Chapter 8 - Janella
One minute, I am thinking, This must be how a zebra feels the moment before it’s caught between a lion’s teeth.
My heart pounds ferociously, my pulse roaring in my ears.
Next, I turn my head to find two men in the hallway, like two deer caught in headlights. I yelp, scamper. Just to collide face-first with the hot wall of Iosif’s chest. He grunts, his hand coming up to cradle the back of my head.
“The fuck?” one of the men says.
He’s considerably younger than the other one. He has the same hair as Iosif, thick and black as night. The other one has his hair buzzed short and surprisingly dainty features. He has the same volatile gray eyes that were holding me in place a moment prior.
Pressed close to him, I feel Iosif suck in a harsh breath. Then, all at once, he pivots. “Seriously?” is all he says, flat and wry.
“You weren’t answering the phone,” Buzzcut says, just as matter-of-fact.
His voice sounds inexplicably familiar.
“Yeah, bro,” the young one chimes in. “Zakharov could’ve bust a cap in your ass!”
Seemingly against his will, Iosif barks a laugh. Any presence of tension seeps out of his body all at once. “Clearly not, Miron—” He rolls his eyes. “—I was just otherwise occupied.”
Buzzcut stares at us frankly, shamelessly amused. “We can see that. I guess I’d better take back all my previous concerns. Looks like you’re doing just fine.”
“Told you,” Iosif says, puffing his chest out proudly.
Peeved at the sight of his smugness, I stomp on his foot. Forgetting I’m barefoot until he is grinning down at me. It makes my stomach flip. I can’t decide which one of us I’m more annoyed at.
It’s more a stage whisper than anything when Miron nudges Buzzcut and hisses, “But he never brings them home with him!”
Whatever Buzzcut says back, I can’t hear. Or decide whether it is a fortunate thing, or not, that he can be subtle.
I pray for the ground to open up and swallow me whole.
No such luck.
Miron clears his throat theatrically. “Wanna introduce us to the lady?”
Iosif looks down at me, pensive and bright-eyed. I see the moment he decides. I don’t, however, know what that decision is.
At least not until he announces, “Janella, this is Leonid and Miron. My brothers.” His arm ensnares my waist, turning me with him when he turns back to them. “Leo. Mir. This is Janella. My wife.”
Everyone except Iosif himself does a double-take.
What the hell is wrong with him?!
“Your what now?” Leonid sputters. “That’s an awful joke.”
Miron’s eyes have gone very, very wide.
“My. Wife,” Iosif enunciates. “I told you it was complicated.”
I think I might start hyperventilating.
Iosif is unfazed, unwilling to blink twice. It’s as if he’s daring his brothers to question it.
Leonid’s eyes narrow the same way I’ve seen Iosif’s do.
He asks, “Why?”
“To protect her,” Iosif answers without missing a beat. “You know Driscoll?”
Miron nods gamely. “Dude with the fight club, yeah.”
My lips part, instinctively about to argue that it isn’t technically what it is. But I shut my mouth as fast as it had opened. What’s the point? It doesn’t matter.
“The Pit. Yeah, well, his daughter was getting used for target practice. For a fee. Then offered as a prize to the winner.” Iosif sums up one of the worst nights of my life succinctly, coldly.
His brothers don’t even need him to finish the story.
Leonid chimes in, “So you won and brought her home,” like it makes all the sense in the world.
Iosif sighs with relief. He’s quick to add, “Driscoll’s nothing to worry about for us. He’s a small fish. And no big fish would go near him, because he’s fucking wasted most of the time. I threw a couple of grand at the fucker, and he was thrilled to let her go.”
Great. So, they’re all nuts. Wonderful.
“Huh,” Leonid says. His gaze homes in on me. I can’t move, frozen. “Congratulations. She’s beautiful. Why don’t you come home for dinner? Everyone misses you.” His smile sprawls slowly, dangerously. “And I know they’ll be delighted to meet you.”
***
This time, I do change before being whisked off to dinner.
Miron may be rocking a pair of jeans and a beat-up leather jacket, but both Iosif and Leonid are wearing suits.
It’s a shot in the dark, but I’m guessing the emerald green dress from the other night will not be out of place at this impromptu dinner.
Besides, where else would I wear something that fancy? It would be a damn shame to waste it lying about in a golden cage.
And if a part of me—deep, deep down inside—enjoys how floored Iosif looks when I step out of my bedroom? Well, then that’s nobody’s business but my own.
My upper hand is short-lived.
All it takes is the span of a single drive.
The sight of the Yuri mansion alone stuns me breathless.
The hulking Georgian revival estate is a sight to behold.
The mansion itself is enormous. But the real star of the show is the sprawling garden that surrounds it.
I’ve never seen anything so grand in person.
“You grew up here?” I choke out.
“I did,” he says with a strained smile. “So did Leo, Miron, and my sisters, Nadya and Darya. Trifon and Val were born and raised, for the most part, in Moscow. Both of their wives are very American, though.”
It’s more information than I explicitly asked for. I don’t know why it catches me off guard, how forthcoming he can be, even if it is with his brothers in the SUV’s front seats. I should’ve known from how openly he explained our situation to his brothers that he’s close to his family.
“Are you nervous?”
“Never.”
I bump my shoulder into Iosif’s. “You may want to tell your face that.”
The look he shoots me feels significant. “I’m not nervous for myself,” he amends.
His words don’t exactly inspire self-confidence. I gulp, fingers knotting in my lap as the car comes to a standstill.
“I’m guessing you didn’t marry her because she can’t handle our world,” Leonid tosses over his shoulder, before he throws open the door and hops out of the car.
Miron turns around in the passenger seat and offers me a sweet, crooked grin. “You’ll be fine. We’re not all that bad. Just a lot in numbers.”
“Understatement,” Iosif quips. “There’s saying seven people at the table, and then there’s hearing them all talk at the same time.”
The idea of seven people at a dinner table doesn’t frighten me. My father has hosted too many poker games in our house. No matter my discomfort, I do know how to conduct myself around a room full of characters, no matter how unsavory. Iosif can’t have forgotten how we met.
I don’t say any of that.
Instead, I force a smile back at the youngest Yuri man and say, “Thank you. I’ll keep that in mind, Miron.”
Leonid is the one who opens my door for me. Iosif exhales and throws open his own door and gets out of the car, reaching over my lap and squeezing my bundled hands before he does. It’s a reassurance I don’t know how to process.
I don’t know how to process any of this.
Not how Leonid so gallantly offers me an arm, giving me respect no man ever has. How Iosif flanks me on the other side, his palm finding the small of my back when he walks me through the front door in Miron’s quick-footed wake.
And definitely not what awaits me inside.
The outer grandeur of the Yuri estate pales in comparison with the ornate trappings inside it.
I don’t realize I was expecting a suit of armor displayed in the corner until we’re inside—and the décor is luxurious, yes, but also very classic.
The walls aren’t lined with portraits of ancestors.
There are different eras of art in cohesive palettes. There are fresh-cut flowers in vases.
It isn’t a soulless mausoleum.
It’s as homey as a palace can get.
Of course, that isn’t to dismiss the amount of security. It isn’t just the cameras that blend right into the crown molding. People are walking about with guns holstered at their hips. Hired help in uniform.
The sound of several voices, interlacing and overlapping, spills down the hallways. Through my haze, I’m led into the main living area. I realize I’ve never seen wedding photos and weapons in the same room before.
No one has to say it.
I’m Alice down the rabbit-hole, and this isn’t a world I know anything about.
“Iosif!” A young woman with silver-blonde hair flies off one of the sofas and throws her arms around the man by my side. His grunt upon impact is swiftly followed by merry laughter. He sweeps her off her feet, spinning her around until she’s whining about him cracking her bones.
My eyes struggle to take in every face in the room.
It doesn’t help that they all look so damn alike. Almost all of them share the same dark hair, with the exception of the silver-haired woman, another with hair that’s almost blonde without ever quite getting there… and a redhead that walks in behind us, in—
“Scrubs?” I blink, flustered, at Leonid. “Am I about to need a doctor?”
Apparently, it’s a family tradition to laugh in my face.
Leonid laughs so hard he drops my arm and finds himself bent over, roaring with it. Iosif is at my side a beat later. He’s so tall that it obscures my view of anyone else.
“What did you say?” he asks, his eyes already bright with amusement.
“I said—”
“That’s just Yulia,” Leonid chips in, wiping a dramatic tear from his eye.
I glare at him. “Well, I don’t know who that is, do I? This being purchased and wifed up thing is new to me!”
“Oh, I feel that,” the almost-blonde says.
“I heard my name,” the redhead says, looking up from where she’d been locking lips with a man who oozes masculinity, all dark brows and salt and pepper hair.
There is a sleeping baby in his arms, the sleeves rolled up on his forearms, unveiling tattoos every man in this room has in some variation.
Oh my God.
“Who’s this?!” the silver-haired woman excitedly demands.
“My wife,” Iosif says.
That’s when everyone in the room finally comes to a standstill.
I’d be grateful if my heart hadn’t just stilled in my chest.