22. Lena
LENA
Consciousness returns in slow, warm waves.
The first thing I feel is the weight of an arm draped across my waist—heavy, solid, and possessive even in sleep.
The second thing I feel is the heat of a broad chest against my back.
I’m tucked into the curve of Razvan’s body like a missing piece of a puzzle, and for one blissful, hazy minute I don’t try to move.
I burrow deeper into the linens, a small, involuntary groan of sleepy satisfaction escaping my throat. The scent of him—sandalwood, cold rain, and something uniquely him—is everywhere. It’s the safest I’ve felt since the night the closet door closed on my life.
Then, the memory of the serpent hits me.
It’s like a bucket of ice water over my head. My eyes snap open, the gold-leaf molding of the ceiling coming into sharp, accusing focus. What are you doing? my subconscious screams. This is the man who killed your father. This is the hand that held the gun. And you’re cuddling him like a lover.
Nausea, sharp and acidic, rolls through my gut. The guilt is a physical weight, crushing the air out of my lungs. Every inch of skin that touches his feels like it’s being branded with shame. I am a traitor. I am a daughter who has forgotten the blood on the floor in favor of the heat in a bed.
I pull away abruptly, rolling to the edge of the mattress. The sudden absence of his warmth makes me shiver, but I welcome the chill. It’s honest.
I look back over my shoulder and freeze.
Razvan is awake. He’s propped up on one elbow, his dark hair tousled, watching me with an expression I’ve never seen.
His eyes aren’t cold or calculating. They’re soft.
Vulnerable, almost. The predator has been replaced by something human, and it terrifies me more than his rage ever could.
He reaches out, his fingers grazing the indentation I just left in the pillow. “Lena.”
I can’t look at him. I can’t let him see the war inside me. I scramble out of bed, my nakedness feeling like a vulnerability I need to hide immediately. I grab my robe from my suitcase and tie the belt so tight it hurts.
“Last night was a mistake,” I say, my voice trembling. I’m staring at a painting on the far wall, refusing to meet his gaze. “It was the hotel. The city. I was…I wasn’t myself.”
“You were exactly yourself,” he says, his voice a low, steady rumble.
“No. I hate you, Razvan. I haven’t forgotten. Don’t think for one second that because I…because we…” I swallow hard, the words sticking in my throat. “It won’t happen again. I promise myself that.”
I walk into the bathroom and lock the door, leaning my forehead against the cold wood. I catch my reflection in the mirror—puffy eyes, bitten lips, the flush of a woman who was thoroughly possessed just hours ago. I look like a stranger, a victim who fell in love with her cage.
By the time the sun sets over the Neva, the “truce” is dead.
The afternoon was spent in a series of tense, icy silences as we prepared for the charity gala. For the first time, Razvan didn’t bring me a garment bag. He stood by the window, nursing a black coffee, and told me to choose my own “armor.”
I expected a fight. I had a champagne-colored silk gown ready to go, something modest and elegant that didn’t scream Bratva Property.
When he didn’t argue, when he simply nodded and said, “As long as you can walk in it,” I felt a strange, hollow disappointment.
I wanted the argument. I wanted the friction to remind me why I hated him.
Now, we are at the Winter Palace, or at least a venue that looks like it. The gala is a sea of black ties and floor-length gowns, a masquerade of philanthropy over a foundation of blood money.
Razvan is the sun everyone else orbits. He moves through the room with a lethality that is only sharpened by his tuxedo. I stay at his side, my hand resting on his forearm—lightly, carefully avoiding the wrist where the serpent hides beneath his cuff.
“Smile, Lena,” he murmurs as we approach a group of northern family heads. “The sharks can smell the guilt on you from across the room.”
“Then maybe you should stop standing so close,” I whisper back.
The night is an endless parade of measured words and veiled threats.
Every conversation is a chess match. I feel the eyes of the senior wives on me—cold, appraising, wondering if the Sokolova girl is strong enough to survive the Volkov bed.
I play my part. I nod, I sip champagne I don’t want, and I pretend that my skin doesn’t burn everywhere Razvan touches me.
We leave around midnight. The adrenaline of the performance is fading, leaving me exhausted and raw.
We climb into the back of the Maybach. Mike is at the wheel, his eyes alert in the rearview mirror. The city is quiet, the streetlights reflecting off the dark river as we head back toward the hotel.
“You did well tonight,” Razvan says, his voice cutting through the dark of the car. He’s sitting on his side of the seat, giving me the space I demanded this morning. “Arkady was impressed. That’s a difficult feat.”
“I don’t care if Arkady is impressed. I want to go home, Razvan. I want to see Theo.”
“Two more days, and then we—”
The world explodes.
A sudden, deafening crack-crack-crack shatters the silence. The side window of the Maybach spiderwebs into a thousand silver lines but doesn’t break—reinforced glass.
“Get down!” Mike bellows, his voice a roar.
Before I can even process the sound, I’m tackled.
Razvan doesn’t think. He doesn’t check his perimeter or wait for Mike’s signal. He lunges across the seat, his massive frame slamming into me, shoving me down into the footwell. He covers my body with his own, his weight a crushing, protective shield.
Another volley of gunfire hits the car. I can hear the metallic ping of bullets ricocheting off the armored plating. I’m hyperventilating, my face pressed into the floor mat, my hands over my ears.
“Razvan!” I scream.
“Stay down,” he snarls. He isn’t looking at me. He’s twisted, one hand reaching for the holster at his small of his back, the other hand pinned firmly over the back of my head, shielding my skull.
The car swerves violently. Mike is flooring it, the tires screaming against the asphalt. I hear the roar of another engine—the attackers—then more gunfire.
Razvan doesn’t move an inch off me. He is a wall of muscle and Kevlar, taking the vibration of every impact. There is no calculation in his eyes, no strategic hesitation. He is simply a man standing between a bullet and the woman he owns.
The shooters don’t stay for a fight. As Mike executes a hard J-turn and guns it down a side street, the secondary engine noise fades.
“They’re breaking off, boss!” Mike shouts. “They didn’t want a siege, just a hit-and-run… Follow them?”
“No,” Razvan says, his voice vibrating through his chest into mine. He finally shifts his weight, his breathing heavy, almost pained. “Get us back to the hotel. Now. And Mike?”
“Yeah, boss?”
“Find out whose car that was before the sun comes up. I want a name, then I want a head.”
Razvan pulls me up from the floor. I’m shaking so hard my teeth are literally chattering. My gown is ruined, the silk torn at the shoulder, but I don’t care. I’m alive.
The ride back is a blur of blue and orange streetlights. I’m huddled in the corner of the seat, my arms wrapped around myself, shivering uncontrollably. The shock is setting in, making my limbs feel like lead.
I feel a hand on my shoulder.
I flinch, but the touch is gentle. Razvan pulls me toward him. I want to resist. I want to tell him to stay on his side of the car. But I can’t. My body is failing me, and the only thing that feels solid in a world that just tried to kill me is him.
He pulls me into his lap, his large hands rubbing my arms and back with a rhythmic, soothing pressure.
“Shhh,” he whispers into my hair. It’s the softest I’ve ever heard him speak. “You’re okay. I have you, Lena. I have you.”
“They tried to kill us,” I sob, burying my face in the crook of his neck. The scent of gunpowder and his cologne is a terrifying, intoxicating mix. “They were right there.”
“They failed,” he says, his voice hardening for a second before softening again. “They will never get to you. I promise you that on my son’s life.”
He continues to rub my back, his thumb tracing small circles over my shoulder blade.
He’s whispering soft, low words in Russian—not commands, but reassurances.
I know I should pull away. I know the guilt is waiting for me in our hotel room.
I know that every second I spend in his arms is a betrayal of my father.
But as the Maybach pulls up to the hotel and Mike kills the engine, I don’t move. I don’t want to leave the circle of his arms. I want to stay right here, in the heart of the storm, with the man who would take a bullet for me without even asking why.
I’m in so much deeper than I ever imagined. And as Razvan carries me out of the car and into the lobby, his eyes burning with a protective fire that defies logic, I realize that the “Republic of Lena” hasn’t just been invaded.
It’s been conquered.