25. Via
VIA
The damp earth smells like rot and cold pine needles, clinging to the knees of my black leggings as I sit on the edge of the stone planter.
Ekaterina is kneeling next to me, her cheeks flushed pink from the crisp breeze, her small trowel scraping rhythmically against the dirt.
She has a smudge of dark soil right on the tip of her nose, making her look about ten years younger than she actually is.
She’s talking about some charcoal drawing she wants to finish before the weekend, her voice light and musical against the quiet rustle of the surrounding trees.
"The light in the conservatory is perfect around three," she says, wiping her forehead with the back of her dirty sleeve. "But Ilya says I can't go in there without Lev standing by the glass doors. It’s annoying, Via. He looks like a gargoyle. I’m trying to sketch a primrose and there’s a six-foot-four man staring at my back. "
I let out a soft laugh, my fingers playing with the edge of my metal trowel. "They’re paid to look like gargoyles, Ekaterina. If they smiled, they’d probably lose their union benefits."
"Still." She tosses a small rock into the grass, her bottom lip turning out in that familiar, stubborn pout she clearly inherited from her brother. "I wish we could just walk to the river. Just the two of us. Without the caravan of black cars following us like a funeral procession."
"The river is cold anyway," I say, though my hand instinctively drops to my flat stomach, my fingers curling over the soft wool of my sweater.
A funeral procession. The words taste like iron in my mouth.
It’s been twenty-four hours since I sat at the desk in Ilya’s office and watched the green bar confirm the Vostok insurance fraud.
Twenty-four hours since he held me against the mahogany and made me forget every single boundary I’d spent a month building.
I should feel victorious. I solved his financial freeze. I saved my father’s security detail.
But the pink lines on the test strip in the bathroom wastebasket are still burning behind my eyelids.
I’m pregnant. I’m carrying his child, and the only other person in this entire fortress who knows is a middle-aged housekeeper who looks at me like I’m a tragic clock ticking down to zero. I can't tell him. Not yet. If I tell him, the quiet, warm garden we’re standing in will disappear.
"I'm going to grab the watering can from the side porch," Ekaterina says, standing up and shaking the loose dirt from her apron. "Don't touch my primroses while I’m gone. I have them aligned by color."
"I wouldn't dare interfere with your horticultural genius," I say, waving her off with a smirk.
She scurries down the gravel path, her boots clicking softly against the stone before she disappears around the corner of the brick conservatory.
I stand up, stretching my back, the cool wind catching the loose strands of my hair.
I walk slowly toward the side entrance of the north wing, the quiet, private door we usually use to get back to our suite without walking through the main foyer.
The stone step is shaded by a heavy overhang of ivy, damp and cool in the grey morning light.
I stop three feet from the door.
Resting right in the center of the dark stone step is a small, grey bundle.
My brow furrows as I step closer. It’s a sparrow. Its tiny, feathered body is completely still, its head tilted at an unnatural, broken angle against the stone. There is no blood, no signs of an animal attack. It’s just dead, its small chest hollowed out slightly as if it were hollow inside.
I lean down, my hand reaching out to move it, but I freeze.
Wedged tightly inside the bird’s open, tiny beak is a band of bright, polished platinum. The pear-cut diamond glints in the pale sunlight, catching the grey light and throwing a sharp, cold spark against my hand.
My breath leaves my lungs in a violent, freezing rush.
My knees go weak, my fingers grabbing the cold brick wall of the entryway to keep from collapsing onto the gravel.
It’s my ring.
The exact pear-cut diamond Mikhail slipped onto my finger in the rose garden of my father’s house three months ago. The ring I’d taken off and left on the dressing table of the cathedral before the smoke and the bullets tore the world apart.
I reach down, my fingers shaking so violently I can barely pinch the cold metal of the band. I pull it from the sparrow's beak, the tiny, stiff head of the bird shifting with the movement. The platinum is ice-cold against my palm, the diamond biting into my skin as I clench my fist around it.
He was here.
Mikhail walked up the private gravel path of this estate. He bypassed the triple security perimeter, the sweepers, the cameras, and the men with the thermal scopes. He walked right up to the side door of my bedroom, left a dead bird on my doorstep, and walked away without a single guard noticing.
He’s closer than anyone thinks. He’s practically inside the house.
"Via? I found the blue can!"
Ekaterina’s voice carries over the brick wall, bright, innocent, and completely normal.
I quickly shove the ring deep into the pocket of my cardigan, my fingers locking around the cold metal as I try to force my face into something that doesn't look like terror. My chest is tight, my lungs burning as I try to draw a single, quiet breath. I can’t let her see this.
If she sees the bird, she’ll ask questions, she’ll tell Ilya, and the whole house will go into an immediate, violent red alert.
"Via? What are you doing over there?" Ekaterina rounds the corner, the plastic watering can sloshing in her hand.
I step over the dead bird, completely blocking her view of the stone step with my body. "I’m just... checking the latch on the door. It’s sticking."
She stops, her dark eyes scanning my face, her smile slowly fading as she sees my posture. "You look white, Via. Are you going to be sick again?"
"No," I say, my voice sounding thin, dry, and incredibly far away. "I’m fine. Just... the wind is a bit cold today. Let’s go inside. I think we’ve done enough gardening for one morning."
She looks at the conservatory, then back at me, her brow furrowing with a quiet, sisterly worry. "Okay. Let me just put the tools away."
I don't wait for her. I push open the heavy oak door, my boots thudding loudly on the hardwood as I run up the stairs to the master suite, my hand still locked around the ring in my pocket.
By dinner, I’m sitting at the long mahogany table, my salad untouched, my fingers tracing the edge of my fork over and over until the silver prongs leave red indentations in my thumb.
Ilya is sitting across from me, his black shirt unbuttoned at the collar, his eyes dark and heavy as he reads a security manifest on his tablet.
I haven't told him. I’ve spent the last six hours sitting on the edge of the bed with my hand in my pocket, staring at the pear-cut diamond, trying to convince myself that I’m being strong. I can handle a threat.
But my fear is a loud, physical thing that I can’t seem to hide.
"You're not eating." Ilya’s voice rings through the quiet room.
I look up, my hand quickly dropping to my lap under the table. "I’m not hungry."
He sets his tablet down on the wood, the glass clattering softly.
He leans forward, his broad shoulders blocking out the light from the chandelier behind him, his dark eyes scanning my face with a slow, calculating intensity.
"You’ve been pale since this morning. Ekaterina said you went inside because of the cold, but the temperature hasn't dropped since yesterday. "
"Ekaterina talks too much," I say, my voice clipped. "And you’re being paranoid. Again."
"I’m not being paranoid, Via," he says, his voice dropping into that quiet, dangerous register he uses when he knows I’m lying. "I know how you look when you’re angry. And I know how you look when you’re plotting. This isn't either of those."
"Then what is it, Ilya?" I look him straight in the eye, my chin lifting, though my heart is trying to kick its way out of my chest. "Do you want me to write down my thoughts on a ledger so you can inspect them for bugs?"
He doesn't answer, he just stares at me, his jaw working as his eyes search mine for the crack in my armor. He knows something is wrong but he doesn't push. He slowly picks his fork back up, his face turning back into that blank, unyielding mask.
"Dmitri is checking the western channel tonight," he says, his tone flat. "We’re establishing the insurance route by morning."
"Good," I say, my voice barely a whisper as I look back down at my empty plate.
At night, the silence of the bedroom is worse than the storm.
The fire in the hearth has died down to a bed of glowing red coals, throwing long, warm shadows across the ceiling.
Ilya is sleeping beside me, his massive body a solid, warm mountain under the dark silk sheets.
His breathing is slow, steady, and deep, the rhythmic rise and fall of his chest the only sound in the quiet room.
I roll onto my side, staring at his profile in the amber light.
I can't do this alone.
I slide closer across the mattress, my bare legs tangling with his under the sheets.
I reach out, my hands grabbing the soft cotton of his shirt, and press my face directly against his bare chest. I cling to him, my fingers locking into his fabric with a desperate, wild strength, my body shivering against his warmth.
He wakes up instantly.
His muscles tense under my hands, his breathing pausing for a fraction of a second before his massive arm wraps around my waist, pulling me hard against him.
He doesn't ask what’s wrong. He doesn't look around the dark room for a weapon.
He just holds me, his hand coming up to cup the back of my head, his fingers tangling in my golden hair as he presses my face deeper into his neck.
"Via," he murmurs, his voice a low, gravelly rasp against my ear. "What is it?"
"Just... hold me," I whisper, my voice breaking slightly as I bury my nose in the crook of his collarbone. "Please, Ilya. Just don't let go."
His grip tightens, his arm a solid steel band that completely locks me against his body, his chest rising and falling in a slow, steady rhythm that begins to soothe the pace of my own heart.
He smells like cedar, dark tobacco, and the warm, clean scent of his skin—a combination that feels like the only safe place left in this entire city.
How did I ever think Mikhail was the safe choice?
The thought goes through my head like a sudden, sharp laugh. I lie here, holding onto a literal Mafia kingpin, a man who has cleaned blood off his boots in my kitchen, and I’m realizing how completely beige my past life actually was.
Mikhail was safe. He was so incredibly beige.
His favorite color was probably eggshell.
His idea of a wild night was ordering the medium salsa at the restaurant and taking his shoes off before entering the house without being asked.
He was the boring, predictable path my father had paved for me to keep the peace. He was a safe, quiet harbor.
But a safe harbor doesn't protect you when the ocean catches fire.
Mikhail is the one leaving dead birds on my doorstep. He’s the one who let his own family’s accounts be frozen just to lure my father out of hiding. He’s a ghost who is ready to use my body as a shield to get to the northern docks.
And Ilya... Ilya is a monster. He’s violent, he’s grumpy, and he’s dangerous.
But when the bullets started flying in that kitchen, he didn't run.
He didn't use me as a shield. He put his own body between me and the glass, took a bullet graze to keep me breathing, and bought my father’s security detail with five million of his own cash.
I’m not afraid of the monster sleeping next to me.
I’m afraid of the one waiting outside the gates.
"He’s coming, Ilya," I whisper into the dark, my voice so quiet it barely carries over the sound of his breathing.
Ilya’s hand pauses in my hair. He doesn't ask who. He doesn't need to. He slowly leans down, his lips pressing a warm, lingering kiss to the top of my head, his grip around my waist tightening until I can barely move.
"Let him come," Ilya growls, his voice a low, terrifying vibration in the quiet bedroom. "I’ve already killed him once, Via. I’ll make sure he stays in the ground this time."