Chapter 11
Anya
One week.
I’ve been living in this house for a week, and my routine is always the same.
I wake up and he’s already gone. I eat breakfast alone.
I dance in the courtyard until I nearly freeze.
I read. I eat lunch alone. I wait for evening, when he comes home, always late.
He showers, lies down beside me, doesn’t touch me, and falls asleep in ten minutes.
I stay awake, listening to him breathe until the sound and rhythm lull me to sleep.
And then, the day repeats.
On the fourth day, I realized I’d memorized the knots in the wooden ceiling.
On the fifth, I realized I was waiting for the sound of his car at six with the anxiety of a dog that has nothing to do but wait for its owner to come home.
That’s when I understood I needed to do something.
Otherwise, I risked becoming one of those women who turn into decorations in their own house. Just a trophy for the husband.
No way. I didn’t survive five years in Vysotsk to rot here like a moldy potato.
I wasn’t bought to be a painting on the wall.
I don’t know exactly why he chose me. A man like Maksim doesn’t marry by accident.
There’s a purpose to this, some piece I fit on his chessboard.
Fine. I accept being that piece. But a piece that sits still is useless, and if there’s one thing I’m not, it’s useless.
Enough.
I find Igor in the hallway leading to the kitchen. Six-plus feet of man leaning against a wall, eating an entire apple in four bites. When he sees me coming, he stops.
“Where is he?”
“Good morning to you too.”
“Good morning, Igor,” I respond with the same irony. “Where is he?”
“Office.” He takes another bite, not bothering to ask who I’m talking about. It’s obvious. “Second floor, end of the east corridor. Dark double door. But I wouldn’t go in if I were you.”
“Why not?”
“Because nobody goes in there without being called.” He talks with his mouth half full. “It’s the oldest rule in the house. Even I don’t go in without knocking.”
“And if I need to talk to him?” I raise an eyebrow, a little irritated knowing I’ll have to wait.
More.
Igor stares at me, calmly chewing his apple. Until he swallows and flashes a mocking little smile beneath all that Viking beard.
“Well, it’s your house, isn’t it, Anya?”
It’s the first time he’s called me Anya. The way I asked to be called on the day I got married. It’s an unfamiliar feeling for me: belonging. I think I like it.
“Yes, it’s my house,” I repeat.
It’s not necessarily an answer. It’s just a word becoming truth.
“That’s what the documents say.” Igor tosses the apple core into a trash can inside the kitchen. It’s far. I don’t think he’ll sink it, but he does. “You’re Mrs. Nikiforova. The house is as much yours as it is his. If he doesn’t like you going into the office, that’s his problem, not yours.”
He shrugs and pushes off the wall, ready to leave.
“Shouldn’t you always be by his side? Be the bodyguard or something?”
I ask, partly sincere and partly sarcastic. I know Igor isn’t a bodyguard, but I don’t understand why he’s encouraging me to talk to Maksim when there’s a clear rule about him isolating himself in the office.
“I protect him from enemies, not from angry wives. That’s outside my job description.”
Igor laughs, low and deep, already turning away from me, heading toward the kitchen. He doesn’t stop walking when he adds, louder:
“Bring a shield. He’s been in a bad mood since it started raining.”
I roll my eyes. That makes two of us.
Since yesterday after lunch, it’s been raining nonstop. A fine, steady rain, enough to keep me from dancing in the courtyard, unless I want to freeze for good.
I won’t deny the weather has affected my mood. Not being able to dance turns me into a small, prickly, bad-tempered creature, almost like my mother was all the time, and I hate feeling this way.
I watch the walls pass by as I make my way toward Maksim’s office.
Igor is right, this is my house now. For a week I’ve been walking around here like an unwelcome guest, when in fact I forgot one of the most important parts of that contract I signed.
Half of all this is mine. It was written there, in plain sight, and nobody has said otherwise since.
When I reach the dark double door Igor mentioned, I walk in without knocking.
It’s my house, after all.
It’s a large, dark office that smells of paper, cigarettes, leather, and the rich wood of the furniture. Maksim sits behind a desk that looks like it weighs more than a car, and he’s gorgeous. As always.
White shirt with rolled-up sleeves, exposing his tattooed forearms, a pen in his hand hovering over a document. He looks up at the sound of the door being thrown open and, for a second, he’s stunned to see me.
He’s genuinely surprised, as if no one ever dared to enter without knocking.
Too bad for him. I’m irritated and tired of following all his stupid, unspoken rules. How am I supposed to guess what they are if he won’t talk to me? I close the door behind me and stand in front of his desk.
“Svetlana.”
He sets the pen down on the desk and stares at me. His voice isn’t irritated like I expected. It sounds more curious.
“Maksim,” I respond with the same calculated coldness he always shows.
“Did something happen?”
“Yes. A week ago.”
“A week of what?”
“Of doing nothing.” I cross my arms. “Of waking up, dancing for the walls, eating alone, and waiting for you to come back and sleep next to me without saying a word. A week of absolute boredom, Maksim! I wasn’t made for this.”
I leave out the fact that the rain has been interfering with my dancing. He can’t control the weather, and besides, he knows I haven’t been dancing. I know he watches me from the window.
He leans back in his chair without taking his cold blue eyes off me. His unmasked face still throws me off a little, even though I see it every night and try to catch glimpses during the day.
“You have an entire house,” he says. “You have clothes, food, a top-notch heating system, and no one bothers you. Most women would call that lucky.”
“I’m not most women,” I respond acidly. “And you know that, or you wouldn’t have chosen me.”
Something crosses his gaze when I say this. Something amused, perhaps.
“You said I wouldn’t be your prisoner.”
I continue, bringing up our agreement from the first day—still in the car, leaving Vysotsk. My God, it feels like years since I left that hell behind, not just seven days.
“That day, you said I could be free. Freedom isn’t living in a gilded cage with good food, Maksim. Freedom is having something to do, and I don’t have anything!”
His silence infuriates me even more, but I don’t snap back. I’ve already said what I had to say. When it’s his turn to speak, Maksim does something I didn’t anticipate: he gets up from the chair, walks around the desk, and leans against the front of it. Right beside me.
He mimics my posture. Arms crossed, chin raised. He’s so close I can smell that damn mix of cologne and cigarettes that makes me dizzy and clouds my thoughts. Close enough to make this conversation feel more intimate, informal. But too far for any touch.
Maksim never touches me.
“All right,” he says with false resignation. “You want an occupation. I get it. Tell me which one.”
“What do you mean, which one?”
“What you want to do.” His voice drops lower, and there’s something sharp underneath it now, a thread of provocation. “You want to work, don’t you? In this house, everyone works in their area of expertise. So tell me: can you shoot?”
“What?” I exclaim, stunned by the absurd turn this conversation has taken.
“Shoot, you know? With guns. Do you know how to use one?” He tilts his head. “I’ve got a smuggled cargo escort leaving Thursday. I can put you on it. What do you think?”
I’m speechless. I know he’s mocking me—it’s painfully obvious. I just had no idea that Maksim Nikiforov, the Man in the Mask, was capable of making jokes.
“Do you want a real occupation, Svetlana, or do you want a pretty one?”
I understand what he’s doing. He’s picking the fight I brought to him, throwing absurdity in my face to see if I’ll back down. Maksim wants to find out if I’ll run when he speaks openly about his criminal work. About the blood. About the deaths.
I won’t. But I can’t lie either.
“I don’t know how to shoot,” I say. “I’ve never held a gun in my life.”
“So…”
“Teach me.” And even though he tries to hide it, I can see a surprised smile tugging at his full lips.
“That’s what you want to hear, isn’t it?
You want to know if I’ll be the woman who backs down when faced with guns, blood, and work.
I won’t. Do you want me to torture your enemies?
Strap a rat to their stomach with a bucket and all that? ”
“That’s movie stuff,” he murmurs.
I won’t deny I saw that scene in a Hollywood movie years ago. But that’s my only frame of reference for mobsters, so that’s what I’m going with, even if I feel a shiver down my spine thinking about the rodent.
I hate rats.
“If that’s what you want, then you’ll have to teach me how to torture.” I raise my chin, facing him. “I won’t give up, Maksim. That’s not who I am.”
And then he smiles. For real this time. It’s not a wide, open smile, but at least he’s not hiding it. It’s the first time I’ve seen his face smile, and I’m irritated with myself, cursing the flutter in my stomach when I notice how handsome he looks like this. Relaxed, without that scowl.
Damn it, we’re fighting! I shouldn’t be thinking about how handsome he is!
“Then tell me what you can do,” he says. “Since you can't shoot or torture. Unfortunately.”
He adds that last part with sarcasm, and I won't admit I liked it. I'd never give him that victory.
“I know how to dance.” The words land heavy between us. Maksim knows I dance. He watches me every day. “I'm going to start teaching again.”