19. Via
VIA
My pillow is too soft. That’s all my sleepy brain can muster.
I roll onto my side, staring at the digital clock on the nightstand. It’s three in the morning. I’ve spent the last three hours tossing, turning, and aggressively reorganizing the duvet, but my body refuses to shut down.
Every time I close my eyes, I feel Ilya’s chest pressed against my back. I feel the smooth grip of the Sig Sauer in my hands, and the sudden, explosive heat of his mouth against mine on that steel table.
Get a grip, Via. He’s still the guy who kidnapped you. He just happens to be a guy who also buys you custom firearms and saves your father's life.
I let out a loud, frustrated groan into the empty room, throwing the duvet off my legs.
My skin feels hot, humming with a restless, itchy energy that sleep isn't going to fix. I need to do something. I need to move, to distract myself, to put something else in my stomach besides the nervous flutter that’s been sitting there since we left the shooting range.
I grab my oversized grey sweater from the chair, pulling it down over my bare thighs, and slip out into the cold, quiet hallway.
The estate at night is a different kind of monster.
The grand chandeliers are dimmed to a low, amber glow, throwing long, skeletal shadows across the marble floors.
I pad barefoot down the winding staircase, my toes curling slightly against the cold stone.
I don't see any guards in the main corridor, but I know they’re there, hidden in the recesses of the arches, watching my every move through the security feeds.
I slide through the heavy oak doors of the kitchen.
The stainless steel prep tables gleam under the moonlight filtering through the high windows, looking clinical and clean.
I don't turn on the overhead lights. Instead, I walk to the industrial stove, finding the small copper kettle Yara keeps on the rear burner.
Tea. Chamomile tea. The universal cure for when your life is a complete disaster.
I fill the kettle at the sink, the rush of water loud in the quiet room, and set it on the stove. I turn the dial, the blue flames clicking to life with a soft, steady hiss. I lean against the counter, my arms crossed over my chest, watching the water start to simmer.
A sudden, brilliant flash of white light illuminates the entire kitchen, turning the stainless steel into a blinding sheet of ice.
A second later, a massive, bone-rattling crack of thunder shakes the house.
The glass windows rattle in their frames, the sheer volume of the sound vibrating straight through the soles of my feet. My breath catches in my throat, my fingers instantly digging into the fabric of my sweater.
It’s just a storm. It’s just rain.
But my brain doesn't care about logic.
Another flash of lightning hits the window, and suddenly, I’m not in the kitchen anymore.
I’m standing in the center of the cathedral.
The white lilies are covered in soot. The air is thick with the sulfur smell of gunpowder, and the sound of the thunder morphs into the deafening, rhythmic pops of rifles.
I see my father's face, twisted in terror.
I see the red blood blooming across the white marble floor, spreading toward my shoes.
My chest tightens, a weight pressing down on my lungs. I can’t breathe. The air in the room feels like liquid lead, hot and useless as I try to draw a single, ragged gasp.
"Via."
The voice is quiet, but it sounds like it’s coming from the bottom of a deep well.
I slide down the kitchen counter, my knees hitting the cold linoleum floor, my hands coming up to cover my ears as another wave of thunder rolls over the house. I’m shaking, my shoulders tensing, my head tucked down toward my knees.
Please. Just stop. Make it stop.
A pair of warm, solid hands gently takes my wrists, slowly pulling my hands away from my ears.
I blink through the tears blurring my vision, my chest heaving as I look up. Ilya is crouching in front of me, his eyes filled with worry as they search through mine.
He’s in a pair of loose grey flannel trousers, his massive chest bare, his dark hair messy and falling over his forehead. He looks smaller like this, softer, the harsh angles of his jaw smoothed out by the dim light of the stove's blue flames.
"Breathe, little bird," he says, his voice feels like a physical anchor in the middle of the storm. "You're in the kitchen. The doors are locked. The guards are at the perimeter. There are no guns here."
I clutch at his forearm, my fingers digging into his thick muscle as another flash of lightning lights up the room. "The... the noise. It sounds like..."
"I know," he says, his hand coming up to cup the back of my neck, his thumb rubbing the soft skin behind my ear. "It’s just the rain on the glass. It’s loud, but it can’t get inside."
I rest my forehead against his bare shoulder, my breath coming in short, panting hitches as the rhythm of my heart slowly begins to match his. He stays perfectly still, letting me lean my weight against him, his warmth slowly cutting through the cold sweat on my skin.
"Why are you awake?" I whisper, my voice shaking against his shoulder.
"I heard the kettle," he says, his eyes fixed on the blue flame of the stove. "And I know you don't sleep well when the sky looks like this."
I pull back slightly, looking at his face. The cold, unyielding Pakhan is gone, replaced by something raw and quiet. "How do you know that?"
"Because I don't sleep either," he says, his jaw clenching slightly.
He slowly turns his body, his back facing the light of the stove. The dim amber glow from the hallway catches his skin, and my breath catches in my throat.
His back is a map of violence.
I’ve seen his scars before, but in this light, they look different.
Running from his left shoulder down to his lower spine is a thick, jagged trench of white, puckered flesh, looking like a branch of lightning frozen in his skin.
It isn't a neat knife cut, and it isn't a clean bullet hole. It’s a messy, horrific ruin of a scar that looks like his flesh was literally torn away.
"October fourteenth," he says, his voice flat, completely devoid of emotion as he looks over his shoulder at me.
"I was seven. My father was at the docks, and my mother was in the conservatory, trying to save her orchids from the frost. The Russos didn't use rifles that night.
They used three pounds of military-grade plastic explosives under the foundation. "
I reach out, my hand trembling as my fingers hover over the jagged white trench on his spine. "Ilya..."
"The glass from the roof came down first," he says, his eyes staring blankly at the dark kitchen floor.
"It was like a silver rain. I was hiding under the cast-iron bench, but a piece of the copper frame caught me across the shoulders.
I couldn't move. I had to sit there, pinned to the stone, watching her... "
He stops, his chest rising and falling in a slow, heavy breath.
"She didn't die quickly," he murmurs, his hand clenching into a fist on his knee.
"She stayed alive for twenty minutes, her hand holding mine through the iron slats of the bench. She kept telling me to stay quiet. She kept telling me that if I made a sound, they’d come back to finish the job.
My father found us three hours later. He didn't cry.
He didn't even touch her body. He just looked at my back, told me that weakness was a disease, and handed me my first blade. "
My heart aches with a sudden, crushing pain that has nothing to do with the storm. I look at his massive, scarred shoulders, and for the first time, I don't see the Pakhan. I see a seven-year-old boy pinned under a burning greenhouse, holding his mother’s hand while she bled out on the stone.
"He never let you grieve," I say, my voice barely a whisper.
"He told me that if you love something, the world will find a way to use it to break you," Ilya says, his hand slowly relaxing on his knee. "He made me spend the next ten years learning how to kill the men who did it. He made me into a weapon, Via. And weapons don't have room for anything else."
"He was wrong," I say, my fingers finally touching the rough, puckered flesh of his scar.
He flinches slightly at the contact, a shiver running through his massive frame, but he doesn't pull away.
I slide my hand up his back, my thumb tracing the line of the old copper burn. I lean forward, my breath hot against his skin as I drop my mouth to his shoulder. I kiss the edge of the scar, my lips soft against the rough, white tissue.
Ilya lets out a low groan, his body going completely rigid.
"Via," he rasps, his head turning to look at me, his eyes dark, blown out, and completely filled with a sudden, wild intensity.
I move my mouth down his spine, kissing every jagged dip, every white line, trying to erase the memory of the greenhouse, trying to show him that he’s not just a weapon. He’s human. He’s a man who has been bleeding in the dark for twenty years, and I’m done letting him bleed alone.
He turns around in a flash of movement, his large hands grabbing my waist and lifting me onto his lap. His chest is heaving, his breath hot against my face as he stares down into my eyes.
"Do you have any idea what you're doing to me?" he growls, his fingers digging into my hips, his grip tight enough to bruise.
"I’m showing you your own skin, Ilya," I say, my hands coming up to cup his face, my thumbs tracing his cheekbones. "You don't have to be the monster with me."
His jaw works, his eyes searching my face with a desperate, starving hunger that makes my lower belly pull into a tight, aching knot.
He’s not the dominant Pakhan right now. He’s a man who is terrified of the way his own heart is beating, and he’s looking at me like I’m the only thing in the world that can keep him from drowning.
"I will burn this entire city before I let them touch you, Via," he whispers, his voice breaking slightly.
"I know," I say, my heart hammering against my ribs.
I lean in, pressing my mouth against his, wanting to feel him badly. He wraps his arms around my waist, pulling me so close against his bare chest I can feel the thud of his heart.
The storm outside is still roaring, the thunder shaking the walls, but as I wrap my legs around his waist, I don't hear the gunfire anymore.
I only hear him.