Chapter 2 – Cassandra
The margarita glass was cold against my palms, condensation slipping between my fingers.
I sat perched on a leather bar-stool in the back corner of Nocturne—the members-only club that belonged to Bratva and smelled like everything expensive men used to mark their territory: cigars, oiled leather, and aged scotch.
Soft jazz hummed through hidden speakers, the kind of sultry music designed to make people forget they were conducting business that could get them killed.
I’d been coming here for three years, and the atmosphere never changed.
Same dim lighting. Same velvet-upholstered booths.
Same careful balance between elegance and violence.
I took a long drink, letting the tequila burn away the taste of the week I’d just survived. Drew Kamarov had been in Chicago for seven days, and somehow he’d managed to crawl under my skin in ways I didn’t have names for yet.
My mind drifted back to Seattle without permission, dragging up memories I usually kept buried six feet deep.
Two jobs to keep a shitty studio apartment that leaked when it rained and froze when it snowed.
Morning shift pouring coffee for minimum wage and fake smiles.
Night shift dodging drunk bastards who thought a tip entitled them to grab whatever they wanted.
I’d been four days away from eviction when Rafael Kamarov walked into that dive bar like he owned it. Maybe he did—I’d never bothered to check. He’d sat in the corner booth for two hours, nursing expensive vodka and watching me work with eyes that cataloged everything.
Watched me dodge a grabbing hand without spilling a single drink. Watched me deflect a crude proposition with a smile sharp enough to cut. Watched me handle three separate problems simultaneously while keeping the bar running smooth as silk.
When closing time came, he’d waited by the door.
“You’re wasted here,” he’d said, like he was commenting on the weather. “Come to Chicago. I’ll give you security, money, power. Everything you’re killing yourself for in this shithole.”
I should have told him to fuck off. Should have known that men like Rafael Kamarov didn’t offer opportunities—they offered chains disguised as chances.
But I’d looked at my bruised wrists where some asshole had grabbed me earlier, at my worn-out boots held together with duct tape and determination, at the eviction notice burning a hole in my pocket. And I’d said yes.
Hailey had come with me, of course. Where I went, she went. That was the deal we’d made when we were fourteen and freezing in Father Vincent’s orphanage, sharing one thin blanket between us.
***
“Earth to Cassandra.” Barbara’s voice cut through my spiral like a knife through butter. “Are you planning to stare at that drink all night, or are you actually going to have fun?”
I blinked and focused on her. Barbara Davis sat across from me in a silk blouse that probably cost what I used to make in a month, honey-brown eyes sharp with the kind of intelligence most people missed because they were too busy looking at her perfect manicure.
She was a firework—expensive, loud, and impossible to ignore. The kind of girl who should have been hosting charity brunches and planning society weddings, not sitting in a Bratva club drinking top-shelf tequila with women who knew how to hide bodies.
“Just thinking,” I said, which was the truth wrapped in deflection.
“Bullshit.” Hailey materialized behind the bar like she’d been summoned, red lipstick bright as fresh blood and smile sharp as broken glass.
She wasn’t working tonight, but she always hung out behind the counter anyway.
Old habits from our Seattle days, when the bar was the only territory that belonged to us.
She poured three shots of Patrón without asking, sliding them across polished wood with practiced ease. Her hazel eyes found mine, and I saw the question there before she even asked it.
“What’s eating you, Cass?”
I downed my shot instead of answering. The tequila blazed a path down my throat, familiar and burning and not nearly strong enough to drown what I was feeling.
“Work,” I said automatically.
“Try again.” Barbara raised one perfectly sculpted eyebrow, her second shot already gone. “We both know this isn’t about work. This is about a man.”
My jaw tightened. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Drew Kamarov.” Hailey said his name like she was testing how I’d react, like she could read my truth in the twitch of my eye or the set of my shoulders. “Rafael’s cousin. The Russian who’s been following you around for the past week like a well-dressed shadow.”
“He hasn’t been following me around—”
“He’s been observing,” Barbara cut in, doing a decent impression of my clipped tone. “Always watching. Always analyzing. Getting under your perfectly controlled skin.”
I wanted to deny it. Wanted to tell them both they were seeing things that weren’t there, reading into a situation that was purely professional. But these were the two people in the world who knew me well enough to spot my lies before they left my mouth.
“He’s irritating,” I admitted finally, pouring myself another shot because this conversation required chemical assistance.
“Rafael never micromanages me. He trusts me to handle things, gives me space to work. But Drew? Jesus Christ. He questions everything. Wants to know why I do things certain ways, wants reports on shit that doesn’t need reporting. ”
“Mmm.” Hailey leaned her elbows on the bar, studying me with the intensity of someone who’d shared every significant moment of my life since we were kids. “So he’s paying attention to you. That’s what’s got you all twisted up?”
“I’m not twisted up—”
“You’ve been brooding for a week,” Barbara interrupted, signaling Hailey for another round. “I’ve known you for what? Two years? I’ve seen you handle armed robberies with more grace than you’re handling one Russian intelligence officer.”
She wasn’t wrong, which only pissed me off more.
The truth was that Drew Kamarov had gotten inside my head in ways I didn’t understand and couldn’t control.
Every morning for the past seven days, I’d walked into that office knowing he’d be there.
Knowing those steel-gray eyes would track my movements like I was a puzzle he intended to solve.
Knowing he’d notice things no one else noticed—the way I organized files, the routes I took through the building, the split second of hesitation before I answered certain questions.
He saw too much. Knew too much. Threatened the careful balance I’d maintained since Vance Donovan had walked into my life two years ago with photographs and threats and a chain I’d been wearing ever since.
“Okay, real talk.” Hailey poured us each a fresh drink, her expression shifting from playful to serious.
“You survived Father Vincent’s orphanage.
You survived bar fights where men twice your size wanted to prove something.
You’ve run jobs for Rafael that would make most people piss themselves.
So either Drew Kamarov is legitimately dangerous… .”
She paused, letting the weight of that word settle.
“Or you’re catching feelings, and that’s why he’s getting under your skin.”
The words hit me like a physical blow. I opened my mouth to deny it, to tell her she was out of her fucking mind, but nothing came out.
Because maybe she wasn’t wrong.
Maybe the reason Drew Kamarov made me uncomfortable wasn’t because he was dangerous, though he absolutely was.
Maybe it was because when he looked at me with those calculating gray eyes, I felt seen in a way that terrified me.
Not just observed or analyzed, but actually seen.
Like he could read through all my carefully constructed defenses and find the truth I’d been hiding from everyone, including myself.
“I don’t do feelings,” I said finally, which was both truth and lie. “Feelings are liabilities in our world.”
“Feelings are what make us human,” Barbara corrected softly. “Everything else is just survival.”
I thought about that. About the difference between surviving and living, between existing and actually feeling something real.
I’d been surviving since the day Rafael pulled me out of Seattle, playing my role perfectly—his loyal assistant, his trusted shadow, the girl who saw everything and asked nothing.
But underneath that performance was the truth Vance had forced me to swallow: Rafael’s family had killed my father. The Bratva had destroyed my life before I even knew what life was, left me in that orphanage with manufactured donation checks and Father Vincent’s paid silence.
Everything I thought I’d built—the security, the money, the power Rafael had promised—was constructed on the grave of the man who’d given me life.
And now I was supposed to feel something for Drew? Rafael’s cousin? Another Kamarov with that same last name printed on my father’s death certificate?
“He’s the enemy,” I said, more to myself than to them. “They’re all the enemy.”
Hailey’s expression shifted, understanding dawning in her eyes. She knew about Vance—not everything, but enough. Knew I was walking a tightrope between two men who would kill me without hesitation if they discovered my betrayal.
“Cass…” she started, but I cut her off with a raised hand.
“I’m fine. Just need to get through the next seven weeks, and then Drew goes back to Russia and my life returns to normal.”
“Normal,” Barbara repeated, and there was something sad in the way she said it. “Is that what we’re calling this?”
The music shifted to something slower, more intimate.
Around us, the club pulsed with the kind of energy that came from people making deals that would never appear in any official record.
I recognized faces from Rafael’s inner circle, a few enforcers from Damir’s crew, some high-end clients who paid for Bratva protection.
This was my world now. Had been for three years. Expensive leather and dangerous men and secrets that could get you killed if you spoke them out loud.
I thought about my father, David Miller, a man I barely remembered.
Vance had shown me pictures. Told me stories about how the Bratva had murdered him over some territorial dispute I didn’t fully understand.
How they’d taken a five-year-old girl and erased her history, paid off an orphanage to keep her existence quiet.
How Rafael finding me in that Seattle bar wasn’t luck or fate but careful calculation. Keeping your enemies’ children close, maybe. Or just tying up loose ends before they became problems.
Either way, I was here. Trapped between Vance’s demands for information and Rafael’s trust that I didn’t deserve. And now Drew had entered the equation, throwing off every calculation I’d made.
“He called me kitten,” I said suddenly, the memory surfacing with sharp edges.
Barbara choked on her drink. “He what?”
“That first morning we met. I told him not to break anything while playing office, called him flyboy. He shot back with ‘try not to bite, kitten.’” I could still hear the way he’d said it—that low, controlled voice with just enough edge to make it clear he knew exactly what kind of weapon he was deploying.
Hailey started laughing—actually laughing—her head thrown back and shoulders shaking. “Oh my God. He’s flirting with you.”
“He’s antagonizing me.”
“Same thing when you’re both fucked up enough,” Barbara pointed out, grinning now. “And let’s be honest, you’re both pretty fucked up.”
She wasn’t wrong about that either.
Drew Kamarov walked around with the kind of control that suggested serious damage hidden beneath expensive suits. The way he analyzed everything, calculated every angle, trusted nothing at face value—that wasn’t just professional paranoia. That was survival instinct carved deep into bone.
I recognized it because I wore the same scars, just in different places.
“Seven more weeks,” I repeated, like a mantra. “I can handle seven more weeks.”
“Sure, you can.” Hailey refilled my glass, her smile softening into something closer to sympathy. “But the question is, do you want to?”
I didn’t have an answer for that. Didn’t want to examine too closely why Drew’s presence made my pulse spike or why I’d started arriving at the office earlier just to see him already at his desk, working in that focused way that suggested he never stopped calculating angles.
Didn’t want to think about how his voice sounded when he spoke Russian to Damir on the phone, or how his hands moved across keyboards with the same precision I imagined they’d move across skin.
No. I definitely didn’t want to think about that.
“I want another drink,” I said instead, pushing my glass forward. “And I want to talk about literally anything else.”
Barbara and Hailey exchanged one of those looks women share when they know their friend is lying but love her enough to let it slide. For now.
“Fine,” Barbara said, raising her fresh shot. “To surviving seven more weeks of Russian cousins who call us kittens and look at us like we’re puzzles worth solving.”
“To telling them to fuck off when they get too close,” Hailey added.
“To keeping our secrets buried and our walls high,” I finished.
We clinked glasses, and the tequila burned exactly the way it should—sharp and cleansing and nowhere near strong enough to drown the truth.
Drew Kamarov was dangerous. Not just because of what he could discover about my arrangement with Vance, but because of how he made me feel when those gray eyes found mine across Rafael’s office.
Like maybe I wasn’t just Rafael’s shadow or Vance’s informant or the orphan girl still searching for the father the Bratva had stolen.
Like maybe I was someone worth seeing.