Chapter 9
St. Petersburg, two weeks ago…
Katya
The ride to the airport was cold, gray, and entirely too quiet.
Not because the world outside lacked noise—St. Petersburg traffic was its own brand of chaos—but because each Dragunov carried himself with the quiet confidence of someone who knew exactly how many ways he could kill a man or seduce a woman with his hands alone.
Viktor kept glancing at me like he was remembering what my skin tasted like.
Andrei was curious of me in a way that made me blush a little bit.
And Mikhail was the kind of man whose silent intensity made heat pool low in my stomach.
They had escorted me out of Revenant headquarters and into the back of a sleek black SUV as if I belonged to them now. I didn’t protest, at least not outwardly. A good operative knows when to speak and when to watch.
The airport terminal wasn’t a terminal, not really.
It was more of an extension of elegant indulgence.
A jet waited on the runway, matte black with what I assumed was the Dragunov family crest painted on the tail.
If a plane could have an attitude, this one did, like it didn’t ask permission from air traffic control.
“After you,” Viktor murmured as we climbed the stairs.
I ignored the way his voice trailed down my spine.
Inside, the cabin was ridiculously luxurious with plush leather seats, dark wood accents, and elegantly soft lighting.
There was a bar stocked with more expensive liquor than my entire childhood neighborhood had ever seen put together.
The brothers moved through it with easy familiarity, like wolves pacing into a familiar den.
Viktor headed straight for the little bar, palmed a pack of cigarettes and a silver lighter off the counter, then sighed when Mikhail shot him a warning look.
“No smoking on the plane,” Mikhail said without turning.
Viktor tucked the pack back into his pocket with a put-upon groan. “This partnership is already abusive.”
I buckled in as the engines roared to life.
Viktor leaned across the aisle. “Nervous?”
“No,” I said flatly.
Andrei smirked. “She’s lying.”
Mikhail didn’t turn around from his seat at the front, but his voice carried back. “She doesn’t get nervous.”
I hated how that warmed me.
The jet took off smoothly, cutting above the clouds in no time.
For the first forty minutes, no one spoke.
Viktor stared out the window. Andrei was engrossed in something on his phone while occasionally stealing glances my way.
Mikhail remained still, posture perfect, gaze on some point far beyond the glass.
I busied myself by committing to memory what little Revenant had told me about this mission and playing on my own phone for several hours after that.
Eventually, Andrei unbuckled and wandered back, dropping into the seat across from me.
“We’ll be landing soon,” he said.
I nodded. “Dubai, right?”
“Not just Dubai,” Viktor added. “Dragunov Dubai. Very different.”
I glanced out the window as the city appeared, a glittering glass and steel crown rising from the desert, lights reflecting off the water.
“That,” I said, leaning closer to the glass and pointing to a building I saw down below, “is Revenant’s estate.”
Revenant had a sprawling compound that sat on the coastline like a modern fortress, with mirrored surfaces, private docks, and a pristine helipad where a sleek Revenant helicopter gleamed under bright security floodlights. The rotors glinted silver in the moonlight.
“They have their own tower,” I went on. “Private landing strips. Drone surveillance. Their own airspace restrictions—”
“Yes, yes,” Viktor interrupted lazily from across the aisle. “We’re all very impressed with the corporate murder palace.” He nudged Andrei’s foot with his own. “But we’re not staying there.”
Andrei smirked. “Too obvious.”
I frowned. “Then where exactly—”
The jet banked sharply, engines shifting pitch as we veered away from the coastline. The skyscrapers disappeared behind us, only to be replaced by open desert.
“We’re nearly home,” Mikhail said from the seat ahead of me.
It was then that I noticed that we weren’t descending toward the main airport.
We dropped lower until the desert resolved into orderly rows of palm trees lining a private runway, smooth, immaculate, illuminated by low amber lights that blended into the sand. A hidden oasis carved out by power and money.
The Dragunov estate.
The jet touched down with barely a tremor.
“This is ours,” Mikhail said as he stood.
For the first time, he looked directly at me.
The plane lighting softened his features, but it didn’t touch his pale green eyes. Those remained impossible to read.
“Welcome to Dubai,” he said. “Stay close.”
I bristled. “Revenant sent me here to work. Not to play hide-and-seek.”
He stepped toward me, until he was close enough that I had to tilt my chin up to keep looking at him.
“Dubai is far more dangerous than you think,” he said.
I blinked at him. “Dubai has one of the lowest violent crime rates in the world.”
He held my gaze without blinking. “We’re not talking about street crime, Katerina.”
My pulse stumbled at the sound of my name falling off his lips.
Andrei added quietly, “Here, danger comes with men wearing suits, not gangsters and hoodlums in back alleyways.”
Mikhail didn’t look away from me. Heat wound itself low in my stomach, slow and unwelcome. He wasn’t touching me, but it certainly felt like he was.
I swallowed. “I can handle myself.”
“Of course you can,” he said. “But you’re ours to protect while you’re with us.”
Ours.
The word tiptoed along every nerve I had and not entirely in a way I hated either.
I crossed my arms. “I don’t need a handler.”
“I’m not offering to be your handler,” he said simply. “I’m stating a fact.”
Viktor laughed behind us. “Oh, look. He’s doing that thing where he pretends that he’s not flirting.”
Mikhail didn’t even turn. “I don’t flirt.”
Andrei snorted. “You do. You just do it badly.”
“I am just warning her to watch herself,” Mikhail corrected.
“Just warning her,” Viktor repeated under his breath. “Right.”
I stepped past all three of them toward the door of the jet, refusing to let them see how rattled I was, but I could feel Mikhail’s gaze on my back as I descended the stairs.
Not hungry. Not possessive.
Just watching.
Assessing.
Learning.
It should have annoyed me.
Instead, it felt like standing too close to a fire and not realizing how hot it was.
And I wasn’t sure whether I wanted to run away… or step even closer.
The moment I stepped inside the Dragunov estate, I had the unsettling realization that Revenant—sleek, glassy, powerful Revenant—was merely expensive.
This place was wealth. Unapologetic, blood-forged wealth.
The Dragunovs clearly had a legacy, and they chose to spend their money here in one of the newest cities in the world.
The foyer opened into a vast living space with soaring ceilings and polished stone floors that gleamed under the warm lighting.
Dark wood lined the walls, interwoven with modern steel and glass.
Heavy furniture in deep charcoal and sand tones gave the space a masculine, minimalist elegance, while screens recessed into the walls flickered with encrypted data streams. Everything was curated and intentional.
Every corner whispered of money, muscle, and meticulous organization and control.
I moved farther in, trailing my fingers over a smooth marble counter as the three Dragunov brothers followed me almost like my own personal entourage of danger concealed in luxuriously tailored suits.
“Nice place,” I commented.
Andrei grinned. “It grows on you.”
Viktor gave a crooked smirk. “Everything here has a price tag that makes people nervous.”
“Money doesn’t impress me.” I tried to make my voice sound blasé.
Mikhail closed the door behind us, the soft click of the lock somehow ominous. “It needn’t impress you,” he said. “But it should make you wary.”
I turned toward him. His expression was calm, composed, even handsome in that severe, stoic way that made my stomach twist despite my better judgment.
“What is that supposed to mean?” I asked.
He walked past me, unhurried, hands clasped behind his back like some aristocratic general surveying his land. “You’re not in St. Petersburg anymore,” he said. “Here, you’re in the belly of the beast. Dubai is a high-tech battleground disguised as a desert paradise.”
I bristled. “I can handle myself anywhere.”
“That’s what you believe.” He stopped in front of me, gaze thoughtful. “You’re brave, yes. Intelligent. Resourceful. But Dubai is a different world, one where the wrong step doesn’t get you reprimanded. It gets you killed.”
I lifted my chin. “Wow,” I said, letting sarcasm drip from every syllable. “You really know how to get a lady wet, don’t you?”
Andrei snorted. Viktor choked on the water bottle he’d just taken a swig from.
A slow, calculating smile tugged at the corners of Mikhail’s mouth, but it wasn’t a warm smile. It was dangerous. It was knowing.
He stepped closer, just enough to tilt the air between us.
“Are you wet right now, little girl?” he asked quietly.
My entire brain short-circuited.
Heat rushed up the back of my neck so fast I was surprised steam didn’t pour out of my ears. My mouth parted, but no sound came out. Andrei’s eyebrows shot up. Viktor grinned like Christmas had come early and there were a thousand presents under the tree.
And Mikhail just watched me, calm and completely in control, the manliest version of ‘checkmate’ I’d ever seen.
I shut my mouth and strode straight past him before my face gave me away more than it already had. My boots hit the marble in quick beats that sounded far too much like retreat.
I didn’t look back.
If I did, I’d either have to murder him or kiss him.
Possibly both.
I rounded the corner heading deeper into the house, shoulders stiff, my pride barely holding itself together. I heard Viktor whisper “Holy shit” behind me and Andrei murmuring “Think she’s gonna slap him or what?” but I didn’t slow down.
I needed distance.
I needed oxygen.
I needed a few seconds without Dragunov men breathing the same damn air I was, but mostly, I just needed to pretend that Mikhail Dragunov had not just turned me into a flustered, speechless idiot with one simple sentence.
It was mortifying.
Which meant it could never, ever happen again.
(Probably.)