangerous. That I should run." I peel off my coat, my fingers numb. "I told him to mind his own business."
Sasha's hand finds the small of my back, warm through my sweater.
"He recognized us," Danil says. It's not a question.
"He used to be an accountant. For a Bratva family in New York." I move toward the kitchen, needing something to do with my hands. "He's in Witness Protection."
The temperature in the cabin drops about twenty degrees. Sasha and Danil exchange a look, some silent communication passing between them that I can't read.
"An accountant," Danil repeats slowly. "Which family?"
"He didn't say." I pull out ingredients for dinner, anything to avoid looking at them. "But he testified. Put people in prison."
"Fuck." Sasha runs a hand through his hair. "That's why he's been watching you so closely. He's paranoid, sees threats everywhere."
"Can you blame him?" I start chopping vegetables with more force than necessary. "He betrayed the Bratva. That's not exactly something you recover from."
Another knock at the door makes us all freeze. Sasha's hand moves to his waistband again, that automatic reach for a weapon that isn't there. Danil pulls his gun, holding it low against his thigh.
I move to the window and peer out. "It's Pavel. Again."
"What the hell does he want now?" Sasha's voice is hard, dangerous.
I open the door, and Pavel stands there looking miserable and determined in equal measure.
"I'm sorry. I shouldn't have said anything.
But I was hoping…" He trails off, his eyes moving past me to where Sasha and Danil stand like twin walls of muscle and menace.
"I was hoping you'd invite me to dinner. To apologize properly."
The request is so unexpected that I almost laugh. "Dinner?"
"Please." His pale eyes are pleading behind his glasses. "I don't want things to be weird between us. You're my only friend out here, Maya. I don't want to lose that."
I should say no. I should send him away, lock the door, and pretend this conversation never happened. But something in his expression, the loneliness I recognize because I've felt it myself, makes me hesitate.
"Sure," I say before I can think better of it.
Relief floods his face. "Thank you. I'll bring wine."
He's back an hour later with a bottle of red. We settle around the kitchen table, the four of us, and the tension is thick enough to choke on.
I serve the stew I made, and for a few minutes, the only sound is silverware against bowls. Pavel keeps glancing at Sasha and Danil like he's trying to memorize their faces, and I see the moment Danil notices.
"So, Pavel," Danil says, his accent thicker than usual. "Maya says you've been here five years. That's a long time to be alone in the mountains."
"I like the quiet." Pavel takes a sip of wine, and his hand trembles slightly. "After the city, it's peaceful."
"What did you do in the city?" Sasha's voice is casual, but I hear the edge underneath.
"Accounting. Corporate work. Nothing exciting." The lie comes smoothly, practiced. "What about you two?"
"I'm here to visit my friend, Sasha," Danil says. "And he's here for his friend." Danil looks pointedly at me.
Pavel nods, but his jaw tightens. "And what do you do for work, Danil? When you're not visiting friends?"
"Security consulting." Danil's smile doesn't reach his eyes. "Sasha and I work together sometimes. We help people with… problems."
"What kind of problems?" Pavel's voice is too steady, too controlled.
I watch this exchange like a spectator at a tennis match, my stomach knotting tighter with each volley.
"The kind that requires discretion," Sasha says softly.
Pavel's face pales. "I see."
"Do you?" Danil leans back in his chair, studying Pavel with the intensity of a predator sizing up prey. "You seem very interested in our work, Pavel. Is there a reason for that?"
"Just making conversation." But Pavel's hand shakes as he sets down his wine glass, and a drop of red splashes onto the white tablecloth like blood.
"Conversation." Danil repeats the word like he's tasting it, finding it bitter. "You know, it's funny. I've been trying to place your face since we met. You look so familiar."
"I have one of those faces." Pavel attempts a laugh that comes out strangled.
"No." Danil shakes his head slowly. "That's not it. I'm very good with faces. It's part of my work, remembering people. Where they were. What they were doing." He pauses, his eyes never leaving Pavel's. "What they knew."
The temperature in the room seems to drop ten degrees. I want to intervene, to break this terrible tension.
"Danil," I start, but he holds up one hand without looking at me.
"I remember now," Danil continues, his voice dropping lower, softer. "There was a man. An accountant. He kept very detailed books for some very important people. Very detailed. Names, dates, amounts. Everything documented with such precision."
Pavel's breathing goes shallow. "I don't know what you're talking about."
"No?" Danil tilts his head. "This accountant, he disappeared about five years ago. Right before several very important people went to prison. Such a coincidence, don't you think?"
"Lots of accountants in the world," Pavel says, but his voice cracks.
Sasha has gone completely still beside me, his hand resting on the table, fingers spread. I recognize that posture now. He's ready to move, ready to act. My eyes go wide, darting between the men.
"True," Danil agrees. "But this particular accountant, he had a very specific skill.
He could trace money through dozens of shell companies, could see patterns no one else saw.
Made him very valuable." He pauses. "Also made him very dangerous when he decided to share those skills with the wrong people. "
"I think you have me confused with someone else." Pavel starts to stand, but something in Danil's expression makes him sink back down.
"Perhaps." Danil picks up his fork, examines it like he's never seen one before. "But you know what's interesting about Witness Protection, Pavel? It only works if you stay hidden. If you don't draw attention to yourself. If you don't start asking questions about people who might recognize you."
The threat hangs in the air, unspoken but crystal clear. My heart hammers against my ribs. This is what Pavel warned me about. This cold, calculating danger that lurks beneath Danil's surface.
"I'm just a neighbor," Pavel says quietly. "I'm not looking for trouble."
"Good." Danil sets down his fork with deliberate care, the soft clink against the plate somehow more menacing than if he'd slammed it down. "Because trouble is very easy to find in these mountains. People disappear all the time. Accidents happen. Avalanches. Falls. Sometimes people just… vanish."
He meets Pavel's eyes directly, and his smile is terrible.
"It would be a shame if anything happened to disturb the peace you've worked so hard to find here.
So let me be very clear. You should keep enjoying your quiet life, Pavel.
Mind your own business. Forget the faces you think you recognize.
Because the alternative…" He lets the sentence hang, unfinished, and somehow, that's worse than any explicit threat could be.